Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Training for the Job ❯ Volume 4 Chapter 13 ( Chapter 73 )

Volume 4

Chapter 13

Nanigoto Izure paced across the floor of his apartment, then paced up the wall, then paced on the cieling. Being a ninja made nervous pacing very odd, sometimes, and this was one of those times -- he couldn't sit still, couldn't decide what to do, and couldn't stop thinking. He was an absolute mess, and he knew it... and he also knew he was almost certainly in a great deal of trouble. After all, he was supposed to be meeting with his team at the village gates, preparatory to a mission... but instead, he was here in his apartment, pacing on the cieling.

A loud banging on his door startled him into releasing his chakra from the cieling and his crashing to the floor in a heap. "Open up, dammit! You're making us all late!"

"Shit!" Izure cursed, realizing that it was -- indeed -- his sensei outside. It was always possible to come up with some sort of satisfactory excuse if one of your teammates was bringing you in for being late, but if it was your sensei... then you really were in trouble. To make matters worse, Tenten was the person who'd had him all tied up in knots for the past several weeks. He hadn't needed to see her since that drunken night at the brothel, and so he'd been careful to stay well away from her. But when he got these new mission orders, he panicked -- what could he do? He had started thinking, which lead to the pacing, which lead to the being late, with lead to the pounding on his door by a very irate sensei.

Rushing to the door, he managed to get it open before she knocked it down. "Where have you been?" Tenten demanded, not waiting for him to even try and stutter off an apology.

"Sorry, sensei," Izure replied. "I lost track of time, and--"

"Save it!" she snapped angrily. She glanced around the room. "Where's your kit?"

"I haven't finished putting it together, yet," Izure explained, knowing that it would get him into even worse trouble, but not having any choice other than to be truthful.

Tenten sighed. "Fine. Let's get it together."

As Izure rushed to gather things together, Tenten started loading them into his bag for him. "So, why the hell did you lose track of time, anyway? And where have you been -- I haven't seen you since..."

"The brothel," Izure sighed, slowing down considerably. "Sorry, Tenten-sensei. I... I just haven't been sure how to act around you, since then."

"How to act around me?" Tenten replied, not understanding what he was talking about. Did something happen while they were drunk that she didn't remember?

Izure sighed, holding his head in his hands. "I remember saying something to you about maybe the two of us 'helping' each other end our virginal states, and the next thing I remember is waking up in the brothel near some girl who was... well, let's just say she was rather intent on me having a, uh, 'good time,' but wouldn't answer any questions about what happened to you. And, uh, there was a piece of your, uh, clothes in my hands."

Tenten winced, rubbing the temples of her head with one hand to work out the headache that was starting to develop. "Oh, good grief. And I thought Lee-kun jumped to conclusions, sometimes...."

"Huh?"

"As embarrasing as it is to say, I tore off my own panties and gave them to you," Tenten admitted, blushing. "But I was completely clothed at the time, otherwise, and I never took anything else off that night, either."

"How--"

"Don't ask," Tenten growled. "At any rate, I never did anything with you. I just... took you to the brothel, and paid for them to 'help' you." She paused, shaking her head. "I admit I was drunk -- I never would have done any of that, otherwise -- but I was at least in enough control that I knew better than to sleep with one of my students."

Izure blushed, sitting down and trying to hide his face. "Um, if you say so. I still feel rather bad about it all."

Tenten smiled at him slightly. "Hey, don't stop getting your stuff together -- we've still got a mission to go on."

"Oh, right," he replied, standing up and rushing around to get the last of his things. When he was all packed, Tenten handed him his bag... but she didn't let it go right away.

"Just one thing...."

"Yes, sensei?"

She grinned slightly. "I paid for your night in that brothel. I want to know -- did you get my money's worth?"

*****

Much to Anko's surprise, the village was quite enthused about her being Naruto's mother. Some who were old enough to remember recalled how much the Fourth had loved her, and how disappointed he was when she left for Orochimaru. If anything, instead of hurting Naruto's reputation, she helped hers and the Fourth's -- everyone was pleased that the Fourth had found happiness before he died, and his acceptance of her brought their acceptance of her.

People had started to leave, and the balcony had essentially cleared out, but none of the council -- save for Hatake, who had been carried off by his own clan, and Umino, who had been taken to the hospital to have his wrist restored -- had left. Ayame and Iruka were chatting pleasantly in the Anraku alcove, Sakura had joined a group that were talking pleasantly that included Naruto, Anko, her mother, Jiraiya, and Tsunade. There was some good-natured debate between Anko, Tsunade, and the Haruno matriarch as to which role each should take, whether it be aunt, mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, older sister, or something else. Jiraiya had unanimously been declared the 'dirty old uncle-figure,' after trying to argue he had to have some role if they did. Naruto was just pleased to finally have achieved his dream, and to realize that he suddenly had a much larger family out there as Mitarashi had proclaimed. He was a 'scion of one of the Mitarashi daughters,' and while he formally belonged to another clan, the Mitarashi would forever grant him the priviledges belonging to any member of their clan. Of course, Sakura's mother was quick to point out that, as the husband of her daughter, he also had the same priviledges with the Haruno clan. Tsunade trumped them all by pointing out that, as Hokage, he should have been granted all of those rights and priviledges, anyway.

Homura, however, brought everyone's attention to one thing. "Ahem. As interesting as the day has been, and as much as I'm longing for an end to it, I must point out that the council is, technically, still in session. Do we have any further business, or can I have a motion to close the meeting?"

Tsunade's eyes widened, and she sent a questioning look Naruto's way. He seemed a bit surprised, but then collected himself and nodded somewhat reluctantly. "Yes," Tsunade called. "We have additional business that we, as a council, must address. I think we weren't... quite ready to present all of the facts we wanted, but we have enough that we should take this occasion to deal with these problems."

She proceeded to the Hokage's alcove at the front of the room -- joined, somewhat awkwardly, by Naruto. There, they had a bit more confusion, as there was only one chair for the two of them, but eventually they seemed to agree that Naruto should stand while Tsunade sat. Iruka, Anko, and some of the others who had drifted into the council alcoves -- including Ino, who had been talking with her parents, Shino, who had been taking the opportunity to apologize profusely to Kiba and Hinata, Hana and Futaba, who were talking with their mother, and the teams belonging to Naruto and Sakura, who had both been waiting to offer their congratulations both on the wedding and on Naruto's successful bid to become hokage. It seemed as if everyone would have to wait to finish what they were doing.

Tsunade's acoustically amplified voice sounded unusually loud in the room, now that the crowds who were acting as living sound baffles had disappeared. "For some time now," she began, "I have suspected that we had some sort of infiltration inside of the village by foriegn ninja. A recent investigation into a completely different matter has shed some light on the subject, and for that I turn to Naruto-dono. He led that investigation, and so he should be the one to explain what we have found."

Naruto stepped to the forefront. "It started with an investigation of a certain member of the Aburame clan, who was believed to be misusing his family techniques in order to make voyeuristic observations of the bedroom activities of a young woman of his acquaintance." He'd talked to Shino about putting that little half-truth before the council, and it had been a very near thing, but Shino had agreed that it would be significantly more diplomatic than to say that they were investigating whether the Hyuuga matriarch was using the Aburame to spy on her daughter. That would antagonize both the Hyuuga and the Aburame, which would not have been a good thing. "I will not name names, as he has made restitution and been forgiven by the offended party, but during that investigation other things came up. The combined efforts of members of the Aburame clan and the Inuzuka clan were required to sort out some scent trails, and what we found was a Rock Ninja had been inside the apartment of one of the faction leaders for the Hyuuga about a month ago. Later investigation found the same scent patterns around the current residence of a second leader of the Hyuuga clan. We have yet to ask the third faction leader, but it is our belief this Rock ninja has been inside her residence as well."

The Hyuuga matriarch tensed, knowing that she had been discovered when Naruto glared at her. She almost bolted, but disciplined herself to stay at least until some formal accusation was made. There wasn't anyone in the room who could keep her from escaping, if the need arised, but to do so would be to give up all authority over her clan... and she didn't want to make that sacrifice if it wasn't warranted. It was possible that she was only a suspect, still, and if that was the case she could throw off any pursuit.

"Tracking the movements of this Rock ninja proved difficult, as he had been all over Konoha. Artifacts of his movement have been discovered in the hospital, the hokage's tower, the jail -- where, we learned, certain ninja who had been undergoing disciplinary procedure but who were believed to be loyal to Konoha were killed, including multiple members of the Hyuuga clan who had been imprisoned for fighting on the streets, a young man who was turning states evidence about a spy inside another major clan, and the ANBU agent who had been assigned to guard that wing of the jail -- and various restaurants and stores across the village, all of whom had been reporting minor thefts over the past few years that no prior investigation had found any evidence on. It is believed this Rock ninja was supporting himself, in part, by stealing food and supplies, while also spying on several of Konoha's major clans."

That statement included a lot of things even the Matriarch was unaware of about her Rock agent. She had certainly never sent him to the jail to kill her fellow Hyuuga clansmen -- while many of those in jail belonged to her erstwhile husband's faction or her daughter's, she had long believed most of the 'underlings' that followed her daughter and husband could be brought into the proper discipline once their leaders were gone. Besides, she wouldn't want him drawing attention to himself by stealing things around the village or assassinating people -- that was not why she had hired him, after all. And why would he have ever been in the hospital? Few of any faction of her clan ever went there, and none of them were important enough to spy on.

Naruto took a pause before continuing. "We are convinced that someone allowed this Rock ninja into Konoha for reasons of their own." Here, he glared at the Hyuuga matriarch, who stiffened guiltily, but then shook his head sadly. "And while we have our suspicions, we are still gathering proof as to who that someone is. What we do know is that, once inside, he made contact with others who were known sympathizers of Orochimaru."

That caused a more general reaction of surprise. There was no reason for anyone from Rock to have any dealings with anyone from Orochimaru's camp, as far as they knew... but then again, there had been no reason for anyone to believe Orochimaru had been running the village of the Sound, or that he had been dealing with the Sand, or any number of other things he had been doing over the years. His motivations always had been something of a mystery.

The clan head from Akadou stood up. In a voice that, listening closely, one might hear just a bit of tenseness, he asked, "Who are these known sympathizers, and why has nothing been done about them before?"

Naruto's eyes narrowed at Akadou, and he nodded slowly. "Funny you should ask that," he said. "Keep in mind I said 'sympathizers,' not 'traitors' or 'spies' or anything of the sort. Simply people who were known to believe that Orochimaru should have been the hokage instead of the Fourth, who felt that he should never have been ostracized and chased out of the village to become a missing nin, and who never repented from that belief. Many of those same sympathizers fought against him in the Sand-Sound War, so we cannot prove they are disloyal in any way. Or rather, we couldn't prove it... until now. At first, we thought it was just a few individuals who were all of the same clan. We later realized the entire clan was involved. And that clan is the Akadou clan, Akadou-dono. Your entire clan has been conspiring to promote Orochimaru, and we believe this Rock ninja is involved in that conspiracy."

Akadou was almost frozen, though a slight tremor gave away the fact that he was either very angry... or very worried. "And what evidence do you have of this?"

"Well, we had the Inuzuka and the Aburame spend several days tracing the roots our Rock visitor took, and he usually wound up in meetings with members of the Akadou clan. There was the informer who was murdered in prison, who had been telling us a number of interesting things about a connection between Orochimaru and the Akadou, though even he wasn't as sure about just when that connection began or how it manifests itself today. Then we had the Aburame listen in on several discussions you had been having recently between your clan leaders." Naruto smiled dangerously. "We know you've been using this Rock ninja to feed information through to Orochimaru. We aren't exactly happy about it. Would you like to give us some sort of explanation before you and your whole clan are sentenced to death, or should we just kill you all now?"

Akadou seemed like he wanted to protest, but then laughed bitterly. "I'll give you an explanation, all right. Yes, we support Orochimaru. Why wouldn't we? He was our creation in the first place!"

Tsunade tore out of her chair in surprise at that line, and even Jiraiya seemed shocked. "What are you talking about, 'your creation.' He was a member of the Tsurugi clan, not the Akadou clan!"

"He believed he was, yes," Akadou admitted. "But that was only because he had forgotten what he once was. It was brilliant, you see -- we were creating the most powerful weapon in Konoha's history, and no-one knew about it. We had allies in the Tsurugi clan who were in on the conspiracy, of course, but even they didn't know everything. They thought he was an 'altered' member of the Tsurugi clan who had been born of a woman containing a lesser demon, but in truth... he had no Tsurugi blood in him."

The leader of the Tsurugi clan looked astonished. "Orochimaru's treachery has been our clan's greatest shame for decades... and now you tell us that he wasn't a part of our clan at all?"

"Of course not!" Akadou laughed. "Did you never actually think about the name we insisted you use for him? Our plan was brilliant! We tracked down a greater demon, drained him of his chakra and spread that chakra all across our clan. We tortured and destroyed it... but then took the dying embers as our own. We initially intended to form a jinchuuriki out of him, but that wasn't possible... so, instead, we simply captured a number of medical ninja to alter his physical body and to destroy his memories. The Orochi no Yamato, the Eight Tailed Demon, was reborn as Orochimaru, the genius ninja from the Tsurugi clan. Of course, the Tsurugi clan members who were part of the conspiracy believed him to be a jinchuuriki, and the medical ninja had to all be killed to prevent them from telling anyone, but in the end we had the greatest weapon in all of history at our disposal!" He laughed. "And you all threw it away, by taking the useless Uzumaki Arashi as hokage, instead of him. You fools!"

"You're lying," Tsunade snapped. She had known Orochimaru before he turned evil, and he hadn't been the Orochi... had he? He'd never been a very... pleasant person, and he was always a little creepy, but then so were many of the Tsurugi clan. "If Orochimaru were one of the bijuu, why would he have ever joined Akatsuki? That makes no sense!"

"I told you, you silly bitch," Akadou cackled suicidally. "We changed him. We destroyed his memories, to the point he never knew that he was the Orochi. Nor would anyone else, which is why he was a member of Akatsuki for so long without anyone ever knowing. But we created him... he was ours. He should never have been tossed from the village, for he was our tool, the great weapon of the Akadou clan. And you stole him from us!"

Tsunade looked pale, and Jiraiya was flabbergasted. Naruto seemed to be trembling slightly, and oddly Sakura was trembling in sync with him. "It was him!" Sakura exclaimed.

"Him who?" Tsunade asked, spinning to look at Sakura, to see what it was she had to say about this. She was startled to see red in her former apprentice's eyes, fangs showing just slightly. It wasn't Sakura who had first spoke, but Kyuubi.

Kyuubi was speaking through Naruto's voice who answered the question, however. "Orochi... he was the one who disturbed kyuubi's rest, who angered him and brought his wrath upon Konoha. Kyuubi would never have bothered with Konoha, had he not felt the power of Orochi no Yamato trying to steal his life force. He followed that chakra, tracking it for years... until he finally found Konoha, where the Orochi had disappeared. But the time... it had to have been after Orochi no Yamato became Orochimaru. Orochimaru... must have known who he was."

"His training for the chuunin exam," Sakura continued, now obviously as herself. "I'd read about him, searching the archives for other things. He disappeared for a month, training for his chuunin exam. The time he was gone corresponds with the time Kyuubi was disturbed. He attacked Kyuubi... and he did it as Orochi no Yamato, leading a trail back to Konoha."

"I remember him having... changed, after the chuunin exam," Tsunade mused. "I had no idea, however...."

"Where he promptly hid from view again," Naruto replied. "Likely joining Akatsuki to keep better track of them, and not because he didn't know who he was."

"Then... what do we do, now?" Ayame asked from her alcove. "I mean, why good does knowing this do us, now? He's already our enemy, and we know less about Orochi than we did about Orochimaru himself. It's not like we know of any additional weaknesses this gives him... or does it? Does the Orochi have any weaknesses that we didn't know Orochimaru had?"

Naruto frowned, again himself but apparently still talking with the kyuubi. "No. The Orochi and Kyuubi were fierce rivals, when both roamed free, but niether could beat the other in a fight. The difference between the Orochi and the Kyuubi is that Kyuubi's power replenished itself almost as quickly as he could use it, while the Orochi's power would only regenerate very slowly. Otherwise, they were equals."

"The first thing to do," Tsunade said, "Is to get rid of the riff raff." With a quick move, she hit a point on Akadou's chest with a chakra scalpel. Akadou blinked for a moment before realizing that his heart wasn't working any more, and his eye started to cloud over. Within seconds, he had passed out. Within a minute, he was dead. "By the time we're done with this meeting, our ANBU will have killed or exiled the entire Akadou clan. As far as him... Homura-dono, be sure someone gets rid of that."

"Er, of course, Hokage-sama."

"Now, obviously we haven't finished our investigation," Tsunade continued. "But in the meantime, I ask you all to alert your clans about this Rock ninja. We will be in touch. Dismissed."

"Without objection, this session of the Konoha Clan Council is at an end," Homura announced. "And thank the gods that's over."

People started filing out, some a bit disturbed by having to pass near Akadou's body and others just relieved things were over. Sakura and Jiraiya walked over to Naruto, who was staring down at the dead body of Akadou while everyone else left. "Geez," Naruto said. "You didn't have to kill him."

Tsunade glanced at him, surprised. "With few exceptions, we don't normally spare traitors, Naruto. I figured you knew that by now."

"Yeah, I know," Naruto said. "I don't think the Akadou were ever truly a 'loyal' clan, there never was any great tragedy or outside influence confusing their thoughts, and they deserved to be killed or exiled. But still...."

"Still?"

"He seemed to know a lot," Naruto pointed out. "Shouldn't we have tried to capture and question him?"

"Normally, yes. But you can't interrogate an Akadou," Tsunade explained. "You can't even touch them without them draining you of your chakra, and they can sometimes pull that chakra drain stuff through mental contact, so asking a Yamanaka to try and enter their mind would be worse than useless. Plus... I detected no insanity in him, despite his odd laughter. He was trying to feign insanity when he was discovered, and he did a reasonable job of it... which means he'd prepared for this. He probably was hoping we would capture and try to interrogate him, and had plans ready for such an eventuality."

Naruto continued staring at the dead body. "I thought I was ready for this job... but it sounds like I have a lot to learn. I never knew anything like that about the Akadou. It sounds like I'll have to learn more about what all the clan techniques can really do. I knew that he could drain chakra, but not that he could do it even without being touched."

"We'll help you, husband," Sakura said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "That'll be my job, from now on -- to help you learn the things you need to learn."

*****

Author's notes: This is the shortest chapter in a while, but it does fit in my 'range' in terms of word count, so please don't give me a hundred posts about how short this chapter is.
In case you don't recognize the names 'Akadou' and 'Tsurugi' (or Tsurugu -- I've seen it spelled both ways, and I'm not sure which way is correct. I'm sticking with Tsurugi, simply because I've gone this far with his name, I might as well keep going with it) those were the family names of Kabuto's teammates during the Chuunin exam. I also understand at least one of them appeared in some filler episodes of the anime, but as I haven't seen those episodes I'm not sure about it. At any rate, the filler anime is -- for the most part -- not canon in this fic, and niether Akadou Yoroi (the Akadou in the chuunin exam) or Tsurugi Misumi (the Tsurugi) make an appearance; however, their clans share their bloodline traits, and those traits make them perfect for the story I have set up here. By the way... speaking of that, is there any source (even the data books, which I usually frown upon) which mention who was Kabuto's jounin sensei on his Konoha team? He'd be a very interesting guy to look up...
Next Chapter: Tenten's reinforcements join Lee's company to begin the expanded investigation. As the aftermath from the expulsion of the Akadou clan is dealt with in Konoha, the Hyuuga matriarch confronts her Rock mercenary.