Sculpting for Dummies 18
Sculpting for Dummies
( previous chapter)
Chapter 18:
“I’m almost certain he has a sharingan eye under that mask. I saw red when he was concentrating, and the abilities he has only confirms it,” Kakashi explained during his briefing. Iruka turned toward the Hokage to hear her reaction.
“I’m not saying he’s not an Uchiha, Kakashi. I’m only suggesting that we consider the possibility that he isn’t Obito. He could be a bastard fathered while one of the Uchiha was on a mission, or a member of the branch family who escaped the massacre. Why do you think he’s Obito?” Tsunade asked. Shizune nodded from the other side of the table. They thought the Copy Ninja’s theory was wishful thinking.
Iruka didn’t really care who Tobi was. From what he had heard, Tobi wasn’t a criminal, and Iruka thought that there were more important issues that needed consideration. An S-ranked criminal was waiting in the basement, and they were arguing about Hatake Kakashi’s dead teammate?
“He acts like Obito. He said something to me that Obito told me sixteen years ago. He’s the right age, something happened to him to make him lose his memories at the same time Obito disappeared, and he keeps his left eye covered. It can’t all be a coincident,” Kakashi reasoned.
“Hokage-sama, can’t we just run a blood test and move on to more important matters?” Iruka suggested.
Kakashi stared at him after he interrupted. What was he looking at? Did he think Iruka was in the Hokage’s office just to look pretty? The chuunin had thought Kakashi had learned that he spoke his mind after their argument at the chuunin exams three years ago. The jounin was apparently a slow learner.
The door to the office flew open. “Tsunade-baa-chan, I’m here!” Naruto cried as he burst into the room. Sai followed behind, without the bouncing and shouting.
“Naruto, Sai, I want your opinions of the prisoners you escorted here,” Tsunade ordered.
“What do you mean, Hokage-sama?” the young artist asked. From what Iruka had heard about the boy from Naruto, it was a good thing he took cues from his teachers on how to refer to the Hokage, instead of mimicking Naruto or making up his own ‘nickname’.
“If it were up to you, what would you have done with them?” the sannin clarified. “Do you think they should be executed, imprisoned, released, or what?”
The boys were silent for a moment as they thought.
“I think you should let them go. Deidara is a talented artist, and you shouldn’t kill artists, especially pretty ones. And you’d have to let Tobi go too, because they have butt-sex together and have a relationship. Those types of bonds shouldn’t be broken,” Sai proclaimed.
Tsunade blinked. Shizune blushed. Iruka wasn’t sure how to react. What kind of line of reasoning was that? Had Kakashi and Yamato allowed the children to see the prisoners having butt-sex together? If they had, Iruka had some strongly worded complaints to give them later…
“Ahem…what do you think, Naruto-kun?” Shizune asked the blond boy. Naruto scratched his head.
“I…I don’t know what you should do with them. Deidara tried to kill Gaara, but Gaara’s ok, so I guess that doesn’t matter so much any more…and Sakura-chan thinks we should let them go, and she’s smarter than I am…I don’t know. As long as we find out where Sasuke is, I don’t care. They don’t seem like bad guys any more, though,” Naruto added.
“I want an opinion from the whole team, Naruto. If I give you some time, can you come up with an answer?” Tsunade asked the boy.
“Could I talk to them?” Naruto asked. The Hokage nodded her assent.
“Ok, then. I’ll talk to them and come back,” the boy proclaimed. He ran out of the room without waiting for a dismissal.
“Sai, you can go home now,” Shizune told the artist. “We need to speak with your team leaders.”
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“So if this Tobi turns out to be Obito, or even another Uchiha, what are we supposed to do with him?” Tsunade wondered aloud. Kakashi spoke up.
“We make him stay here until his memory returns. Give him the Uchiha mansion, or someplace else to stay if it’s too run down. He could stay with me until we find him a house. This is his home. We should welcome him back,” he explained.
“And Deidara?” the Hokage prompted. Underneath his mask, Kakashi frowned. Tobi wouldn’t remember anything with the artist around; the dark haired man’s mind was monopolized by Deidara’s presence.
“He couldn’t stay here. We send him back to Iwa, or jail. Away from here.”
“I’m sure Tobi will appreciate that,” Iruka drawled. Kakashi respected the chuunin as his student’s old sensei, but did he ever shut up? “Do you honestly think he’ll stay here in Konoha if we send his lover to certain death? If he is an Uchiha and want to establish a connection between him and the village, we aren’t going to be able to just ship Deidara off to prison. This has to be handled a little more delicately than that,” the brunet argued.
“Iruka-san is right. It wouldn’t be wise to burn that bridge,” Yamato agreed.
Kakashi looked at his teammate with disbelief. “Do you expect me to condone the release of an Akatsuki member? We can’t let him go!”
“Are you concerned for the public or are you afraid that when he leaves, Tobi will leave as well?” Iruka asked.
“Once he remembers, Obito will stay in his village,” the copy ninja hissed.
“If he is Obito, he might,” Iruka responded. Kakashi wished there was a way to shut him up that wouldn’t get Kakashi kicked out of the Hokage’s office.
The door flung open a second time, and once again, Naruto popped his head in the room. This time, he carried a stunned-looking puppy in his arms. Kakashi winced as he imagined Naruto running through the village with the poor thing.
“Tsunade-baa-chan, where are Deidara and Tobi? I have a plan to figure out if they’re evil or not!” he exclaimed. The puppy whimpered as the hyper teen bounced around the room.
“What’s your plan, Naruto?” Iruka asked.
The boy held up the puppy for his sensei to inspect. “See how cute it is, Iruka-sensei?” The chuunin nodded. “You like it because you’re a good person. Only someone really evil wouldn’t like a puppy like this one. So if Deidara doesn’t like it, I’ll know that he didn’t change like Gaara did and he’s still bad.”
Iruka nodded. Kakashi snorted. Did the chuunin approve of everyone but Kakashi? It pissed him off that he could smile and nod at Naruto’s crazy plan. (If Kakashi had asked Naruto what he was planning, he knew the boy wouldn’t have told him, which only made him glare harder at the chuunin.)
Tsunade scribbled a note on a scroll and handed it to the boy. “They’re in a basement. Give this to Kotetsu and Izumo and they’ll let you in to see them,” she said. Naruto copied one of Gai’s ‘nice guy’ poses and ran off for the second time.
Shizune, Tsunade, Yamato, Iruka, and Kakashi all stared at the door as it slammed closed behind Naruto.
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The two Akatsuki members jumped and scrambled to untangle their limbs when Naruto flew into their cell with the puppy he’d borrowed from one of Konohamaru’s friends. They broke apart from their cuddling and stood to face him.
“What do you-” Deidara stopped abruptly when he saw the puppy Naruto was holding. He frowned and backed away.
“Get that disgusting beast away from me, un,” he growled.
Naruto held the dog out toward the criminal. “You don’t think it’s cute?” he asked. Was Sakura-chan wrong? She was smarter than he was about people, but Deidara couldn’t be a good person and not think the cuddly little ball of fur he was carrying was adorable.
“No, it’s foul. Get it out, un,” the artist replied through gritted teeth.
Well, that answered Naruto’s question. Deidara was obviously still a bad guy.
Tobi stepped forward and scratched behind the creature’s ears. It yapped and turned its head to allow Tobi a better angle.
“It’s not that he doesn’t think it’s cute; Deidara’s allergic,” the masked man whispered.
Naruto stole a glance at the artist. His face was turning red, and he kept his mouth tightly shut. He looked like he was trying hard not to breathe.
“So he doesn’t hate it?” Naruto asked.
Tobi shrugged. “I don’t know. But almost anything with fur makes him sneeze. He was originally supposed to go after the kyuubi, but he had to switch with Itachi-san because he can’t fight if he can’t breathe. The ichibi was made out of sand, so it didn’t bother him,” Tobi explained.
“Get that damned animal ou-choo!” Deidara half shouted, hand sneezed. Naruto watched the Iwa ninja struggle for composure for a moment. He turned and left. He could still hear Deidara’s sneezes as he walked down the hallway.
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Tsunade let Kakashi finish telling the group his observations about Tobi and Deidara before she turned to Yamato.
“Do you have anything to add?” she asked the jounin.
“Not really,” Yamato admitted. “They were well behaved after we captured them, and more concerned with trading information with you than trying to escape.”
The Hokage nodded. “Do you have an opinion on what I should do with them?” she asked him.
“I suggest you see what they want in exchange for their information. If their demands aren’t unreasonable, treat them like you would any informant.”
Yamato yawned, and Tsunade could see the exhaustion on his face. “I’ll consider it. You can go home now, Tenzou,” she said. The jounin smiled gratefully.
He opened the door to leave, but had to jump back as Naruto barreled in unannounced for the third time. He still held the frazzled puppy.
“Did you find out what you needed to know, Naruto?” the sannin asked. Naruto nodded.
“Did he like your puppy?” Iruka asked. The chuunin reached out and took the animal from the boy and stroked it. It calmed down and settled into his arms.
“No,” Naruto replied.
“So we shouldn’t let him go?” Shizune continued.
“No…yes…we should.”
“Why do you say that?” Tsunade wondered.
Naruto sighed. “I thought if he didn’t like the puppy, he must be bad. And he didn’t like it, but that wasn’t the reason why. And if I jumped to conclusions about him because he was allergic to animals, then maybe we’re jumping to conclusions about him because he’s in Akatsuki,” the blond explained.
“That’s very astute,” Iruka told his student. Tsunade nodded. Naruto used a strange logic, but he was usually a good judge of character. He had ways of seeing people that most couldn’t understand.
“You can go now, brat. Make sure you knock next time,” she ordered. Naruto flushed a little, but collected the puppy from his old sensei and left. Yamato followed him out the door.
“Bring the prisoners up and then you’re free to leave, Tenzou,” Tsunade called after him. He sighed and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘slave driver’. “We’ll find out whether we’ve been misjudging them or not.”
(on to part 2)
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