[Naruto] The Little Things 2 - Chapter 2: the importance of honour
Title: The Little Things
Author:
starapple / martinique
Rating: R/M, this chapter, T.
Pairings: NaruSasu, (GaaNaru), SakuLee, NejiHina, TsuJira.
Progress: Part 1 finished (prologue + 13 chapters), Part 2 is a work-in-progress (2/?)
Spoilers: up to current manga canon
Summary of Part 1: 5 years later, Konoha is gone. How do Sasuke, Naruto and Gaara three powerhouses survive with each other when precariously on edge? yaoi. SasuNaru, GaaNaru
Summary of Part 2: New and old foes return to haunt Naruto and Sasuke. How will they and everyone around them cope with the inevitable revelations?
Earlier chapters: fanfiction.net.
Chapter 2: the importance of honour
The air seemed heavy. It was his imagination, running wild. Stronger now that the memories kept flashing at him. He hadn't said anything to Sasuke yet, and he wasn't here now either.
He was worried, he had to admit it. The continent seemed massive, and he couldn't fathom running around it for years. The island was home to him now, even though this was his sixth tour since the war only two years prior.
His team was waiting on him, already spread out in the woods. They were to do some reconnaissance, checking on the surrounding areas for signs of rebel movement. The wind was too still. It bothered him, reducing one of his senses to nothing. Looking out across the beach front, he could see the dense fog which indicated the Mist Village Protectorate a few miles ahead.
Their first stop would be there, to liaise with the local administration and get up-to-date details on their expected whereabouts. Signalling to his team, Naruto made his way into the thick and started them marching towards the town.
All that could be heard was the soft rustle of the leaves and the shuffle of feet on the damp mulch of the forest floor. As they neared their destination, Naruto began to consider the current structure of this team he had been transplanted into. He did not know their names, though one was clearly from Choji's family. They were all older than him, and yet he had been named their leader. That said, they had just lost their leader a few days back - natural causes was the official notation - so perhaps Tsunade had had a good reason for appointing him instead. He simply couldn't figure out what it was though. He didn't like it, but he found himself second-guessing every command, every word uttered from her and her ilk. Whenever Sasuke was sent out, he worried. He pretended not to, but it was difficult to keep himself from pacing across the floor like a mad man on his down-time. When Sakura uttered the words 'sedative', he actually seriously considered taking her up on it.
Shaking his head, Naruto concentrated on the path in front of him, his mind subconsciously estimating the distance that was left and the amount of time it would take them to get there. It would be approaching twilight.
As always, they approached shrouded in darkness. Naruto had never been able to shake the feeling that he was part of the shadows, nightmares manifested in reality. The recurrent thoughts always brought back to bear images of death and murder. He couldn't help but feel responsible, no matter how much he attempted to be realistic about the situation. The fact that his father couldn't have possibly known what was going to happen in the future, that the seal would weaken and begin to fade into him. Perhaps he had also not foreseen the amount of chakra he would pull on from the Kyuubi, had expected him to remain quietly sheltered and depending on his own, sabotaged, strength.
Who knew? It felt strange, to be in possession of the knowledge of who exactly his parents were. He had seen a picture of his mother, pregnant with him. And of course he knew who his father was - though it was difficult to reconcile that idea with how he had known him for years, as the Fourth Hokage.
Though he still loved Konoha, it was difficult to love the structure behind it, the driving cogs that had their own agenda and made them pawns in it. Sometimes he wished that he had remained ignorant of it all, that he could blindly trust as he always had. But the events with Gaara all those years ago - and at the thought of that man, his mood dipped even lower - had long stripped him of his boyhood notions in that particular regard.
Even Shikamaru had been deeply unsatisfied by it all, making a point to even voice his concerns in public.
The sudden drop from trees to grassland brought him back to the here and now. Cursing himself silently for not being as aware of his surroundings as he should have been while under the careful watch of his new team, he took control of the situation once more and motioned for them to jog the next short distance to the gates. They were just in time. Single-file, with twilight setting in, they found themselves outside the gate. Masks still firmly in place, he passed a scroll along to the guard who nodded at them with barely concealed curiosity. They were not new, this was not the first journey he had made under the masks. He knew that his brethren, the other masked men and women of the service were constantly making their way there.
The Mist village had changed little, in some regards. The mist still clung to the walls of the city. The citizens shuffled around, their spirits willing but their bodies broken. Naruto found nothing in which to rejoice. His team, glad to be inside, made some snide comments about being victors. Naruto ignored it. There was no point in rebuffing, or in attempting to explain the hollowness of their victory. There were guard posts and checkpoints dotted around the city, which itself had been laid out in a circular pattern. Perfect for deepening the humiliation, making sure that the citizens knew who was in charge. As though that couldn't be seen - Naruto hated this, hated the fact that he could not feel proud of his own nation, the one that he had aspired to become Hokage of.
He didn't know if that still motivated him. That year spent in mourning - and now his relationship with Sasuke, were all too new and raw in some ways. He had been distracted, had allowed himself to create the bonds that he had always craved. And now he was stuck. And unravelling from the inside, again.
He wondered if this was the Kyuubi's doing. Its silence over the years as he begun to break down mentally taunting him. He could almost feel that whisker of a knowing smile deep in the cage of the seal, an illusion because nothing was there any more. He was it. And he didn't know what that would mean, didn't know whether to tell Sasuke and the others, whether it would change anything if he waited for the inevitable.
He almost felt like Gaara back then, losing his mind to the demon. It had lulled him into a false sense of security, making him believe that his body and his mind was his.
“Cap'n.” a voice, Akimichi's he guessed. They were outside the building.
“Yes?” he stonily asked, unreasonably annoyed at the intrusion.
“Are we to accompany you inside or do you want us to settle down for the night?” it was an open, honest question. Naruto couldn't help but analyse it for any potential undertones, anything that could be considered a challenge to his leadership, his qualities or abilities. They knew who he was, with these blasted tails forever trailing him.
Deciding it was a valid question, he told them to settle down and that he'd brief them later. They tripped off towards the barracks. Entering the shell of the former government building, he found the security here to be at its highest. It put him on guard, clearly there had to be a good reason for this. Waved through after a glance at his pass, he was shown the way to the leader of the current administration, here doing his six-month's duty. Opening the double doors, he slipped the mask of his head and attached it to his hips, prepared to face the Aburame.
“Manabu, team 23 reporting for duty. I was told you had further details of our mission.” Naruto was in full professional mode now.
“Ah, Naruto. Thanks for replacing their team's leader on such short notice, but we needed you to even up the balance. As you can see there has been a significant increase in the amount of security around this building.” Naruto nodded at this, and Manabu continued on: “That is because there was an attempt on my life recently, one of the citizens taking it on himself to attempt to blow himself up while I was entering the building one morning. It was only by luck that I noticed him and threw myself out of the way as he blew himself up. Needless to say, had he not been a complete amateur, I would not be here right now.”
Manabu cleared his throat, and Naruto took this opportunity to ask the obvious question. “Why has there been no news of this in New Konoha? Or are you trying to keep it under wraps?”
“Yes, we are trying to keep this quiet. There were no witnesses, but clearly he had help, which means that they may be organizing a similar attempt at the near future. What we need is to find out how they are getting around our security forces to smuggle in the explosives. We've already confiscated anything that could be used to make a viable weapon, so it must be coming in from the outside. Before you ask, the inventory of the weapons used by the barracks has been checked and re-checked. No one has lost anything or failed to report it. We've therefore come to the undeniable truth that we may have a potential war of attrition or full-out civil war on our hands if we don't do something quickly. We can't have them resisting!” Manabu ground out, stomping his hand angrily on the desk in front of him. The grey hair on his head was barely visible in the dim light, but the lines on his face told a far greater story. He'd barely been here a month, and yet he looked like he was about to collapse from exhaustion.
“Of course.” Naruto thought of how they could possibly be achieving this. It had been two years, which was sufficient time for habits and routine to become weak points in their military structure. Even as he thought of this, he wondered why the fuck he had to be the one lumbered with this problem.
“We want you to find out how they are getting in. We need a fresh pair of eyes. So this isn't a normal reconnaissance matter, this is more of a matter of security. Get your team out there as soon as daylight hits, you have my permission to find the loophole - be it a hole in our security or an actual person. Whatever it is, eliminate it.” Manabu sat down and picked up a pen.
“Yes sir!” Naruto offered with more enthusiasm than he actually felt. It satisfied Manabu, who smiled at him and then waved him out. Mask firmly re-attached to his head, he made his way out, nodding at the guards as entered into what was now night. Strolling towards the barracks, he wondered what exactly it was that Sasuke was doing now.
Five days later, Naruto found himself to be closer to the answer than he had wished. His team had been acting strange, though he had pretended not to notice. He was surprised, and again he saw their faces in his mind that first evening after the briefing from Manabu. Since then, they had been gathering information in the town, double-checking the security from the inside out. His team had become decidedly skittish, when on impulse he had decided to check the temple.
“Do you think we really need to go there?” Emi asked, not quite managing to mask the twinge of panic he heard laced under her words.
“We have to be thorough.” He voiced it without any undertones, putting Emi at ease who thought she had escaped notice. Pretending to be looking across the landscape, instead he considered the tense stances of his team mates, and suddenly the puzzles began to slot into one, and he realized that he had to see Manabu first to confirm his suspicions. “Break for chow time, and I'll meet you later.” He made the seals for the teleportation jutsu, suppressing his chakra while re-emerging in the branches just a few meters away in hearing distance.
“--Shit, I'm sorry but you two were just standing there! What was I supposed to do? Let him lead us to the very place we had promised to protect from all investigation?!”
Akimichi's voice was too low for him to hear, and Mahiru's comments made no sense to him. All of a sudden, seeing Manabu had taken a back seat and Naruto found himself inordinately more interested in trailing them towards the temple. He wondered what he would find there. In any case, he thought he dimly recalled reading that the leader of his current team had died days after what he now knew to have been the so-called 'security disturbance' that had Manabu rattled.
Anger began to bubble in Naruto's mind, and it was only his common sense that kept him from storming down there to demand answers. One should only ask questions to which one knew the answers, thereby being able to determine the trustworthiness of his companions.
He kept up with their discreetly hurried march towards the temple, bouncing from branch to branch with practised steps. He hopped around the building as they entered it, jumping up to the window with a chakra-powered launch and then concealing himself swiftly in the beams of the ceiling. This temple was dedicated to one of the many rain-gods of the Mist Village.
“Toki? Its us. We have to move you, quickly.” Emi called frantically to a trap door that she revealed to be under a table laden with candles and incense. A woman appeared, looking uncertain in her gesture and stance, as though she wasn't quite sure whether she was safe. Naruto's eyes narrowed at the protective hand on the swell of her stomach, and he barely bit back the curse that was on the tip of his tongue. This changed things. His team had been holding out on him, and he would pull them up as soon as he could.
“Where are we going?” Toki voiced quietly, the waver in her words clear even to him a few meters away.
Mahiru spoke up this time, urgency plain in his voice. “Nowhere in particular, we are going to have to keep you moving around the market for most of the day until this place has passed inspection. Let's go!”
“Ye-yes.” As they filed out of the doorway, he could see Tobitake, the Akimichi shake his head in disgust at the situation. He was clearly not happy with the subterfuge, and Naruto made a mental note to approach him first.
Much later after they had seen the temple and discovered nothing, and after Naruto had kept them on their toes by insisting on covering the market did he let them bunk down for the night. But he kept Tobitake back, on the pretence of giving him a task to do tomorrow morning.
Tobitake waited now, tense in a corner.
“Cap'n?” Tobitake asked. Naruto whirled a knife in his hand, the yellow fruit falling to ribbon in his hands.
“Tobitake, tell me, is there something I should know?” Tobitake went to open his mouth, but a raised hand from Naruto forestalled him. “What you say next will affect your career, so don't play me for a fool.”
A smile quirked at the lips of Tobitake.
“You're better than I thought. Although in all honesty I expected someone from internal intelligence.” a gruff compliment, and he took a step forward towards a seat, at which Naruto nodded in permission. “Thanks.”
“So?” he prodded.
“Our late captain was involved with a girl here. He hid it from us until we discovered them together early one morning. We'd been looking for him, having urgent orders....” Tobitake waved a large hand, implying that it no longer mattered. “In any case, we found out even later that this girl was engaged to a man, something she had failed to tell the captain. Not that it made this any better. Anyway, from what I understand, that man stole some of the explosives from the captain and used it to blow himself up. It didn't take us long to put two and two together.”
“He committed seppuku, didn't he.” It wasn't a question, rather than a search for confirmation.
“Yes.”
“She's pregnant with Yukio's kid, which is why you're sheltering her. The Mishima don't have much of a family name in Konoha, so I assume he made you promise to protect her from the family of her fiance? Am I right?” Naruto asked.
“No, not entirely. We are protecting her from both families. If the Mishima find out they will send one of their sons out here to kill her. While they don't have much of a family name now, their line is old and goes back enough for them to attach great importance to honour and shame. Perhaps too much.”
“Hm.” Naruto set down the knife and half-eaten fruit.
“I didn't want to lie to you, but we were too deep in it.”
“Well, the problem with seppuku is that the signs are fairly obvious if you know what you're looking for, even though you three disguised it fairly well. I assume he asked not to be decapitated.”
“Yes.”
“You're dismissed. Tell the other two that we leave tomorrow after I've spoken to Manabu.”
“What about Toki?” he asked, turning back halfway towards the door. He was a good shinobi.
“She'll remain protected, don't worry.”
“You told him that?” Manabu asked, anger evident on his face.
“Don't break my promise. Keep her alive, protect her. I'm not asking that she be given freedom, just that she be kept in someone's place where neither family finds out about her. She's caused the death of two men, which is something she has to live with. But more importantly, she's pregnant with the child of that man, who wiped his slate clean the moment he committed seppuku. While we are in control of the situation, he knew that we were in effect still at war, and to fraternize with the enemy like that was beyond unacceptable.” Naruto felt detached from the entire situation, rationalizing this to the other man but wanting to be miles away at sea.
“What about your team?”
“They will receive punishment on our return. They have already resigned themselves to that fact. But we need all the able-bodied people that we can get. As it is, they didn't know enough at the time to warn you of the fiancee. Otherwise you know they would have.”
Manabu slumped in his seat, displeasure clear on his face. “I've lost valuable sleep over this. Although I'm glad to hear there isn't a resistance as of yet, this nevertheless leaves me totally unsatisfied. I trust you'll report that to Neji when you see him.”
“Of course. I'm just glad this wasn't a more serious matter.”
The sun hung low in the sky, and Naruto was exhausted by the time he made his way through the front door. He could smell food being cooked, the light smell of rice simmering wafting to him from the kitchen.
“Sasuke!” he called, a smile hovering on his lips at the prospect of seeing him.
“I'm in the kitchen!” Sasuke shouted back. Dropping the jounin vest and the mask on to the couch, Naruto padded over into the kitchen and embraced Sasuke from behind, ignoring the twinges of arousal to instead hug him tightly.
“Hard few days?” A warm hand on his while Sasuke continued to stir the vegetables. Naruto sometimes couldn't get over how they had managed to get to here from those fragile beginnings.
“Very much so. Waste of time.” Naruto snuggled further into the space between Sasuke's head and shoulder, nuzzling his neck. The stirring came to a slow halt.
“Well if you wash up quickly, we can eat and you can tell me all about it.” Although phrased like a request, it was more of a demand. Time had softened Sasuke, though he had lost none of his sharp edges.
As a sigh escaped Naruto's mouth, he let go of Sasuke and made his way to the bathroom. Ten minutes later he's seated at the table with Sasuke opposite and steaming bowls of food between them.
The smell of the food is too strong for Naruto, who ends up gobbling the first few bites down, feeling absolutely famished. Sasuke watches him with an indulgent smile, before asking about his mission. Naruto filled him in on the general details. They shared everything with each other. When it came to village business, they were both discreet to a fault outside the walls of their home.
“So yes, not a good trip. But it could have been a lot worse.” Sasuke nodded at Naruto's words, agreeing with his conclusion.
“On another note, it doesn't add anything to the strange happenings on the mainland. I guess we will have to wait a while yet before we find out anything else.”
“Yes.” Naruto wasn't certain if he truly wanted to know what was going on out there. There had been reports very recently of a lone man wearing one of the rings the Akatsuki had favoured. More details were unavailable, under lock and key with Tsunade. He strongly suspected that Jiraiya had something to do with this, but the man was nowhere to be found. He made a mental note to harass them both at the earliest convenience. Not that he was truly supposed to know this, but then again he had learnt a few tricks from the old man while they'd been away on training recently.
“Got a new mission yet?” Sasuke asked.
“Nope, downtime for the next two weeks. You?” Sasuke smiled at his words.
“Continent in four days.” Naruto joined in Sasuke's smile. They had four days in which to entertain themselves.
“Well, we had best put that time to use....” Trailing off, Naruto made for the bedroom, flashing a smirk in Sasuke's direction who was not slow at all in following.
They were making out languidly, hands playing across skin under t-shirts, when the phone rang. Sasuke made to get up and answer it, but Naruto pinned him down, pushing his knee between his thighs against which Sasuke bucked, moaning into his open-mouth. It was only the constant ring that made Naruto get up and answer the phone abruptly.
“Yes?!” he asked, just a little flushed. Sasuke watched him from the bed with lowered lashes, a hand already pushing down his trousers. They both stopped, and the anger faded from Naruto's eyes to be replaced with horror at the words gushing from the person on the other side of the line. Hanging up, Naruto uttered two words that propelled them into action, into finding Sakura:
“Lee's dead.”
-
-
-
I guess this is what we call a cliffhanger, right? Anyway, this felt good to write, in that I finally had the opportunity to do so while not worrying about a million other things that needed doing. At the same time, I feel rather out of practice, and it is most likely that this chapter when compared with any of the first part is very different in terms of style. In any case, the characters are older and wiser. I'll be tying in some of the current manga canon, so expect spoilers at any moment!
Constructive criticism warmly welcomed.
Author:
starapple / martinique
Rating: R/M, this chapter, T.
Pairings: NaruSasu, (GaaNaru), SakuLee, NejiHina, TsuJira.
Progress: Part 1 finished (prologue + 13 chapters), Part 2 is a work-in-progress (2/?)
Spoilers: up to current manga canon
Summary of Part 1: 5 years later, Konoha is gone. How do Sasuke, Naruto and Gaara three powerhouses survive with each other when precariously on edge? yaoi. SasuNaru, GaaNaru
Summary of Part 2: New and old foes return to haunt Naruto and Sasuke. How will they and everyone around them cope with the inevitable revelations?
Earlier chapters: fanfiction.net.
Chapter 2: the importance of honour
The air seemed heavy. It was his imagination, running wild. Stronger now that the memories kept flashing at him. He hadn't said anything to Sasuke yet, and he wasn't here now either.
He was worried, he had to admit it. The continent seemed massive, and he couldn't fathom running around it for years. The island was home to him now, even though this was his sixth tour since the war only two years prior.
His team was waiting on him, already spread out in the woods. They were to do some reconnaissance, checking on the surrounding areas for signs of rebel movement. The wind was too still. It bothered him, reducing one of his senses to nothing. Looking out across the beach front, he could see the dense fog which indicated the Mist Village Protectorate a few miles ahead.
Their first stop would be there, to liaise with the local administration and get up-to-date details on their expected whereabouts. Signalling to his team, Naruto made his way into the thick and started them marching towards the town.
All that could be heard was the soft rustle of the leaves and the shuffle of feet on the damp mulch of the forest floor. As they neared their destination, Naruto began to consider the current structure of this team he had been transplanted into. He did not know their names, though one was clearly from Choji's family. They were all older than him, and yet he had been named their leader. That said, they had just lost their leader a few days back - natural causes was the official notation - so perhaps Tsunade had had a good reason for appointing him instead. He simply couldn't figure out what it was though. He didn't like it, but he found himself second-guessing every command, every word uttered from her and her ilk. Whenever Sasuke was sent out, he worried. He pretended not to, but it was difficult to keep himself from pacing across the floor like a mad man on his down-time. When Sakura uttered the words 'sedative', he actually seriously considered taking her up on it.
Shaking his head, Naruto concentrated on the path in front of him, his mind subconsciously estimating the distance that was left and the amount of time it would take them to get there. It would be approaching twilight.
As always, they approached shrouded in darkness. Naruto had never been able to shake the feeling that he was part of the shadows, nightmares manifested in reality. The recurrent thoughts always brought back to bear images of death and murder. He couldn't help but feel responsible, no matter how much he attempted to be realistic about the situation. The fact that his father couldn't have possibly known what was going to happen in the future, that the seal would weaken and begin to fade into him. Perhaps he had also not foreseen the amount of chakra he would pull on from the Kyuubi, had expected him to remain quietly sheltered and depending on his own, sabotaged, strength.
Who knew? It felt strange, to be in possession of the knowledge of who exactly his parents were. He had seen a picture of his mother, pregnant with him. And of course he knew who his father was - though it was difficult to reconcile that idea with how he had known him for years, as the Fourth Hokage.
Though he still loved Konoha, it was difficult to love the structure behind it, the driving cogs that had their own agenda and made them pawns in it. Sometimes he wished that he had remained ignorant of it all, that he could blindly trust as he always had. But the events with Gaara all those years ago - and at the thought of that man, his mood dipped even lower - had long stripped him of his boyhood notions in that particular regard.
Even Shikamaru had been deeply unsatisfied by it all, making a point to even voice his concerns in public.
The sudden drop from trees to grassland brought him back to the here and now. Cursing himself silently for not being as aware of his surroundings as he should have been while under the careful watch of his new team, he took control of the situation once more and motioned for them to jog the next short distance to the gates. They were just in time. Single-file, with twilight setting in, they found themselves outside the gate. Masks still firmly in place, he passed a scroll along to the guard who nodded at them with barely concealed curiosity. They were not new, this was not the first journey he had made under the masks. He knew that his brethren, the other masked men and women of the service were constantly making their way there.
The Mist village had changed little, in some regards. The mist still clung to the walls of the city. The citizens shuffled around, their spirits willing but their bodies broken. Naruto found nothing in which to rejoice. His team, glad to be inside, made some snide comments about being victors. Naruto ignored it. There was no point in rebuffing, or in attempting to explain the hollowness of their victory. There were guard posts and checkpoints dotted around the city, which itself had been laid out in a circular pattern. Perfect for deepening the humiliation, making sure that the citizens knew who was in charge. As though that couldn't be seen - Naruto hated this, hated the fact that he could not feel proud of his own nation, the one that he had aspired to become Hokage of.
He didn't know if that still motivated him. That year spent in mourning - and now his relationship with Sasuke, were all too new and raw in some ways. He had been distracted, had allowed himself to create the bonds that he had always craved. And now he was stuck. And unravelling from the inside, again.
He wondered if this was the Kyuubi's doing. Its silence over the years as he begun to break down mentally taunting him. He could almost feel that whisker of a knowing smile deep in the cage of the seal, an illusion because nothing was there any more. He was it. And he didn't know what that would mean, didn't know whether to tell Sasuke and the others, whether it would change anything if he waited for the inevitable.
He almost felt like Gaara back then, losing his mind to the demon. It had lulled him into a false sense of security, making him believe that his body and his mind was his.
“Cap'n.” a voice, Akimichi's he guessed. They were outside the building.
“Yes?” he stonily asked, unreasonably annoyed at the intrusion.
“Are we to accompany you inside or do you want us to settle down for the night?” it was an open, honest question. Naruto couldn't help but analyse it for any potential undertones, anything that could be considered a challenge to his leadership, his qualities or abilities. They knew who he was, with these blasted tails forever trailing him.
Deciding it was a valid question, he told them to settle down and that he'd brief them later. They tripped off towards the barracks. Entering the shell of the former government building, he found the security here to be at its highest. It put him on guard, clearly there had to be a good reason for this. Waved through after a glance at his pass, he was shown the way to the leader of the current administration, here doing his six-month's duty. Opening the double doors, he slipped the mask of his head and attached it to his hips, prepared to face the Aburame.
“Manabu, team 23 reporting for duty. I was told you had further details of our mission.” Naruto was in full professional mode now.
“Ah, Naruto. Thanks for replacing their team's leader on such short notice, but we needed you to even up the balance. As you can see there has been a significant increase in the amount of security around this building.” Naruto nodded at this, and Manabu continued on: “That is because there was an attempt on my life recently, one of the citizens taking it on himself to attempt to blow himself up while I was entering the building one morning. It was only by luck that I noticed him and threw myself out of the way as he blew himself up. Needless to say, had he not been a complete amateur, I would not be here right now.”
Manabu cleared his throat, and Naruto took this opportunity to ask the obvious question. “Why has there been no news of this in New Konoha? Or are you trying to keep it under wraps?”
“Yes, we are trying to keep this quiet. There were no witnesses, but clearly he had help, which means that they may be organizing a similar attempt at the near future. What we need is to find out how they are getting around our security forces to smuggle in the explosives. We've already confiscated anything that could be used to make a viable weapon, so it must be coming in from the outside. Before you ask, the inventory of the weapons used by the barracks has been checked and re-checked. No one has lost anything or failed to report it. We've therefore come to the undeniable truth that we may have a potential war of attrition or full-out civil war on our hands if we don't do something quickly. We can't have them resisting!” Manabu ground out, stomping his hand angrily on the desk in front of him. The grey hair on his head was barely visible in the dim light, but the lines on his face told a far greater story. He'd barely been here a month, and yet he looked like he was about to collapse from exhaustion.
“Of course.” Naruto thought of how they could possibly be achieving this. It had been two years, which was sufficient time for habits and routine to become weak points in their military structure. Even as he thought of this, he wondered why the fuck he had to be the one lumbered with this problem.
“We want you to find out how they are getting in. We need a fresh pair of eyes. So this isn't a normal reconnaissance matter, this is more of a matter of security. Get your team out there as soon as daylight hits, you have my permission to find the loophole - be it a hole in our security or an actual person. Whatever it is, eliminate it.” Manabu sat down and picked up a pen.
“Yes sir!” Naruto offered with more enthusiasm than he actually felt. It satisfied Manabu, who smiled at him and then waved him out. Mask firmly re-attached to his head, he made his way out, nodding at the guards as entered into what was now night. Strolling towards the barracks, he wondered what exactly it was that Sasuke was doing now.
Five days later, Naruto found himself to be closer to the answer than he had wished. His team had been acting strange, though he had pretended not to notice. He was surprised, and again he saw their faces in his mind that first evening after the briefing from Manabu. Since then, they had been gathering information in the town, double-checking the security from the inside out. His team had become decidedly skittish, when on impulse he had decided to check the temple.
“Do you think we really need to go there?” Emi asked, not quite managing to mask the twinge of panic he heard laced under her words.
“We have to be thorough.” He voiced it without any undertones, putting Emi at ease who thought she had escaped notice. Pretending to be looking across the landscape, instead he considered the tense stances of his team mates, and suddenly the puzzles began to slot into one, and he realized that he had to see Manabu first to confirm his suspicions. “Break for chow time, and I'll meet you later.” He made the seals for the teleportation jutsu, suppressing his chakra while re-emerging in the branches just a few meters away in hearing distance.
“--Shit, I'm sorry but you two were just standing there! What was I supposed to do? Let him lead us to the very place we had promised to protect from all investigation?!”
Akimichi's voice was too low for him to hear, and Mahiru's comments made no sense to him. All of a sudden, seeing Manabu had taken a back seat and Naruto found himself inordinately more interested in trailing them towards the temple. He wondered what he would find there. In any case, he thought he dimly recalled reading that the leader of his current team had died days after what he now knew to have been the so-called 'security disturbance' that had Manabu rattled.
Anger began to bubble in Naruto's mind, and it was only his common sense that kept him from storming down there to demand answers. One should only ask questions to which one knew the answers, thereby being able to determine the trustworthiness of his companions.
He kept up with their discreetly hurried march towards the temple, bouncing from branch to branch with practised steps. He hopped around the building as they entered it, jumping up to the window with a chakra-powered launch and then concealing himself swiftly in the beams of the ceiling. This temple was dedicated to one of the many rain-gods of the Mist Village.
“Toki? Its us. We have to move you, quickly.” Emi called frantically to a trap door that she revealed to be under a table laden with candles and incense. A woman appeared, looking uncertain in her gesture and stance, as though she wasn't quite sure whether she was safe. Naruto's eyes narrowed at the protective hand on the swell of her stomach, and he barely bit back the curse that was on the tip of his tongue. This changed things. His team had been holding out on him, and he would pull them up as soon as he could.
“Where are we going?” Toki voiced quietly, the waver in her words clear even to him a few meters away.
Mahiru spoke up this time, urgency plain in his voice. “Nowhere in particular, we are going to have to keep you moving around the market for most of the day until this place has passed inspection. Let's go!”
“Ye-yes.” As they filed out of the doorway, he could see Tobitake, the Akimichi shake his head in disgust at the situation. He was clearly not happy with the subterfuge, and Naruto made a mental note to approach him first.
Much later after they had seen the temple and discovered nothing, and after Naruto had kept them on their toes by insisting on covering the market did he let them bunk down for the night. But he kept Tobitake back, on the pretence of giving him a task to do tomorrow morning.
Tobitake waited now, tense in a corner.
“Cap'n?” Tobitake asked. Naruto whirled a knife in his hand, the yellow fruit falling to ribbon in his hands.
“Tobitake, tell me, is there something I should know?” Tobitake went to open his mouth, but a raised hand from Naruto forestalled him. “What you say next will affect your career, so don't play me for a fool.”
A smile quirked at the lips of Tobitake.
“You're better than I thought. Although in all honesty I expected someone from internal intelligence.” a gruff compliment, and he took a step forward towards a seat, at which Naruto nodded in permission. “Thanks.”
“So?” he prodded.
“Our late captain was involved with a girl here. He hid it from us until we discovered them together early one morning. We'd been looking for him, having urgent orders....” Tobitake waved a large hand, implying that it no longer mattered. “In any case, we found out even later that this girl was engaged to a man, something she had failed to tell the captain. Not that it made this any better. Anyway, from what I understand, that man stole some of the explosives from the captain and used it to blow himself up. It didn't take us long to put two and two together.”
“He committed seppuku, didn't he.” It wasn't a question, rather than a search for confirmation.
“Yes.”
“She's pregnant with Yukio's kid, which is why you're sheltering her. The Mishima don't have much of a family name in Konoha, so I assume he made you promise to protect her from the family of her fiance? Am I right?” Naruto asked.
“No, not entirely. We are protecting her from both families. If the Mishima find out they will send one of their sons out here to kill her. While they don't have much of a family name now, their line is old and goes back enough for them to attach great importance to honour and shame. Perhaps too much.”
“Hm.” Naruto set down the knife and half-eaten fruit.
“I didn't want to lie to you, but we were too deep in it.”
“Well, the problem with seppuku is that the signs are fairly obvious if you know what you're looking for, even though you three disguised it fairly well. I assume he asked not to be decapitated.”
“Yes.”
“You're dismissed. Tell the other two that we leave tomorrow after I've spoken to Manabu.”
“What about Toki?” he asked, turning back halfway towards the door. He was a good shinobi.
“She'll remain protected, don't worry.”
“You told him that?” Manabu asked, anger evident on his face.
“Don't break my promise. Keep her alive, protect her. I'm not asking that she be given freedom, just that she be kept in someone's place where neither family finds out about her. She's caused the death of two men, which is something she has to live with. But more importantly, she's pregnant with the child of that man, who wiped his slate clean the moment he committed seppuku. While we are in control of the situation, he knew that we were in effect still at war, and to fraternize with the enemy like that was beyond unacceptable.” Naruto felt detached from the entire situation, rationalizing this to the other man but wanting to be miles away at sea.
“What about your team?”
“They will receive punishment on our return. They have already resigned themselves to that fact. But we need all the able-bodied people that we can get. As it is, they didn't know enough at the time to warn you of the fiancee. Otherwise you know they would have.”
Manabu slumped in his seat, displeasure clear on his face. “I've lost valuable sleep over this. Although I'm glad to hear there isn't a resistance as of yet, this nevertheless leaves me totally unsatisfied. I trust you'll report that to Neji when you see him.”
“Of course. I'm just glad this wasn't a more serious matter.”
The sun hung low in the sky, and Naruto was exhausted by the time he made his way through the front door. He could smell food being cooked, the light smell of rice simmering wafting to him from the kitchen.
“Sasuke!” he called, a smile hovering on his lips at the prospect of seeing him.
“I'm in the kitchen!” Sasuke shouted back. Dropping the jounin vest and the mask on to the couch, Naruto padded over into the kitchen and embraced Sasuke from behind, ignoring the twinges of arousal to instead hug him tightly.
“Hard few days?” A warm hand on his while Sasuke continued to stir the vegetables. Naruto sometimes couldn't get over how they had managed to get to here from those fragile beginnings.
“Very much so. Waste of time.” Naruto snuggled further into the space between Sasuke's head and shoulder, nuzzling his neck. The stirring came to a slow halt.
“Well if you wash up quickly, we can eat and you can tell me all about it.” Although phrased like a request, it was more of a demand. Time had softened Sasuke, though he had lost none of his sharp edges.
As a sigh escaped Naruto's mouth, he let go of Sasuke and made his way to the bathroom. Ten minutes later he's seated at the table with Sasuke opposite and steaming bowls of food between them.
The smell of the food is too strong for Naruto, who ends up gobbling the first few bites down, feeling absolutely famished. Sasuke watches him with an indulgent smile, before asking about his mission. Naruto filled him in on the general details. They shared everything with each other. When it came to village business, they were both discreet to a fault outside the walls of their home.
“So yes, not a good trip. But it could have been a lot worse.” Sasuke nodded at Naruto's words, agreeing with his conclusion.
“On another note, it doesn't add anything to the strange happenings on the mainland. I guess we will have to wait a while yet before we find out anything else.”
“Yes.” Naruto wasn't certain if he truly wanted to know what was going on out there. There had been reports very recently of a lone man wearing one of the rings the Akatsuki had favoured. More details were unavailable, under lock and key with Tsunade. He strongly suspected that Jiraiya had something to do with this, but the man was nowhere to be found. He made a mental note to harass them both at the earliest convenience. Not that he was truly supposed to know this, but then again he had learnt a few tricks from the old man while they'd been away on training recently.
“Got a new mission yet?” Sasuke asked.
“Nope, downtime for the next two weeks. You?” Sasuke smiled at his words.
“Continent in four days.” Naruto joined in Sasuke's smile. They had four days in which to entertain themselves.
“Well, we had best put that time to use....” Trailing off, Naruto made for the bedroom, flashing a smirk in Sasuke's direction who was not slow at all in following.
They were making out languidly, hands playing across skin under t-shirts, when the phone rang. Sasuke made to get up and answer it, but Naruto pinned him down, pushing his knee between his thighs against which Sasuke bucked, moaning into his open-mouth. It was only the constant ring that made Naruto get up and answer the phone abruptly.
“Yes?!” he asked, just a little flushed. Sasuke watched him from the bed with lowered lashes, a hand already pushing down his trousers. They both stopped, and the anger faded from Naruto's eyes to be replaced with horror at the words gushing from the person on the other side of the line. Hanging up, Naruto uttered two words that propelled them into action, into finding Sakura:
“Lee's dead.”
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I guess this is what we call a cliffhanger, right? Anyway, this felt good to write, in that I finally had the opportunity to do so while not worrying about a million other things that needed doing. At the same time, I feel rather out of practice, and it is most likely that this chapter when compared with any of the first part is very different in terms of style. In any case, the characters are older and wiser. I'll be tying in some of the current manga canon, so expect spoilers at any moment!
Constructive criticism warmly welcomed.