Monday, April 25, 2016

After Pain Chapter 3: Anbu

After Pain 

Chapter 1: Wanted: Sasuke Uchiha

Chapter 2: For a Friend 

Chapter 3: Anbu 

Chapter 4: The Hidden Leaf Jounin 

Chapter 5: A Worthy Opponent 

Chapter 6: Kakashi Hatake 


Chapter 3: Anbu

Shino lay on his bed that night, wide awake. They had all just left him there in the snow, as if they hadn't even noticed his presence. True, he hadn't purposefully drawn attention to himself, but only because he had had nothing to say. It was always like this, the loudest people were always more appreciated even if they were less talented or less helpful, even if they were only talking to fill the silence. Shino was not arrogant, but he knew his own skill and he knew that he deserved more attention at least from his own friends. But he was also not bitter or petty, so he would not attempt to punish his friends for forgetting about him.

He sighed and turned.

None of his insects had returned yet. He had been expecting at least his elite unit... it was just like the last time. He had, once before, encased that masked man entirely in his insects and still the man had been able to get away. On that occasion many of his bugs had disappeared along with the masked man - never to be seen again. Shino knew. He did not forget any of his friends, even the smallest of them. Especially the smallest of them.

This time he had been ready and the masked man had not. Shino had sent five units of his insects along with the masked man as he disappeared and, again, he had lost track of them. Again, there was a chance that some of them might not live, but they would leave their mark on the world before leaving it behind. He looked at his watch and heaved himself off his bed. He knelt on the floor and bit the tip of his finger.

"Summoning Jutsu," he said apprehensively, thinking the names of the insects he wanted to summon individually instead of just saying Unit 7.

They appeared immediately within the summoning circle. They were tired, drained of much of their Chakra, no doubt because they had been desperately trying to get back, but they were alive. He ginned. He decided he would wait for a couple of hours before calling back another unit. He needed to know how long it was possible to survive in that strange place to which they had been sent. But he would not be idle during those few hours. Sleep was not possible and it was almost dawn. He had some research to do.

...

"Where is Kakashi now?" the Anbu said coldly from behind his mask.

TenTen shook her head. "I don't know, Sir." she said. "I didn't want to be in violation of Lord Danzo's orders when I heard about them from Yamato so I came back to the village with him."

"And Kakashi did not give any excuse for his blatant disregard of the order?"

"It wasn't blatant disregard, sir, but Naruto said he was sure he sensed Sasuke nearby and Kakashi Sensei trusts him. We all do after his defeat of Pain! Kakashi only said that it was his duty to protect Naruto and promised that they would be back in the village as soon as he finished checking it out."

"And the medic ninja, Sakura?" the Anbu said.

TenTen hesitated, but she couldn't go off-script. Kakashi had come up with the scenario he wanted them to describe and she and Yamato were being interviewed separately so they had to stick to it or else the lie would become obvious.

"She chose to stay with them, sir," TenTen said.

"Kakashi did not order her to stay?"

"No, sir, he was very clear about it, he said ' I give no orders today' and Sakura chose to go with them."

She feigned hesitation for a few seconds, but the Anbu didn't ask so she spoke up again. "If I may, sir, I have some more information to volunteer."

"Quickly,"

"A few of our classmates had been talking just before we found out Naruto had taken off. We had all decided, including Sakura, that Sasuke was no longer our comrade. We discussed how much of a danger he was to the village and the news that Lord Danzo had declared him a rogue ninja. All of us agreed that if we could we would go find him and bring him to justice ourselves, for the sake of the village. Of course when I found out about Lord Danzo's other order, about no one leaving the village without permission, I knew I had to come back, but Sakura must have decided to accompany them so she could take care of Sasuke herself. Naruto and Kakashi sensei still have hope in Sasuke, but I am confident that Sakura now understands how dangerous he is. I'm confident that she only went with him to make sure that their rash actions wouldn't cause even more trouble for the village."

"But she was a former team member of Sasuke's as well," the man said, shifting in his seat. TenTen noticed the red bands on his shoulders - did the other Anbu all wear this? "You expect me to believe she would try to kill him now, unbidden."

"Sakura is one of the smartest in our year, I have no doubt that she can see this matter as clearly as I do."

"You may leave now,"

"Thank you, sir," TenTen said. She moved towards the door but then hesitated. Again, it was difficult to act hesitant when she knew what her goals were, hesitation just wasn't in her, but TenTen knew she could not pull it off without this fake hesitation so she tried to think of it as part of her mission.

She turned around, allowing a determined exppression to finally cross her face.

"If Sakura tries to contact me, sir, should I try to bring her in or should I play along and get information for you?"

"Oh, by all means play along," the Anbu said. "It would be best to confirm her true intentions before we act so that Lord Danzo can be given all the information he needs to decide if she will branded a rogue Ninja or not."

"Understood," TenTen said. There was the first step done. Now she just had to make sure that the Anbu that must be tracking her did not have any cause to suspect her. That meant that she had to maintain this act of disapproving of Kakashi sensei's actions even in front of her friends and teammates. That was going to be the tough part. Especially where Lee was involved.

...

It was Hinata who sought him out first as always. If one of his classmates could be relied upon to think of her friends it was her. She came with Neji, of course, who stood over her most of the time now like some kind of ever-present bodyguard. Shino was glad to see that none of Neji's old animosity remained, because Hinata had never deserved it, but he had been keeping a little too close lately and it felt a little awkward.

"I hope you're alright," Hinata said.

"Yes," Shino said. "I'm fine, thank you. Could you look at some of my insects, though?"

Hinata wasn't a fan of insects, but she always made an effort to keep her nervousness hidden, which Shino appreciated. "Did they get hurt when you went after Naruto?"

"Yes," Shino said and then, because he knew she would want to know, he added: "But everyone else is fine. The masked man didn't seem to want to fight us, just kept slipping away like before."

"That's good," Hinata said. "I'm sure you would have held your own, but I'm glad to know that no one is hurt!"

Shino held out his right arm, on which the members of Unit 7 and Unit 3 were resting.

"Byakugan!" Hinata activated her Byakugan and looked down at them with as much concern as she could muster. Shino appreciated the effort.

"Yes," she said at length. "There's something a little strange about their chakra... it's not a different chakra, exactly, but it's as if the chakra has been disturbed somehow."

Neji seemed interested."May I take a look?"

"Of course," Shino said.

Neji activated his Byakugan as well. "I see what you mean, Hinata. I haven't seen anything quite like it before. You say they were attacked by that masked man?"

"Yes," Shino pulled out his other arm and held it out. "This group was also injured."

"But not by the same person," Neji said immediately. "That strange disturbance is not present in this group's chakra at all!"

This was not exactly true. This group of insects had also been attacked by that masked man, but unlike the others, they had not been transported with him when he disappeared. This was very interesting. Shino decided to keep this detail to himself until he fully understood it, but he had one final test which he wanted to preform. He bit his finger one more time and summoned the last group: Unit 1. Like the others, they were still alive, but they seemed tired somehow.

"Is the distinctive chakra disturbance visible on this group?" he asked them.

"Yes," Neji and Hinata both said at the same time.

"This is very interesting," Neji said. "It seems we can sense, by someone's chakra, if they have been in contact with that masked man. This could be one step to understand that jutsu of his - the way he slips away from the most direct attacks." He was getting close.

"Can I trouble you to look at some more insects for me in the next couple of days?" Shino asked. "I'd like to confirm this theory by showing you more insects that have been attacked by other individuals, just to make sure that this really is a distinctive thing we can trace back to that masked man."

"Of course," Neji said. "I would be very interested in the results, as would many of our clan leaders and elders...it could help us fight that masked Akatsuki member if he ever attacks the village again."

"Yes," Shino said. "But let's keep it between the three of us until we're sure."

Neji nodded.

If Hinata had been here alone she might have stuck around for longer, or they might have gone off to find Kiba, his mother may even have invited her to dinner, but Neji's presence turned it into a much more formal visit. They left soon after and Shino found himself staring out at them as they walked down the street.

"Poor Hinata," his mother said, coming to stand beside him. "She hasn't been seen on her own for several days now. When Neji isn't with her she stays at home."

"But why?" Shino asked. "Did something happen while I was away?"

His mother shook her head. "Rumors have it that her father is afraid she will be attacked - as the Hyuga clan heir."

"Her father is still favoring Hanabi, though," Shino said. "I can see it in her eyes. He still hasn't accepted Hinata."

"I don't think he ever will."

Shino sighed. It was very difficult not being appreciated by those closest to you.

...

Shikamaru
Ino
Choji

TenTen
Lee
Neji

Shino
Kiba
Hinata

Sakura
Naruto

Ino looked down at the page, trying not to feel like it was a piece of incriminating evidence. She would burn it when she was done with it. Some people, like Shikamaru, could plan things in their heads, but Ino liked to put things down on paper when it was important. Especially at times like now when her thoughts were scattered and jumpy and punctuated by so many fears. They hadn't been able to talk freely ever since that conversation they'd had just before Sakura went after Naruto and they really needed to.

Sure, it was nice being invited to sit at the clan leaders table at the dinners, once of which was being held in her own home tonight, but there were things she felt her classmates needed to sort out. The eleven of them had a special bond, and more importantly, they each had special skills and key peices of information that needed to be communicated to each other. The Hyuga clan leader might hesitate to speak his mind and join them fully, the Inuzuka might still hold a grudge against the Naras for barring their dogs from hunting in their woods, but her classmates, the Konoha 11, were like a team and they would be able to talk through the villages current problems honestly and openly.

So far, however, they hadn't even been able to talk things through with their own tiny three man teams. She could tell that it drove Shikamaru and Choji as crazy as it drove her, but the atmosphere in the village, that feeling that you were being watched, that someone was breathing down your neck waiting for you to criticize Danzo made it impossible. They had turned to spending their time together training instead.

She looked down at the page again. She would get Shikamaru and Choji on their own soon, hopefully tonight, so they could talk, and she was sure the other three-man teams could similarly get a few moments alone and communicate among each other. The problem was, how to connect the teams so they could ALL communicate. Well, she thought Neji and Hinata could keep their two teams in touch, Hinata hardly went anywhere without Neji breathing down her neck these days and she was sure they could talk freely within the Hyuga clan neighborhood complex. she drew a line connecting Neji and Hinata.

Ignoring Naruto and Sakura's absence from the village, the biggest problem was how to get her own group in touch with the other two. Neji would have been the ideal person to do this, because he attended all the dinners and could come and go anywhere without too many questions due to his Jounin status. The problem was that he spent most of his waking hours guarding either Hinata or her father...

She dismissed that idea and turned to Shino. He had sometimes used his bugs to communicate battle plans with Shikamaru during a mission. She shook her head. It might be easy for swarms of bugs to go unnoticed in a forest somewhere, but in the middle of Konoha even a little baby would know that it had something to do with the Aburame clan.

She sighed.

She had never been on good terms with TenTen. Kiba was too loud mouthed to trust with something like this. Hinata never went anywhere alone these days. TenTen and Ino had never really been on good terms and she heard that Tenten was being really standoffish and formal with everyone since her return to the village.

"Ino!" her mother called. "You said you would come help half an hour ago! We have half the village's clan leaders over for dinner tonight, get moving!"

"Coming!" Ino said.

She tore the paper into a hundred little pieces and then carried them in her fist. She threw them into the fire and watched them burn as soon as she got to the kitchen. Her mother watched her do it and then came up beside her.

"You can't let it get to you, Ino," she said. "It's what they want. To have us afraid even of our own thoughts."

Ino nodded, but she noticed that her mother had not used their name out loud. That name that was on everyone's minds these days, but never spoken out loud. Anbu.

"What's my first mission?" Ino said as cheerfully as she could. she vowed that by the time Shikamaru and Choji showed up for dinner that night that she would have come up with a solution. Shikamaru wasn't the only one with a brain in the group.

...

Tenten stared at Neji without comprehending what he was saying. "What?" she said for what felt like the millionth time. "Lee?"

"Yes," Neji said. "We should have known that Lee would get himself into trouble like this!"

"But what did he do?" Tenten asked.

"No one knows, but I suspect he said something stupid in the heat of the moment when he heard that he wasn't allowed to leave the village to go visit his family."

Tenten fought the urge to throw up. It would kill Lee if he couldn't visit his family, especially after what they'd all just been through, and the news that the Akatsuki were attacking nearby villages in their hunt for Naruto. Lee was about ten times more emotional than your average Shinobi. And like Neji said, he wasn't good at keeping his mouth shut. They should have predicted this. They should have helped him. But what could Tenten do? She knew that she was under even more scrutiny than the rest of them nowadays.

"Guy Sensei is pleading his case," Neji said. "I'm sure he won't leave him. But Lee isn't the only one, Tenten, there have been many people who have gone missing or been taken in for questioning. There's an undercurrent of discontent in the village."

Tenten fought the urge to look around nervously. "That's really dangerous," she said earnestly. "the village doesn't need these kinds of problems right now, we could be attacked by the Akatsuki again any minute!"

Neji nodded. "Of course Lee would have had no idea of all this, he just said the first stupid thing that came to his mind as usual in the heat of his anger, but we have to do something about this, convince people that it is not in Konoha's interest to be fighting petty little fights amongst each other and complaining about every tiny thing that doesn't go our way. We're Shinobi, we have to follow orders and mind our place in the order of things or it will all collapse."

Tenten breathed an inward sigh of relief. She had almost believed that Neji was with the Anbu and Danzo, but the way he had said that they had to accept their place... that wasn't Neji at all, it hadn't been for years and years. An outsider watching them would never know that, but she did. She smiled at him. "If we keep together and work on making Lee understand it'll be a start."

Neji nodded. "I've obtained Lord Hiyashi's permission to invite both of you over for dinner for just that purpose as soon as Lee is released."

Good. Tenten could not imagine being watched by anyone, even the Anbu, inside the Hyuga compound. She would be able to talk to them freely there and explain her plan.

...

Shino's head was starting to hurt. He had not expected it to be this hard to find another Shinobi who could preform a transportation similar to that of the masked man. It was starting to feel impossible, which just made that masked Akatsuki member's jutsu seem all the more extraordinary and unbeatable. His research so far kept taking him back to the Uchiha clan, but all those members of the Uchiha clan were dead. Poor Sasuke. It really was enough to drive a man insane, losing his entire clan, his entire family, in the blink of an eye, having to live life alone without people who truly understood your struggles and who could stand by you.

He could not help sighing in frustration when Kiba turned up. He would never get anything done now with Kiba looking over his shoulder and asking a hundred pointless questions.

"What's up, Shino?"

"I'm just doing some research," Shino said. "Trying to develop a Jutsu, but I need to consult someone who can preform any kind of transportation technique and I can't seem to find anyone."

"You need someone who can summon a special ninja summons. Of course the regular summons you and the next person can do probably won't help you, but I have a granny who could summon and banish hounds between dimensions... that's what they said anyway, I don't really get it."

"Thank you!" Shino said. He should have known to consult his friends instead of trying to do this alone.

"No problem," Kiba said. "Now you can help me with my own problem on the way to visit granny."

They were going there now? This was perfect. Shino sometimes underestimated Kiba. He would work hard to never do that again.

"What's your problem that you need my help with?" he asked.

"Mom's trying to get me married again."

"Again?" Kiba's mother had been trying to get him married ever since he turned sixteen. Shino couldn't blame her. She probably thought it would do him good, change his lazy, irresponsible attitude, but the last three engagements had ended rather disastrously.

"And as always, she won't take no for an answer. She says all I have to do is agree to the engagement and try to get along and fate will take it from there."

Shino kept his thoughts to himself. Fate couldn't do anything if you didn't give it a chance and Kiba had been actively trying to destroy the last three engagements. There was really no hope in this...

"She also said she'd skin me alive if she found out that I had done anything to... jeopardize the family's relationship with another clan."

They had stopped. They were standing in front of a small house and Kiba was looking at it, hesitant to knock before they finished their conversation. Now that he thought about it, Kiba did look unusually down.

"Why not use this engagement as an opportunity?" Shino suggested.

Kiba turned to him. "An opportunity to what?"

"To get closer to an actual friend," Shino said. Aware that his voice had become a whisper and that he couldn't help but think of the Anbu watching him. "Tell her you'd like to be engaged to Tenten or Ino. It's very difficult to keep up with old friends these days and at least this way the engagement won't be as painful for you. And when you want to break it off in a few months, it won't cause your mother any problems with other clans."

Kiba was not as good at hiding things. He looked around nervously and this told Shino that he understood his real intent behind the suggestion. He clapped him on the back all of a sudden and knocked on his grandmother's door. Shino just hoped that this idea of his didn't end up creating more problems between friends.

Kiba's grandmother insisted on getting them juice and she spent a lot of time asking about how they were doing, so of course Kiba spent several minutes complaining to her about his mother's determination to marry him off. This sent her into a fit of chuckles and then a long story. By the time they reached the subject Shino had come for he was already very bored. She peered down at him in interest and made him wait for several minutes under her scrutiny.

"Why do you want to know about this?" she finally asked. "It's a very difficult jutsu to learn."

"I don't really want to learn it," Shino explained. "It's just, I think one of the Akatsuki that I've faced is using some kind of transportation technique and I want to know as much as I can about it."

"Well, there are different types," she replied, still seemingly reluctant to give details of her jutsu. "Some people like the second and fourth Hokage used a transportation technique that allowed them to move instantaneously from one point to another within our world. That's very rare. Others can summon animals from different places, also in our world. The most skilled at summoning can summon animals from a completely different dimension. It takes even more skill to be able to go to that other dimension."

That was what Shino wanted, but he couldn't resist asking more. "What about sending others to a different dimension?"

"I've never heard of anyone in recent years who could do that. You'd need Uchiha eyes for that to even be possible, but even so..."

There they went with the Uchiha eyes thing again. He realized he'd better steer the conversation back to useful subjects.

"Which type are you able to preform... granny?"

"I summon hounds from a different dimension," she said.

"And can you go there?" Shino asked.

She grinned now.

"Are you asking me to take you?" she said, her eyes glowing.

"I would be honored and forever grateful," he said, not looking away. All he really wanted was for her to send some insects there, but apparently only an Uchiha could do that.

"We can only stay there for ten seconds," she said. "At the most. The longer I stay there, the more my chakra is drained and I have precious little of it these days."

Shino nodded. "That will be enough." he said. The unit of insects, unit two, was waiting patiently in his pocket and would go with them.

It was a big blur. Even with ten seconds Shino wasn't able to see a single thing because the transfer, or whatever it was, left him reeling. It really did drain chakra. But then how did that man do it so fluidly? Maybe it only did it at first.

When they returned and he got his bearings he realized that the old granny was laughing at him. "I remember my first time," she said. "When I came out of it reeling and near crying with the pain."

"So it gets better with practice?" Shino asked, now truly interested.

"Listen, son," she said seriously. "I'm not sure what you're thinking, but there's no one alive now who can use this technique in battle, Akatsuki or not. As you can see I'm almost at death's door and my fighting days are over but I know my Jutsu well. You won't be able to escape from them this way."

"Escape? Escape from whom?" Shino asked. He still had a huge headache. His poor insects.

"Why the Anbu, of course! I know you're trying to think of ways to slip by them and go undetected, but you'll have to search for a different Jutsu. Sometimes a simple solution is all that's needed. There's no need to go looking for fancy Jutsu at every turn."

Shino nodded. "I'm sorry for troubling you," he said.

"Oh, not at all." She said genially. "I was rather bored today and you entertained me. Drop by anytime."

...

Lee understood that they underestimated him. Guy sensei had taught him to use this as a weapon. He sat there in the cell, giving them the complaints and loud break-out attempts that they expected from him every few minutes, but all the while he was gathering information. It was amazing what one could notice when they were truly looking.

The first thing that Lee noticed was that the Anbu organization had some kind of split in it. There were some Anbu who behaved like regular Shinobi: they complained and got bored and asked for breaks and sometimes made fun of him. But there was another group who behaved in a way that he found strange and unnatural. They were stiff and uncompromising and never complained or seemed to get bored. They got offended when the others complained about Danzo and seemed to have a blind kind of loyalty to him. All this he knew from being locked inside a cell.

The second thing he noticed was that none of these Anbu were as quick as he was, even with his leg weights on. He found this out when they came into the cell and tried to question him. Needless to say they did not manage it. Three of them had stormed off to call their leaders but they had been gone for a while and had not returned. He tried to ignore his curiosity and focus on the task at hand. That was when he noticed the third thing. He noticed that there were certain things they were saying in front of him on purpose, as if they wanted him to hear them and go spread the rumors. Normally, Lee wasn't very good at noticing these kinds of things, but Tenten had been helping him a lot lately. She said it would be useful and now he understood her insistence.

He would make sure to tell her what a fine Shinobi she was when he got out of here.

It did not take too long. He was just writing down the fourth rumor that they had "accidentally" revealed to him when the door opened and they ordered him to get out. They led him through a very long passage, much longer than the one he had been brought in through. It was lined with Anbu standing at the ready. He wondered if this was another thing they wanted him to see.

Finally, they ushered him into a room where Gai sensei and an Anbu stood. The Anbu stayed near the window and ignored Lee, but Gai sensei gave him a very heartwarming welcome. Lee fought to control his tears, mainly because Tenten usually said it gave a bad impression. He wanted to give this Anbu whatever good impression was necessary in order to get out of this heavily guarded building and then...

"Lee, you are going to leave this place with me now, but the Anbu need you to promise that you will not leave the village. If you do leave the village without an official mission from the Hokage you will be branded a rogue ninja."

There were tears in Gai sensei's eyes now.

"Understood, Gai sensei!" this wasn't exactly agreeing to abide by it. He simply understood the message that was being relayed to him. Understood the risks. Gai sensei did not press the matter. He simply gave Lee another hug and led him out.

"Isn't the fresh air glorious, Gai sensei?" Lee said.

"Oh Lee!" Gai sensei patted him on the back, still tearful. "I was so worried about you, Lee!"

It seemed that behind his cold exterior Neji had also been worried about him, because he invited Lee to dinner that night. Lee could not refuse a friend, his plan could wait a couple of hours. Besides, he had to tell them about the things he had noticed in that cell so that the information would not go to waste. Tenten was coming too.

As soon as he told them about the information he had learned in the cell Tenten revealed the surprising information that she was planning on joining the Anbu in order to spy on them and keep her friends informed.

"That is an excellent idea, Tenten," Lee encouraged her. "If anyone can do it, you can. It was only because of your hard work and advice that I was able to gather my information."

"Go to it and shine brightly, Tenten!"

"But this means you'll all have to be very careful what you say around me in public. I checked with Neji to make sure we were safe here, but I know I'm being tracked by the Anbu and I will be until they trust me. You have to rememb-"

"You will not have to worry about me revealing anything, Tenten!" Lee said. "I am leaving the village tonight. I have not visited my hometown in days and my parents will be worried."

"But, Lee..."

"Please do not try to stop me," Lee said. "I understand the consequences, but I am bound to become a wanted man sooner or later. You know that it is not in me to sit idly by and cower in fear. I am bound to upset the Anbu sooner or later."

"Lee, are you sure?"

"Of course," Lee said. "While I was in the cell I heard another piece of information. The Akatsuki and Sasuke have been seen near my home village. If I do not go defend them then who will? I am the only Shinobi from my  clan for many generations!"

"Oh, Lee!" Gai sensei said. "I wish I-"

"It is better that you cannot follow me, Gai sensei. This way you will finally be free of the responsibility of looking after me and can turn to your duties on the Jounin Council. As for me, I think it is finally time for me to spread my wings and truly enjoy my springtime of youth!"

"Tenten," he added. "I would like you to use this as an opportunity to endear yourself to the Anbu, Please give me three hours and then go and inform the Anbu that I have left the village. Tell them that I do not intend to do anything to harm the village, but my duty to my family drives me forward. Tell them I look forward to facing them when they come after me!"

"Well done, Lee." Neji said, speaking for the first time since he had welcomed them into his home. "You have become a truly splendid Shinobi."


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