Harry Potter and the Elemental Nations

Chapter Seven

Three days and no news meant the team he had dispatched was most likely dead. Kabuto drummed his fingers against his desk and pondered on what to do. Perhaps it would be best if he personally took care of the problem. Leaving his lab, he stalked down the hall to his master's personal rooms and knocked twice before entering.

"Orochimaru-sama, how are you adjusting to your new body?"

The sannin flexed his hands and hissed in satisfaction. "Much better." Serpentine eyes glanced at his servant's face. "Any news from the team you sent?"

The bespectacled man frowned minutely. "Since I've received no news, I'm afraid they're dead. Perhaps I should take care of him myself."

Orochimaru's smile was malevolent as his lips stretched across his face, his abnormally long tongue caressing a cheek. "Do not fail me, Kabuto."

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama." With a quick bow of his head, the man stalked out of the room.

The journey to Konoha was peaceful for a few days, and Kakashi managed to get some answers to a few questions he had. Fawkes turned out to be a phoenix, a creature he thought to be mythical and spoken about only in legends. Harry also shared with him the ways phoenixes were able to travel with company. Things were finally calming down. It was when Kakashi began to relax that disaster struck again.

An exploding tag detonated, thrusting Hedwig into the air in a spiral. Out of all his familiars, Hedwig was the most vulnerable. Harry was quick to cloak her in a shield before the tag activated and mentally ordered her to observe from the sky and help by providing an aerial view of the battle.

Seeing his familiar was now safely out of range, Harry concentrated on chaining spells and launching them at Kabuto who had launched several kunai in his direction upon showing up and blocking their path. A blasting hex clipped his shoulder, but the wizard had to apparate when a chakra encased palm came too close to striking him when the sound nin used the momentum of the blast to push off the ground and advance on him. A tripping jinx followed by an incendio forced the sound nin back and into a fast approaching Kakashi.

With his target was now out of range, Kabuto threw another tag-wrapped kunai at the wizard and focused on parrying the copy nin's attacks.

The tag went off not ten feet in front of the wizard. The shield he always kept active as a rune on a bracelet around his wrist kept the concussive energy and debris at bay. Hissing furiously, Artemis weaved her way through damaged ground and launched herself at the sound nin only to miss by a hair as the man dodged. Undeterred, she twisted midair and snapped at his arm, lodging her fangs firmly in it and releasing a large dose of venom into his bloodstream. She was quickly thrown off and into a nearby tree by a chakra enhanced blow to her body. Thankfully her tough scales protected her from harm but she was still momentarily dazed from the attack.

Suddenly finding himself in terrible pain, Kabuto glanced down at his arm as he ducked beneath a chidori and swiped a chakra laced palm at the copy nin. Instinctively knowing the venom was a fast acting one, he severed his arm from the bicep with a chakra scalpel before it could travel up his arm and cauterized it with a flash of fire chakra.

§§Bastard!§§ the basilisk hissed. If only she could use her killing gaze without the chance of friendly fire. She didn't think Harry would be happy with her if she accidentally killed the Konoha ninja.

Fawkes swooped down and circled the missing nin, flames erupting in his wake, closing in on the man. When a water jutsu proved ineffective at putting it out, Kabuto escaped with a chakra powered jump. The phoenix followed him, exhaling magical fire in quick spurts. Several made contact and exploded, tossing the man several meters away.

To Kabuto's surprise, he was unable to heal the damage caused by the fire bird.

At the rate Kabuto was healing himself, Kakashi found any damage he did was reversed too quickly to last and was thankful for Fawkes' fire attacks which did permanent damage. The sound nin was also smart enough to never look directly into his sharingan and he was fast running out of options.

§§Serpensortia Manda!§§

As soon as he appeared, Manda had assessed the situation and lightning fast, dove for Kabuto with jaws agape. The traitor barely escaped being dinner but Manda turned and slammed the better part of his tail into the sound nin and propelled him into a fallen tree not far from a recovered Artemis. The basilisk was quick to constrict the man within her coils and latch on with extended fangs to prevent escape.

Harry woozily stood up and apparated over to his guard and whispered urgently, "Close your eyes!"

Although he wanted to question the instructions, Kakashi did as told.

ß Now, Artemis! ß

Permission given, the eyelids keeping her killing gaze at bay lifted, and she stared straight into the missing nin's eyes, killing him instantly. Deed done, she lowered her eyelids again.

There was a thud as a body hit the ground. Artemis quickly unwrapped herself and made a beeline towards her wizard who shrunk her again and stowed her away beneath his collar. Hissing in contentment, the young snake snuggled closer and fell asleep.

"Okay, you can open your eyes again."

Mismatched eyes snapped open and glanced at the now very dead Kabuto. "What-how?"

"Artemis can kill with a look."

What Kakashi thought was a cuddly snake turned out to be an instant killer. He wasn't sure if the lack of surprise on his part was a good thing or not.

Before the conversation could continue, Manda had snapped the corpse up in his jaws. Harry grimaced at the sound of crunching bones, knowing the snake was only chewing to exact some postmortem revenge against the man. Like all snakes, Manda swallowed his meal whole.

"Did he taste any good?" Harry asked curiously.

The large snake cocked his head in thought, flicked his tongue twice before muttering in disgust, "No. I don't know what he did to himself, but he tasted pretty foul."

Kakashi chuckled now that the tension has bled out of everyone. "Knowing that he followed Orochimaru, I'm not surprised."

Venomous green eyes narrowed in disgust and loathing down at the Konoha nin, "Who said you could speak to me, you lowly monkey slave? You would be a snack if you weren't tasked with guarding the little king."

The Hatake cringed but quickly nodded.

Harry sputtered, scandalized at the snake's behavior, and scolded the serpent, "Manda! Don't say that!"

"He's a dog of Konoha who jumps if told to by that dead monkey's student."

"I have no idea what any of that means."

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it, my lord."

The group plus one slightly shrunken Manda soon returned to traveling after a bit of rest and healing. This time, Harry was unable to convince the snake to leave and Manda was adamant about not being the size of a scarf. Instead, the snake was shrunk down to about the height of a horse while his length was who knows how many feet. The animal grumbled and hissed at the less than intimidating size (for him), but Harry refused to allow for him to be any bigger if he wanted to accompany him. Needless to say, any travelers they came across gave the group a wide berth. After terrifying half a dozen travelers, the wizard detoured off the road and elected to travel through the forest instead with Kakashi in the lead. The poor ninja was decidedly uncomfortable with having a homicidal snake glaring at him from behind.

The good thing about having a overprotective violent snake traveling with them was that any men Orochimaru sent was dead before Kakashi could lift a finger and cleanup was a breeze because they all ended up in the snake's stomach. The bad thing was Kakashi couldn't properly rest without one eye open. When everyone settled down to sleep, Manda would curl protectively around Potter while the young man slept, eyeing the copy nin with malicious intent, hissing under his breath about the smell of dog-which the Konoha nin could hear loud and clear. The snake barely slept the entire week it took them to reach Konoha, content to intimidate Kakashi as much as he was able in lieu of rest.

Another unexpected problem was the two humans were now very tired of eating beef and venison. Even shrunk down, Manda managed to find a cow or deer and bring it back every other day. The wizard would resignedly butcher the animal and store what he couldn't eat in his bag so as to not offend the snake. Kakashi meekly ate his share at Harry's insistence with Manda's chilling stare drilling into the side of his head every meal. Kakashi didn't even feel the want to crack open his Icha Icha for fear of being used as a toothpick if he offended Harry by reading porn openly. In the face of Manda, he even forgot to question Harry about anything.

The men really couldn't wait until they reached Konoha. Harry wanted vegetables and maybe some pork and chicken. Kakashi wanted to sleep for a week.

AN: Happy Yule! I tried to get this out in time for Christmas and actually made it. It's a bit short but I thought there was enough to warrant publishing. Hopefully Harry and Co. will reach Konoha soon. And that Itachi is healed.