Chapter 76:

Naruto knew, before the sun rose, they wouldn't be able to escape the pursuit. Not without some kind of miracle.

The injured were slow to rise, even slower to move, though they did try, some of them tried til they made their injuries worse, and here and there he could hear the whispered arguments of others demanding they be left behind so as not to slow down the group.

None of the offers would be accepted, he knew, because he'd carry them all back one by one before accepting anyone saying any different.

But he had to be a realist, he had to know what that meant.

Five S class nin would soon be bearing down on them, by this afternoon, or night at the absolute latest. And who knew how many Chuunin would be following after them.

He was strong, stronger than he'd ever been without Kurama in his timeline. But he wasn't delusional.

He was not invincible.

He had to think of something. There had to be an answer somewhere.

"Easy there, don't move too fast."

He turned at the sound of Kyofu's voice, finding Ryoko trying to push away their eldest teammate's fussing hands.

"'M fine." She groused, still groggy from the pain medication. The bandages around her injury were stained with splotches of red, but the bleeding had stopped, thank the gods for small favors.

The silver haired girl looked around. Blinking in stupefaction. "The fuck's my blade?"

He smiled, Kyofu groaned. "You're impossible."

Stepping forward into his teammates line of sight he knelt at her other side. "Hey there sleepy head, It's half past noon already. Ready to get your life together?"

"Don't encourage this." Kyofu hissed at him, looking for all the world like she was ready to smack the both of them

"May as well since neither of us can stop her." He shot back. "Too stubborn."

Ryoko kicked him, or tried to.

"I can still kick your ass princess."

"Any time, blow hard."

He smiled, she smiled back, it was an easy thing; but he could see her eyes cloudy with the fugue of anesthetics even as she met his gaze and he hoped she couldn't see the worry in his.

At the same time he heard a new voice behind him, no nonsense, stern and angry.

"Get them up. I want us gone in ten- Then you get them to move! It's either that or they'll be killed where they lay. Now! This isn't a request!"

Naruto stood, pulling away from Ryoko and Kyofu to see Tenten in the middle of the camp. Her injuries weren't as severe as Ryoko's but they were more numerous and visibly prominent. Gai's female student was covered in a litany of bandages, and somewhere she'd either pulled off or lost the one that covered the slice across her cheek.

It was an angry red cut, as if the blood was held by the thinnest of membranes between the folds of skin. Her hair hung about her shoulders. No time or energy to put it up into her signature twin buns.

It wasn't a bad look on her but it was almost alien without her hair in its typical fixture.

She caught sight of him as he approached, and her eyes flashed with an anger that caught him off guard.

Was he in trouble again?

Evidently, he was, seeing as how she all but snarled as she stomped forward.

"Why-" She bit out. "Are. You. Still. Here!?"

He blinked.

"Ummm… Helping?"

"They're after you! You're the target!" She snarled. "You should be a hundred miles south of us by now and booking it back home!"

He shook his head. "Even if I leave only the S class ninja might follow me, the rest of the pursuing Chuunin will still chase you and butcher you to a ma-"

"That doesn't matter!" Gai's Kunoichi student snarled back though her voice was low so only they could hear what she said. "You are invaluable. You need to start running and you need to keep running. Now!"

He shook his head. "You said it yourself, Kakashi was using me as bait out here, so this kinda is my mission-"

"Kakashi-" He got the distinct impression that she was very tempted to call the Hokage something other than his name at the moment. "Was wrong!"

"I'm not leaving you or anyone to die for me."

"We're expendable!"

"Not to me!"

He didn't quite shout, but neither was he quiet, and he could see their conversation beginning to draw eyes.

Tenten's gaze darted this way and that way. The men couldn't see this, he knew enough of command and morale to know that. She looked at him again.

The anger was still there, but there was a clear undercurrent of concern. Of fear.

She knew as well as he did this wasn't a fight he was likely, let alone guaranteed to win.

"Leave." She tried one more time, even though she already knew the answer.

He shook his head and tried to smile. "Not a chance in hell."

She turned away, and the concern was wiped away, hidden under indifferent professionalism before she turned and walked, marching towards the nearest infirm to get him back on his feet.

She couldn't waste her time arguing with him, and for that he was relieved.

(X)(X)(X)

Kurotsuchi's eyes snapped open where she lay, a crackle of energy, like the heat of a burning brand, screamed across her senses. It was harsh, jarring, and entirely deliberate. A searing lash of Chakra across her senses.

Her mind shocked to full wakefulness from the fugue of sleep, still took a moment to orient her as to what was happening.

Another jolt, another burning, migraine inducing pain bloomed across her temples and she realized what this was, who this was.

Her heart dropped, her stomach with it.

Oh no.

She stood from her cot immediately, scrambling to put on her gear and wash her mouth of the vile taste of sleep before she scrambled out of the command tent that she'd commandeered for herself

The harsh, bright light of the barely there morning sun stung at her eyes, and the blasted out forest offered no shade and no balance to the stark landscape of scarred terrain and still lined corpses.

The Chuunin hadn't stopped working all night, digging through the remains of Konoha's northernmost outpost, searching for the remains of the dead and even now, they'd only stopped to stand at the ready given the nature of their visitor.

Kurotsuchi's pink eyes trailed to the northern end of the camp, Shingen was already there, bowing at the waist before the Tsuchikage, Chiyome

Flanked by a cadre of her Anbu guard the Godaime was not dressed in her robes, but rather custom armor that hugged her thin body tightly. Two blades, their length between a dagger and a Wakizashi were crossed at the back of her waist.

Pale and dark haired as she was, the woman seemed more a ghost of the battlefield, than a flesh and blood leader of men. Smoke and the stench of burning corpses made the scene altogether eerie in the pale grey morning light.

Kurotsuchi took a breath before marching forward. Others in the camp were rousing now as well,either sensing the woman or sensing the sudden stillness of activity beyond the confines of their tents.

As she approached, the Tsuchikage held up her hand, silencing Shingen with the gesture. The old man stepped back, opening the way for her, leaving Kurotsuchi and the Tsuchikage unobstructed.

"I see you in command of a camp." The older woman drawled. "But I do not recall giving you orders to manage logistics."

"We engaged Uzumaki Naruto at these grounds just yesterday." The Iwa princess answered. "He fled."

"And yet here you are."

"I've sent out scouts and search parties to chase. Uzumaki is a master of laying traps." She tossed a pointed look to the blasted ruin that loomed to the east like a half destroyed monolith, hovering along the horizon. "As he's so clearly demonstrated."

The Tsuchikage looked to the fortress outpost and Kurotsuchi decided to press home the initiative while she still had it.

"You gave me orders to eliminate him, I can do that, or I can act suicidal, your choice."

Kurotsuchi saw Chiyome's lips twist into a cruel smile and she could guess what her amusement was at those words.

She pushed those thoughts out of her mind. "The search teams I've sent out are sweeping the south, east and west. She said, half bluffing, hoping Shingen had not had the time to be specific in where she'd sent the patrols. There were significant gaps in her search net. If Chiyome looked, she'd find them and she wouldn't buy her reasoning as Shingen had.

This woman was her enemy and she was just looking for an excuse.

Kurotsuchi was walking the very fine edge of not providing her with one alongside her defiance.

Chiyome looked at her, as a scientist might observe a rather interesting dissected specimen, an animal still alive and struggling to cling to life. Counting the seconds before it died.

It seems she had a few seconds longer still.

"What do you think?" She asked, turning her head.

For a moment, Kurotsuchi believed she was addressing Shingen, but as a thin, hooded figure emerged from between the ranks of Anbu, she realized the Tsuchikage was addressing him instead.

He wore a mask like other Anbu, but it was strange.

Orange and in a spiral.

"Uzumaki-san is south east." He answered in a jovial voice, almost sing song.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Chiyome turned her cold gaze onto Kurotsuchi again. "Gather your team-" She said, "-and take all the Chuunin you still have available to you in this camp. You don't have the luxury of failing again."

The warning was clear.

"With all due respect-" The daughter and granddaughter of the previous Iwa Kage hedged. "Your… advisor could be talking out of his ass, how do you know he's even there."

"Oh…" The spiral masked man giggled. "I know. I know-"

His voice dropped a pitch, the last word low and reverberating through his chest, and for the briefest instant… she felt fear.

Fear at whatever was hiding behind that mask, at whatever could have a voice like that.

Then the moment was gone, so fast she wondered if she could have imagined it all.

"Tobi knows. Because Tobi is a. Good. Boy"

(X)(X)(X)

"This is all that was sent?"

Kakashi's tone was as bored as ever, but anyone who knew him would be able to detect that, at the moment, he was anything but. His single eye passed over the scroll, his gaze sharp, searching.

The Chuunin assistant nodded, affirming. "That's all Hokage-sama"

Kakashi decided, in that moment, that it was a rather strange thing.

Receiving 'good news' and being utterly and completely aggravated by it.

His scouts, spies and recon outposts to the north east reported that Kumo was quiet… calm.

And that 'calm' was making him anything but.

They shouldn't be quiet.

They shouldn't be calm.

By all reports Kumo had drawn an exorbitant sum to support Iwa's war effort but their own anxiety and wish to destroy both Naruto and Itachi was a genuine one.

Now that Iwa was advancing so recklessly, heedlessly, in a way that would soon require damn near every available resource, now is when Kumo should be moving, harassing, threatening their flank, opening new theaters to stretch their forces to the breaking point. They wouldn't gamble to see which of their old enemies killed the other first to pick off the remains.

That's not what they wanted.

That's not what A wanted.

Kumo should be moving.

But they weren't.

Good news. And it was driving him mad.

He took a breath, slowing his mind. Forcing himself to think.

After a moment, he spoke

"Bring me all of the reports from the north eastern border from the last six months. He demanded.

"Six months Hokage-sama?" The chuunin balked.

"I didn't stutter." He didn't have the patience for hesitation or second guessing.

He might find something. Detect some pattern, some discrepancy. Month by month something can easily slip through the cracks, but when you take on the whole tapestry it might reveal a different sort of picture.

There had to be something. Something he wasn't seeing. Something he hadn't caught.

A wouldn't let this opportunity slip by.

Because Kakashi knew if the tables were turned he would go right for the throat.

(X)(X)(X)

"Thanks again girls! Don't do anything I wouldn't do this weekend!" Yuugao shouted after Hanabi and Akane, chuckling to herself as she shut the door.

The two were an odd pair of friends. But they played off of each other fairly well all things considered.

She shut the door quietly, taking a deep breath before turning and marching back to her apartment.

Sasame was sitting at the living room, reading a book.

Her 'daughter' was a Jounin's dream assignment. She was quiet, respectful, obedient. She didn't act out or worse, act spoiled.

But Yuugao was itching to get out of here, to be at the front where her skills could be put to use. To feel a blade in her hand again.

Domestic life had its charms certainly, and protecting the heiress to the Daimyo's court was an important duty, even so, she couldn't help but feel… idle… wasted.

She took a deep breath, forcing her mind and spirit to calm.

No use worrying about it.

She had a duty and it would not change just because she was complaining about it.

"Whadaya want to eat kiddo?" She asked, a distant part of her mind reminded her that Sasame was not, infact, her daughter but the future ruler of the whole state and that such informality was grossly disrespectful.

The other, larger part of her was quick to point out that if she had to stand on stiff formality of courtly gestures for months on end she'd likely go insane. That it helped with the cover story was a fringe benefit.

After all, what mother called her six year old daughter "sama"?

When she received no answer to her question, Uzuki looked up, finding the little girl's brow furrowed, her mind clearly deep in thought. Her hands were at her lap and the woman could see her fingers beginning to clench subconsciously, not quite fists but far from relaxed.

Yuugao raised an eyebrow marching past the kitchen countertop towards the living room, still Sasame didn't react. It wasn't until Yuugao's fingers flicked at her forehead did she move..

Blinking rapidly as though completely startled at both Yuugao's presence and her proximity the young Monarch stared up stupidly towards her from where she sat.

"Somethin up?" It wasn't really a question, more a demand.

Quickly, too quickly, the little girl shook her head. "No. I'm fine."

Yuugao's eyebrow rose. Her look clearly stating her opinion of that answer.

Sasame fidgeted where she sat, her eyes trailing down to the floor.

Finally-

"I want friends."

That made the Jounin pause.

What?

"You have them?" She ventured hesitantly.

"Real friends." The girl insisted before looking back up at her. "Not ones you pay for."

Oh.

Oooohhh.

She smiled, despite herself. "I can't pay someone to be your friend Sasame."

"You're paid to be my mother!" The girl protested.

Yuugao froze.

Well hadn't this escalated remarkably quickly?

"Woah woah, hold on." She mentally and verbally backpedaled, clearly she'd wandered into something of a minefield without ever realizing one had even been under construction.

No one put up a sign.

Stepping around the girl to sit beside her on the couch she looked at the bashful future ruler, finding the girl's features downtrodden and depressed.

"I am 'paid' to 'protect' you. No one can 'pay' me to be a mother and I pay Akane and Hanabi to help me around the house with certain things since I can't keep you safe if I'm not with you. I don't pay them to be your friends. If they're friendly towards you it's because they like you, not because I'm paying them to.

The child seemed to frown in thought. "Are we friends then?"

Yuugao shrugged. "If you want them to be."

"Do they want to?"

"Ask them when they come by next time."

Sasame turned, looking at her with an intensity in that moment that caught her off guard.

"Then could you be my mother?"

And Yuugao realized she'd stepped squarely into it.

The Anbu known as Neko all but choked, scrambling for anything to say.

"You don't want me for a mother." She finally decided.

"Why not?" The girlchild asked.

In that moment Yuugao realized that this assignment carried significantly greater danger than she'd realized for her charge.

Not physically, but clearly emotionally.

Sasame's mother had died at childbirth, Koutou-sama not long before the girl could walk. She'd been surrounded all her life by servants and courtiers but no family, her cousin, Kotaro was the closest thing and he was a military man through and through. He had proven himself dutiful in his efforts to keep her safe but those efforts had isolated the girl, surrounded by a chasm of distance and station.

She was asking Yuugao, because Yuugao was the only thing that had come close to crossing that distance and it was by sheer innocence, or ignorance that the girl didn't understand that Yuugao fell woefully short of an actual mother.

Suddenly, she felt immensely sorry for the princess.

"You'll understand when you're older." She hedged.

It was not a satisfactory answer, Sasame's features scrunched up with a petulant anger.

"I could order you!" She exclaimed.

Yuugao raised an eyebrow, it was a threat. Not exactly a very… fear inducing threat but a threat nonetheless and it was rather sad that the girl felt she had to resort to it to get a 'mother'.

"You didn't want to pay for friends." She answered slowly, carefully. "You wouldn't want to order someone to be a mother either."

The girl's face fell. And the child looked so miserable Yuugao's heart went out to her.

There was no apology, the princess of the fire daimyo's court did not apologise. But that was alright for now.

"Come on." She urged gently. "Let me make you something to eat."

(X)(X)(X)

The rains fell heavy.

They always fell, a tempest of the elements that lashed down on them like knives.

Konan liked the rain, she liked the storms, the call of the wind, the cold kiss of the water on her cheek, the hissing noise that could lull her to sleep on even the most troubled of nights.

But this… this felt different. Heavy. Oppressive. The waters had lost their near pearlescent, crystal gleam, and now looked dark and oily to her eyes.

Are you trying to warn me? She wondered, looking to the skies above, even as the streets below teemed with activity and movement.

It had been years, decades even since the ruined crush of metal called the city of Amegakure had seen so much activity, so much movement. The flow and press of bodies disturbing the ever cascading waters of the rains.

The first wave of their attack group would be leaving today a task force of many soldiers from many of the smaller villages and countries banded together in a show of solidarity.

Scouts and pathfinders more than anything else really, but the symbolism of the gesture was necessary, indeed, critical at this juncture.

This confederacy was something she was barely holding together with bare wire, hatred and fear. Hatred of Konoha, the Mokuton, the Sharingan fear of both them… and her.

She was the 'angel' of Amegakure, the one that could strike them down when she descended from the skies above like the heavenly wrath of the god himself.

Hers were a superstitious lot. It worked in her favor. She'd learned to make it work in her favor.

The other villages were not quite so naive, but they were simple. A promise here, a threat there, some blackmail elsewhere, or a leg up in some petty conflict they wished to swing in their favor all of their squabbles were predictable, small things for small people

She could twist them, bend them, but no matter what a unity born of hatred is a… fragile alliance- at best.

And so this gesture, this… moment, was critical. Necessary. If it was a success or at least, not a disaster it could give them momentum, give the soldiers constantly looking behind them for a knife in the back that bit of confidence and trust needed to focus on the enemy in front of them and the one in front of them only, at least for as long as they needed to.

Konoha.

Little else beside the end goal mattered.

She'd made a promise after all.

And so she watched, perused and made certain.

She'd vetted the assigned teams personally on at least three occasions, her own right hand man, Koba would have overall command, many of her more experienced lieutenants and guard with him. They knew her will and would be the steel in the discipline needed to hold this lot unified.

Her own protection would be diminished with them gone, but she could manage for the time needed.

She caught sight of Koba, the boy was younger than her by nearly half a decade, infatuated.

Foolish boy.

It worked for her though.

She'd learned to make it work for her.

Still, he was competent, and above all trustworthy. He threw a nod in her direction, she responded in kind.

She watched. She observed and oversaw.

As the battlegroup assembled to leave at long last, Someone approached at her back.

"Konan-sama. We need you."

"What's wrong."

"Taki." The man said, one of Ame's few Jounin who deserved the rank. "We cannot find Horoki-san."

Konan's eyes narrowed.

Horoki was one of the lynchpins holding Takigakure to this coalition and many knew it…

Not good.

She needed him alive.

She turned and left

Perhaps, if she would have stayed, she would have caught sight of the beggar at the gates, garbed in rags, hunched and kneeling on useless legs, a beggar who watched each of the men as they left, pleading for scraps of food or bits of coin, looking at the passersby with blind, milky eyes.

Perhaps she would have noted the first signs, the first glimmers of what was to come.

As it stood, she did not.

What she would discover just an three hours later however was Horoki's body, cold and lifeless, his throat slit from ear to ear and stuffed in a closet of a Kusa Jounin whom had just left with the first battlegroup long after the victim's death

And suddenly, as the rains fell harder, Konan realized with clarity that she had been right.

This moment was critical.

She'd just been wrong on how true that statement was.

(X)(X)(X)

Far to the north of Amegakure, in the woods of Konoha now, Naruto and the remains of the outpost moved as quickly as they could mannage.

Before the scouts returned, before a single Jutsu or kunai rent the air and found a victim, the Uzumaki felt himself stop mid step, hesitating for a moment in his movement.

Kyofu noticed instantly. "What's wrong?"

His blue eyes panned towards the canopy of leaves above.

"They've caught up."

(X)(X)(X)

I am still working on Souls of Heroes Final chapter, its slow going but inch by inch nearing completion. It will be done! And then I can finish this fic in turn.

Lots of set up here, fun things will be happening next chapter :)