“I did request that you bring no strangers to our realm when I agreed to allow you to hide here, Jiriaya. But I suppose circumstances necessitate me to be flexible,” Fukasaku said, voice low and disapproving, though whether that was aimed at he and Jiraiya, or the bound figure at their feet, Naruto couldn’t quite tell.
Either way, Jiraiya dipped his head in acceptance of the chastisement. “I can only apologise, Fukasaku-sama. The situation–”
“Oh, please, gaki. Don’t you ‘situation’ us,” Fukasaku’s wife, Shima snorted. “You and I both know that if things were so dire you weren’t able to summon us to ask permission, you would have required the use of Sage Mode. You simply knew we would have told you ‘no’ had you asked first.”
Fukusaku and Shima glared in the silence that fell after. The two were the Great Sage Toads, the leaders of their clan of summons, and in the humid jungles of Mt Myoboku, their word was law.
Naruto kept his face schooled in one of deference. He’d come to greatly respect both of the two toads in his time here. Despite barely reaching his knees in height, the two elder toads were fearsome fighters and masters of Sage Mode, and they had taken him under their wing since Konoha’s fall.
Jiraiya, on the other hand, couldn’t help the smirk the bloomed on his face. “Well, I wasn’t wrong now, was I? We needed to secure him for interrogation, and Mt Myoboku is as secure as it gets. We’re not putting your lands in danger—this one’s just a tadpole.”
Fukasaku shook his head ruefully. “Even a tadpole will consume its brothers and sisters in the spawning pool, especially when desperate. And this is one of Danzou’s. There’s not a harmless one among them.”
Naruto looked down, and the impassive grey of Shimura Sai’s eyes met his own. He had to resist the urge to shiver. Even bound, outnumbered and outclassed, his expression was one of consummate, effortless calm. Every glance was one that was weighing his opponents and surroundings, analysing and probing for weaknesses.
The boy had given him the creeps when he’d first joined Team 7, and two and a half years of life under Danzou’s rule had not eased the feeling.
“I will take full responsibility should things go wrong, Fukasaku-sama,” Jiraiya said, his voice unusually earnest.
Fukasaku regarded him for a moment, before finally inclining his head, and Jiraiya turned to Sai.
“Now then, Root brat, why don’t you tell me why you allowed yourself to be captured? What does Danzou want?”
Naruto blinked, but was distracted from the small, unsettling smile that bloomed on Sai’s face.
“Good,” the boy said, almost happily. “I am glad I do not have to waste valuable time convincing you of that.”
“You let yourself be beaten?” Naruto asked quickly unable to help himself.
“Not exactly,” Sai said, turning that unnerving smile upon Naruto. “I am not at a level required to best you in combat. My orders were of a different nature. I simply leveraged what I know of you as a person—that you would not respond with lethal force if I did not provoke you with it—to ensure I would be taken alive, rather than killed.”
“And those orders are?” Jiraiya probed.
Sai simply smiled and stuck out his tongue.
“Check it, Naruto.”
Naruto nodded at his sensei’s request and knelt down before the captive shinobi to examine the strange black markings upon his tongue. Three solid lines, and two broken. A hexagrammic sealing jutsu that all the Root shinobi they’d taken alive had upon them.
“Zekka Konzetsu no In (Cursed Tongue Eradication),” Naruto said. “Just like all the others.”
Sai shrugged. “Naturally. It will prevent me from actually telling you any of my orders, or divulging any useful information about Hokage-sama or his plans I may have to aid your cause.”
“Then why even come at all?” Naruto asked, frowning.
“Just because I can’t be direct, does not mean I cannot set you along the path. In truth, I have come to say two things: Firstly, Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura send their regards, and wish for me to tell you both that they remain loyal to the true Konoha. Kakashi-sensei is rarely able to arrange a circumstance where we can pass on intel. The chance to bring their willingness to do so to perhaps the most infamous spymaster of this era was too good to pass up. I have upon my person several storage seals in which I allow my team-mates to store whatever they deem necessary. Who can say what they have placed within?”
Naruto’s lips quirked into a smile. “Clever. You know, Sai, I never knew what to make of you when I first met you. But from this conversation, I think I like you.”
“I didn’t know you were gay, Naruto-san,” Sai said, face unblinking. “I regret to inform you that I don’t swing that way.”
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Naruto felt warmth flood his face and his jaw drop, whilst Jiraiya howled with laughter, and Naruto, after a moment, joined him. Two years ago, he might have been outraged at the suggestion, but now he recognised the intent behind the joke, or at least Sai’s reason for making it. An ill-judged, pale imitation of comradely banter was as close as Sai could get to an offer of friendship after everything Root had done to him.
When things calmed, Jiraiya knelt down to Sai’s level and helped him up against a tree, so he could sit more comfortably. “Have you told us everything you’re able?”
Sai’s blank expression fell into an unconvincing frown. “I believe so. The seal is thorough, I do have a question for Naruto, however.”
Naruto’s head tilted, and he nodded for Sai to continue.
“Having been in Root for such a long time, I am privy to a lot of information that other’s aren’t. Such as your encounter with Hokage-sama while on a mission two years ago.”
Naruto instinctively clutched at where the older man had stabbed him back then, a wound now fully healed by the Kyuubi’s chakra. “What of it?”
“I just wondered how well it had healed? It seems so unlike Danzou-sama to do pointless things…”
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Subaku no Gaara had rarely noticed the heat of the desert in his time living in Sunagakure. A lifetime of acclimatisation, the Ichibi and near constant insomnia had seen to that. It was odd then, that he should miss it so now.
He found it ever more peculiar, the longer he had been away from home, just how much he missed the place that had essentially doomed him to a life of abject misery and isolation. But he did. He missed the pale yellow stone of the buildings, and the way them sand-laden breeze whispered through empty alleys, and how when he sat beside his window and listened to the children playing, he could imagine that he had been one of them once.
He missed the days when all of those things were not tainted in his mind with the smell of ash and burned flesh. Missed being able to picture the sands not clogged crimson, or the streets not littered with bodies.
More than anything, he missed the feeling of walking just about anywhere in the village flanked by each of his siblings. He hadn’t recognised their love, hadn’t appreciated it.
Now it was too late.
Rain beat against the thin dome of sand trickling from his gourd, even as thick mists swirled around him, making vision all but futile. This was fine. His concentration lay on the fine dusting of sand that lay in a several hundred metre circle around their camp. He could feel the vibrations of everything that touched them. Each fallen branch and every animal’s footfall, no matter how slight. Every enemy, too.
Any that tried to come close would find the earth beneath this entire thicket-lined forest clearing had been ground down to fine particles, and added to his arsenal. This was his domain, and nothing would set foot here without his permission without discovering just why Subaku no Gaara was so feared.
Today, at least, there was no threat. Gaara did not exactly relax—he never did—but he did allow his attentions to shift from the perimeter to their encampment. Dozens of tents, tattered and hastily assembled stood erected besides waterlogged fires. The Land of Lightning’s climate had not been kind to them, but their hunters were loathe to cross the border, and they had been given little choice.
Danzou’s hunters had been relentless in their attempts to wipe his people from existence.
As he slowly walked into camp, the silence struck him, just as it always did. These people would have never been this silent at home—talk, bickering, laughter, weeping. All the sounds that humans made, that he had once found so detestable, he now longed to hear again. But just as Konoha’s vicious retaliation had changed him, it too had changed what was left of Sunagakure’s populace, perhaps irreversibly.
“Gaara-sama?” A half-whispered, timid voice called. The source was a small mouse-haired Genin, who spoke to him with head bowed.
“There is no presence I can feel, Matsuri. Signal the others they’re welcome to continue their work.”
She breathed a sigh of relief and nodded, before bring her hands to her mouth, and whistling out a bird call.
It would be a lie to say the camp burst into life. Slowly, tentatively, what was left of Sunagakure crawled out of tents, and began to shuffle around after their menial tasks. In the same way, shinobi crawled out of hiding spaces prepared for ambushes. Of these last remnants, only the shinobi met his eyes, offering respectful, borderline reverent nods and salutes as they went on their way.
That had been one of the other changes since the massacre. People looked at him differently now. During the retreat, it had been Gaara that had held the line, aided by a surprisingly willing Shukaku. He’d been able to fully transform and control his demon’s power, and leveraged it against the Konoha shinobi with savage efficiency.
Even now, he couldn’t pinpoint why he’d done it. He’d certainly never felt any love or affection for his people, but something had changed in him. Gaara hadn’t been able to watch his countryman slaughtered in their own home, not without a fight.
And so he’d fought. Fought like the demon they’d all accused him of being. He’d killed and torn and crushed until he was certain there were no more to be saved. It was only after that he realised he’d done so without feeling any of the joy he used to feel when killing.
Instead, it had come in weeks and months after. Having led what few, broken remnants he could clear of danger, he taken them on the run, holding back with what few shinobi that could still fight, all of the forces Konoha’s murderous new Hokage could send.
Before long, the fear in the eyes of Suna’s people that had so long haunted him had disappeared, replaced by an entirely new emotion that made him feel dizzy when he thought about it. Respect. Acknowledgment. Gratitude.
Slowly but surely, they found the bravery to approach him in their downtime. Only ever quiet words. Brief. Cautious. Thank you for saving my son. You are the only reason my family made it out. My sister is alive because of you. I’m sorry.
He treasured every syllable.
“What do you think it is that you sense?” came Matsuri’s voice again. She was still stood beside him, now following his gaze, trying to see whatever she thought he could see out in the mist.
“I’m likely just being over cautious,” Gaara said, the lie slipping easily from his lips. No reason to cause a panic. They were all scared enough as it was. “Have you seen my sister?”
“Hunting the last I heard, would you like me to find her for you?”
“Please.”
Mitsuri inclined her head and scurried off to find Temari.
Gaara sighed. They would not, he suspected, have made it far without Mitsuri’s ability to organise and corral people on Gaara’s behalf, as well as support him with managing their confusing emotional needs. She was only a Chunin, but had already proved herself to be crucial to what was left of their village.
She was prone to panic, though. Gaara supposed she lacked the assured calm that only came with experience. Therefore, Gaara couldn’t afford to let her or the civilians hear what he was now certain of—not until it was absolutely necessary.
They were being hunted.