"What do you mean I have to be stealthy?" Toph complained, hand to her cheek, her elbow on a rail and her face turned away from where Sasori stood. The ship was made out of wood rather than metal like those wonderful Fire Nation ones, so she couldn't be totally sure. "Aren't you supposed to be the sneaky one?"
Sasori sighed. "As much as we both dislike it, you are my temporary partner, and if Kisame or Leader-sama find out that I didn't involve you and rather stashed you while I took care of the whole thing by myself, they'll get mad."
▪︎▪︎▪︎
"Shhh," Toph flung a hand in front of Sasori's ungrateful face. "There's someone coming."
While Sasori looked down at her like Aang looked at meat (displeasure and mild disgust), even he'd had to admit that she was a pretty amazing sensor. After she'd told him the precise locations of several ants, birds, and one buried corpse, he'd bowed to her superiority and allowed her to sense ahead of them.
"Who is it?" Sasori hissed.
Toph rubbed one foot on the dirt. "He's tall. Wearing armor or something heavy. He's making the plants wilt."
Sasori huffed. "I can take him."
"Wasn't the whole point of this mission subtlety?"
There was a short silence while Sasori tried to come up with a good retort that wouldn't make him sound like a total hypocrite.
"You need to learn subtlety. I already know it." Sasori cocked his head arrogantly.
Toph blinked. "Please, show me. I learn best by example."
"You're blind!"
"And he's coming!"
Sasori shoved Toph into the bushes and slid in besides her a second later. There was some muffled shoving and poking before the two of them lapsed into silence.
The heavy footfalls continued follow the path Toph and Sasori had been traipsing, none the wiser for the two of them. A few moments later he was passing by the bushes they were hiding in, armored footfalls almost shaking the ground.
Besides her, Sasori twitched.
"What?" Toph hissed as soon as the man was far enough away that they wouldn't be overheard.
"He's an Akatsuki target," Sasori whispered back, obviously tracking the man as he walked down the dirt road. "If I had my puppets-"
"What'd he do?" Toph asked, interest renewed.
"There's a monster inside him," Sasori began, then cut himself off sharply. "Not that you need to know any of this. You're not important enough."
"Excuse me?" Toph asked, dropping the stealth pretense and turning so her face was in his. "I'm not what?"
The lumbering footsteps paused.
"Shut up!"
"No, explain to me exactly what you meant when you said I wasn't important enough!"
Sasori tried desperately to stifle her noise. "No one who isn't an Akatsuki member could handle this guy, much less one without any chakra control whatsoever!"
Toph paused at that.
The second he removed his nasty wood-tasting hand from her mouth she rolled out of the bushes.
"Brat!" Sasori whisper-screamed after her.
Toph dusted herself off and sent what she hoped was a winning smile at the armored guy. "Hello there. My name is Toph Bei Fong. Care to fight?"
"...Excuse me?"
Armored guy had a deep, soft voice. He was also very clearly staring at her in incredulity.
Toph drew her sword. "I'm going to attack you whether you say yes or no, but I would like to know who I am gracing with the honor of being beaten up by me."
"Um. I'm called Han. Han of Iwa. Why do you want to attack me?"
A grin grew over her face. "Because someone very annoying said I couldn't beat you."
She charged.
She battered at his armor with USS II for about two minutes before deciding that it wasn't working and falling back a couple of steps.
"Giving up?" Han asked politely. He didn't even sound winded.
"Nah," Toph decided, sheathing her sword in a single neat move.
She reached up, arms falling into a familiar position and she grounded her stance and reached for the earth.
▪︎▪︎▪︎
Toph couldn't see why this dude was such a big deal. He wouldn't even take her seriously, despite the crazy attacks she was throwing his way.
She dodged a half-hearted blast of steam and retaliated, throwing up a spike of earth. He hopped to the side, easily dodging it.
"How are you doing that?" He asked her, voice rumbly and deep. "Where are all your handsigns?"
"Why does everyone always ask that?" Toph threw up her hands. "It's Earthbending, not any earth jutsus or kekkei genkai or whatever else you think it is."
"It's not?" He asked.
"No," Toph twisted her foot and lunged forwards, breaking the ground beneath him into a giant canyon. "This is all me!"
"Whoah!" He tried to leap back, but he couldn't get any footing and fell in. Quick as a vipereel Toph twisted the ground shut, leaving him stuck in the earth with only his head showing.
"Ha ha!" Toph pumped her fist in triumph. "Take that, sucker! See, Sasori! I'm totally tough enough to take on anyone."
"Why me though?" The guy asked pathetically. "Why couldn't you have proved your toughness on someone else?"
Sasori emerged from a new bush with a look of shock plastered all over his face. "What the he-"
"Sorry," Toph apologized to the steam guy. "Sasori said I couldn't beat you so I had to prove him wrong, of course!"
"Kami-sama," Sasori swore quietly. "I can't believe it. You actually-"
"I know something about that, yes," the steam guy agreed.
"This is- this is great! Toph-kun, you actually managed to-"
"Thanks for being understanding," Toph chirped.
"We have to tell Leader-sama!" Sasori ran his hands through his hair.
"Could you let me up now?" The guy asked, politely. "I think you proved your point."
"Yeah, I think I did," Toph hopped up to him and extended a hand, prying open the ground with her feet. The steam guy took her hand gratefully and clambered out of the ground.
"Toph. Toph-kun. What are you doing?" Sasori asked.
"Thanks for helping me prove my point!" Toph straightened and brushed the dirt off her wrinkled half-kimono. Steam guy did the same, but with markedly less success.
He laughed. "You really had me worried there! I was really stuck!"
"You put up a hard fight!" Toph chirped, straight-faced. "Train harder and maybe one day you'll get stronger!"
"I will take your words to heart, fair lady!" Steam guy said.
They both bowed to each other.
"What is happening?" Sasori asked.
"Good luck on your travels!" Toph waved to the guy as he continued on his way, trailing dirt.
"And to you!" Steam guy replied.
Toph laughed and turned back to Sasori. "What were you saying?"
Sasori stared at her like she'd killed and eaten his pet right in front of him.
"That was Han of Iwa," Sasori said faintly. "Jinchurriki of the Gobi. You had him and you just let him go."
"We were just playing around," Toph admitted. "No bad feelings and all that."
Sasori grabbed her arm. "You need to have a talk with Leader-sama. Now."
"Now? But we're almost there!"
"I don't care."
▪︎▪︎▪︎
The talk with Leader-sama turned out to be rather pointless. It mostly consisted of the dead man himself telling her that she sould have captured Han and held him there until more Akatsuki members came and got him.
She tried telling him that Han was nice, and that they were just messing around. He'd let her nab him, and probably could have busted out of the ground by himself.
They didn't listen.
Kisame-sensei and Itachi showed up near the end of Leader-sama's lecture. At the sight of them it became the end of the lecture, and the dead man turned to the two of them.
"Mission report," Leader-sama demanded.
Kisame-sensei shot Toph a Look.
"Bei Fong, out." Leader-sama obliging ordered.
"But-!" Toph began, but Sasori elbowed her in the kidney and she fell silent.
"Listen to what he says," Sasori hissed. "Get."
So Toph threw up her hands and stomped out.
She made sure to be very loud as she went; not quite shaking the mountain, but her passing was extremely noticeable. She stormed away like an angry hurricane-
And then she snuck back with every bit of stealth Sasori had just spent the week teaching her.
Toph crept up the side of a wall, moved apart the stones with a softness she had never used before, and listened.
Kisame-sensei was telling Leader-sama about the mission he and Itachi had been on. It was a boring escort mission, and as he droned on about the weather and bandits and such, Toph wondered why she'd been sent away.
She was starting to get dizzy by the time Itachi mentioned that they'd run into a Jinchurriki (?).
A what?
"-the Jinchurriki of the Nine-Tails. We engaged but determined to leave it with Konoha until we were more ready for the extraction. We did find out the name of it's current human container, however; Naruto Uzumaki." Itachi said in an almost listless tone.
Toph almost fell off the wall. Naruto? Her Naruto?
Sunshine?
Instead, she pressed her palms flat against the stone and continued listening.
"You should have brought him back to base," Leader-sama said, tone slightly scolding. "He's in the guise of a kid. He wasn't about to tap into the power of his bijju any time soon. We could have held him until the other eight were finished with."
"That would have brought unnecessary attention to us fron Konoha," Kisame-sensei argued. "It would have spread the word that somebody was hunting bijju, and then you know how many we could have gotten? Zero. No sane country would leave its favorite toy out to get stolen."
Toph leaned a bit closer.
"Besides," here Kisame paused. "He was just a kid."
Cold fingers fisted in the top of her kimono, dragging her off the wall and throwing her to the floor. Toph almost yelped, but managed to squish the noise down. She landed lightly, but didn't turn back around.
Tobi's familiar presence touched down besides her.
"Naruto Uzumaki," Toph said, sounding his name out syllable by syllable. "Huh. I always just called him Sunshine."
"We should take this somewhere else," Tobi told her. For once, his voice sounded deep and serious; none of that high-pitched squealing he seemed so fond of.
Toph cocked her head arrogantly. "That's fine with me."
He grabbed her arm and they swirled into nothingness.
▪︎▪︎▪︎
Danzo knelt on the floor at Tsunade's feet, beaten and bloody, missing a few more things than he had been when last she saw him. Her loyal ANBU (now considerably fewer than they had been when she sent them off), most of the clan heads and their best shinobi, and a few of the more powerful Jonin circled them.
"Well, well, well," Tsunade mused. "What have we here?"
"I demand that you let me go," Danzo tried to sit up, a fact that was made difficult by his multiple stab wounds and lack of both arms.
Tsunade hummed. "No."
"This is against Konoha law!" The elder seethed, glaring daggers at her with his one remaining eye. The other had been burned out of his skull, a good half of his face and most of his ear gone with it.
"So is kidnapping and training those stolen children to be your own personal army," Tsunade retorted. "So is ordering the massacre of an entire shinobi clan. The law never stopped you. Why should it stop me?"
Behind her, Tsume rumbled a growl.
"Us," Tsunade corrected herself. "Why should it stop us?"
Danzo fell silent.
"You'll be pleased to know we're already dismantling your army," Tsunade gave the old man a soft smile. "All the children you took will be returned to their families. Those who have no families will be taken in and looked after by the village for the rest of their lives. We owe them that much at least, for failing them so badly."
"I want a trial," Danzo hissed.
Tsunade didn't pause. "No."
"This is against the law," Danzo repeated. "The council will have your head for this."
"There's a nifty little law in the Ruling Clan Head Laws," Tsunade remarked, idly. "If a clan member is ordered to be executed by over half the current clan heads, that individual can be killed without a trial."
"I'm not a clan member," Danzo tried to squeeze through the first loophole he could see.
Tsunade was having none of it.
"What did Danzo have in his possession, Lord Hyuuga?" She asked, watching the elder's face.
"Sharingan, Hokage-sama."
"Who are the only shinobi that have sharingan?" Tsunade asked.
"The Uchiha," Inoichi growled, sounding a lot like Tsume. "So, either one of his parents was an Uchiha, or he committed the grave crime of dojutsu theft."
"I suppose the Sharingan's presence could be explained away as gifts from dying family members," Tsunade rambled. "But it's unlikely."
"It's impossible," Hiashi hissed. "No dojutsu wielder would ever give up their eyes."
"See, Danzo," Tsunade leaned in a little closer. "I can't have you executed on kidnapping charges. I can't kill you because of ROOT alone, but those eyes? Those eyes were your death. They marked you a clan shinobi, and the clans? They want to piss on your grave."
She stood up. Held out a hand. "A sword, please."
The rasps of dozens of tantos drawn echoed throughout the room. Tsunade took the first one offered her.
"Are there any opposed?" She asked.
It was a formality. Every clan head in that room kept their silence.
She pointed the blade at the man. "Any final words?"
His face twisted into a sneer. "You'll regret this. All of you will."
"No," Tsunade said. "No. We won't."
She swung.
▪︎▪︎▪︎
They appeared back somewhere deep in the mountain. The air felt almost damp and chilled her skin through the silk of her robes.
Toph shoved him off and took a step back, hand going to the hilt of her sword.
"Now that we're in private, Tau-chan can tell Tobi what she heard!" Tobi laughed. "Even though she super wasn't supposed to!"
Bristling, Toph backed slightly away. Her toes dug into the stone as she took a deep breath and let her face fall to careful blankness.
"You went after Sunshine?!" She asked, slow and steady. Calm.
Not for long, though.
"Yup. He has the Kyuubi sealed inside of him. That makes him a monster." Tobi tilted his head at her. "What's wrong with killing a monster?"
Toph remembered broken glass, hotels that wouldn't even consider letting him in, intruders smashing up his home.
"That's why I want to be Hokage. So that everyone in the village will finally respect me!"
"You're right. Most people consider Naruto a monster." She rolled up the long sleeves of her kimono, leaving her arms bare but for the black vambraces. "But you're also wrong.
"Sunshine is warm and kind. There are ordinary people who are crueler and less humane than he is." The cloak was tossed aside in a swift motion. "Which is why I refuse to let you hurt him."
And then she charged.
▪︎▪︎▪︎
"Sakura, what are you doing?"
Sakura looked over at her sensei.
"Something's wrong. Something bad's happening," Sakura touched her face and found it wet with tears.
"Nothing will ever be the same."
▪︎▪︎▪︎
Tobi was forced back as she lashed out, not with Earthbending, but with the sword Kisame had given her. She swiped coolly at him, her attacks far more vicious than they had been when she had fought him the first time.
"I won't let you hurt him!" She shouted.
"Wait wait! Tau-chan! Stop!" Tobi yelped. "You don't know what you're doing!"
She transitioned smoothly into a mix of Earthbending and taijutsu. He blocked her hits but dodged her bending. Tobi caught her high kick easily, but she smashed a fist into his arm and he was suddently not there anymore.
Toph slid her foot across the ground, but she couldn't sense him at all. It was like he had disappeared. Again.
Such a cowardly way to fight!
"Come out, wimp." Toph pulled her arms up into her usual stance, waiting for the slightest touch, the tiniest noise. "While I'm still asking nicely."
"That was nicely?"
She froze. His voice had completely changed, now a deep, bitter tone. She could hear the rage and hatred in it from fifteen feet away. Something had changed in his mindset, and Toph suddenly remembered how calm and cool he was during every fight.
"Ran brought me a traitor, a trap," Tobi mused. "You're a detriment to my plans. You have to go."
Toph felt a cold chill run down her back. He meant it. Every word.
When he said he was going to kill her, he was.
She needed to get away now.
She pried the ground open using nothing but her toes and vanished down, into the dark.
He followed.
"Oh, Tau-chan," he called, and she shuddered. His nickname sounded like a promise of something cold and harsh and inevitable. "Come out, come out wherever you are..."
He landed on the ground, solid once more, and she struck, slamming a fist to the ground and sending a rockalanche thundering at him. Without waiting to see whether or not it had worked, Toph was off, running with newfound strength.
It was happening again.
Only this time her pursuer was trying to kill her.
Toph gritted her teeth and took a wild turn, fleeing towards where she knew there was a huge cavern. She had never been allowed inside, but she hoped there was somewhere she could hide.
At least until Kisame came back.
No.
It had been the same with Kakashi. She didn't know where his loyalty fell, and if it was not with her, he'd kill her.
Toph couldn't take that risk.
"Tau-chan..."
She clawed at the rock wall in front of her. It let her pass, but slowly, oh so slowly, and he was catching up!
She sealed the wall behind her and skidded into the cavernous space.
It was empty.
There were no nooks or crannies to conceal herself in, nothing to hide behind. The only thing in the entire room was a giant statue.
"The Gedo Mazo," Tobi said suddenly from behind her. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
Toph spun around, hands out but still shaking slightly. "I c-couldn't say."
"No. I suppose you couldn't." He was suddenly far, far too close. His voice sounded from right besides her.
Toph tried to move, to get away, but his hands were suddenly on her neck, she was suddenly in the air and she couldn't feel anything-
"If I kill you here," he mused quietly. "Your corpse will raise all kinds of questions. What do you say we take this elsewhere?"
She gagged, trying to get air, trying to breathe...
"Oh right," he laughed, a cruel, harsh laugh that Toph heard only distantly. "You can't say."
And then they were in the warp space where they had been when he first kidnapped her. They were falling and she felt the pinpricks again and she reached and reached.
And reached.
And this time, she grasped one.
Hello!! It's me!!
So, this is kind of the end?? Like, I have two epilogues for the ending and you can choose which one you want to read. You can even read them both. I'm not going to go into detail about what happens in which, just know that in one of them, Toph returns to her own universe and makes waves, and in the other, she stays in the Naruto Verse and makes waves.
Why is there two?? Because I'm petty and indecisive and had fun writing them both!!
So, yeah. Thank you for reading!! Hope you enjoyed!!
Bye!!
(Also, to my ShikaToph shippers....
....sorry)