(Day two. Five days left)
This time it was Naruko's turn to cover her brother protectively. The tears on her cheeks had dried up but still left a visible track down her dust and grime covered face. The girl had her arms wrapped around her older twins form as he lay on her abdomen, shivering like a leaf in a storm and his skin a motely grey colour with splashes of green under his eyes and on his fingernails. The boy was curled up in himself, his eyes painfully wrenched shut and shaking like he was in the middle of a terrible blizzard. The female twin sobbed and hugged her brother closer but didn't get any movement in reply.
Like she was trying to warm up a vibrating statue.
Today had just been Naruto's turn. Their godfather had drawn a Nature Funnelling seal in the middle of his back, a seal that had nature chakra in the nearest vicinity pass through him, wreck their havoc because he wasn't a sage and leave at his fingertips and toes, which was why they were green. The effect of this was the colour leaving the six year old boys skin, turning it an unhealthy, sickening shade of grey due to the dangerous natural chakra taking more than they could ever give him.
Orochimaru had placed him in a coffin six feet in the ground in the middle of a lush meadow in grass country, a haven for natural chakra if there ever was one. The worst part was that however violently the natural chakra ripped apart his chakra system and his nervous system the Kyuubi chakra in him found a way to fix it, though always depleting the infinitesimally small resources in the little boy's body. The sadistic snake man had said that the natural chakra would rip apart their nerve endings and conditioned Naruto to never feel pain again. He still had three more weeks of the same torture scheduled and their godfather looked forward to each and every day.
For now the seal had been removed but would be re-administered by sunrise.
Naruko sniffed and rocked back and forth, her dirty brown dress rustling and the chains connected to suppression collars around their necks clinked and clanked against themselves. The slave area was deathly silent as those near their caves watched the little girl with mournful eyes try to rock her shaking brother to sleep. The little red haired girl swallowed and tried humming a song she could barely remember, something from a memory she didn't remember ever happening, but it came out broken and tearful. Naruko stopped trying and merely tightened her hold on her brother as a Sound ninja passed by, baring her teeth at the wide smile he sent her before he left.
Naruto's shaking didn't lessen. He coughed weakly and his feet forced his body to shuffle closer to the tiny speck of warmth, about the same size as him, but his immobile arms could not move to wrap around the source to comfort her. Naruko felt this and a fresh wave of tears began falling down her large, bright purple eyes.
"Sis…are you there…?" he couldn't feel much under his body but the familiar warmth that wrapped around to caress his dying body. His nervous system was pretty much dead but the Kyuubi chakra was fixing it all up again.
The female twin bobbed her hair and gently rubbed her brothers back. "I'm here, bro."
The male red head heaved in a deep breathe, trying and failing to fight the terrible shaking of his body. "Do…do…do you think mother will…love…us?" it was a great mystery the twins had been hoping to crack one day. Their father hated the very air they breathed, but they never once knew the presence of a mother or their mother. Minato never once mentioned her without saying that they were the reason she was where she was. They didn't know Kushina had lost her mind after losing the Kyuubi, but they were still children.
How could they know that when it was never said to them?
They still hoped and hoped and hoped that they would have at least one person in the world that would love them. During their time in Konoha the siblings never went out of their way to make friends because the people gave them a wide berth. Love was a foreign term for them that they only knew for each other.
Naruko ran her fingers through her brother's dirt speckled hair. "I love you, bro."
Her lips twitched up when Naruto's body heaved a little despite the trembling, and a tight, light giggle tinkered out of his lips before it stopped with a tired cough. "I know sis, but…but…but…mother…" his green fingers flexed and grabbed the clothes around her knees, clenching and unclenching like they were spasming. "What…what of…mother?"
The red haired girl didn't want to disappoint her brother by telling him that she didn't know. There were days that the truth needed to be said even if it would possibly drop them from their high but at the moment the only thing Naruko knew was giving her brother as much love as possible. That meant telling him what he wanted to hear. "Yes, bro. Mother will love us."
Naruto smiled into his knees, still grasping her clothes for dear life. His eyelids became heavy as her gentle fingers travelled through his hair. "Thanks…sis…"
"Don't forget bro," Naruko started as she shuffled to the ground, wrapping her thin arms around his form and pulling his head to her chest as she placed her chin on his head. "I love you, Naruto." More than the stars in the night sky or the sands in the desert.
Naruto's shivering lessened fractionally and his fingers grabbed the cloth around her belly in tight fingers. His eyes clenched shut as tears filled them. "I love you too, Naruko."
Naruko swallowed thickly when she felt a comforting hand take hold of her left hand, snapping her out from the tormenting memory. Her shoulders shook as she inhaled deeply, Naruto looked at her with concern but she looked back at him and smiled gently, making a smile come to his face as well.
The twins turned back to the person before them.
It was a woman with red hair as long as Naruko's, down to her lower back, and a smaller, less healthy frame than when she was at her prime. Her arms were tightly wrapped around her torso by a white, seal reinforced strait jacket and baggy black pants. Like Naruko, the woman didn't have any shoes on. The twins were five foot five inches tall but the woman, with her sickly pale skin, her frantic bloodshot eyes and her hunched over shoulders, like she was having a secret discussion with herself, looked to be about five foot eight inches at best.
The woman was sitting on her bottom at the far right corner of the room, rocking back and forth and humming a scratchy tune, hissing with frustration when she fumbled it up but still managing to continue.
The female red head twin pursed her lips tightly but the tension in her body released when Naruto's hold became firmer, reminding him that he was still with her and that he was also going through the same tornado of conflicted emotions on what they were seeing.
The song the crazy woman was humming, muttering patches of the song that mostly didn't make any sense, was the same one Naruko tried to hum back when Naruto was possibly at his lowest, just to bring his spirits up. They never knew their mother but one of their fathers students, Kakashi Hatake, had said that his sensei, Minato, once told him that when he and Jiraiya came back to the hospital to retrieve the twins, to seal the Kyuubi, they had found the woman huddled in the corner of the hospital room, surrounded by the bloody corpses of her guards and the maternity nurses. She was tightly cuddling the silent twins she had given birth to, her eyes wide and obviously crazed, gritting her teeth in physical effort not to bite down on her own children and kill them in a bloody frenzy.
She had been trying to sing the same song to the wide eyed, curious babies, through grit teeth. Her arms twitched and her body rocked heavily but the woman refused to allow the insanity tearing through her mind to make her kill her children.
"Mommy loves you, my sweet babies, mommy loves you, my perfect darlings, mommy loves you, my shining stars, my loves you because mommy loves you." Kushina whispered with tightly clenched jaws, rocking back and forth, every once in a while she rocked too hard and her forehead hit the soft padded white wall. She clenched her red-from-lack-of-sleep eyes and hummed a song in a broken tune, coughing and spitting when it became too jagged to continue and started all over again. "Mommy loves you, my sweet babies, mommy…ma…babies…" she cursed and tried again. The bandages around her toes were long since disregarded. She had been humming that song for sixteen years.
It wasn't an easy sight for either of the twins.
They did not shed any tears. They didn't know their mother, so even though they had more or less confirmed that Kushina had loved them, or still loved them, they still didn't know the woman enough to mourn for the loss of love.
The red haired twins knew what would have happened if they somehow found out that Kushina did not love them. A look between them confirmed the end result in their shared minds; they would kill her.
It wasn't much of a confirmation but for now, until they found a way to restore their mother's sanity it would have to do. The girl twin saw her brother nod as he too looked at their insane mother and she replied with her own nod as she lifted her right hand and pointed four fingers at Kushina, her thumb was pressed on her palm. The muscles on her raised hand tightened and her fingernails glowed light green, creating a small but very noticeable burst of chakra before they shot out of her fingers, jamming into the distracted former Kunoichi's neck. The woman slumped forward as the alarms went off, the sensory seals around the room feeling the burst of chakra.
"Blue is a hallucinogenic dart, green is a heavy tranquilizer. It's not lethal." The girl intoned lowly, watching her mother's limp form. "Orange and red are the lethal ones."
Naruto nodded, noting the mutant ability she had shown. Similar to how Nirvana Kurogoku, head of the Inventions Division, could take on some of the physical appearances of a Rainbow Komodo Dragon of Spring Country, Naruko could take on some of the physical attributes of a fox. The ears would sprout from her head, her nails would elongate and her eyes would change from human to vulpine. While her brother could grow tails, from one to all nine, and the pigmentation around his eyes would change to orange, if he channelled his mutant abilities, which originated from his mutated Kyuubi and normal chakra. There would be no adverse change in their skeletal systems besides the strengthening of their bones than it usually was.
The twins could sense multiple chakra signatures closing in on their mother's room and they separated hands. Naruko walked up to their mother and hesitantly hefted her onto her shoulders while Naruto pulled out a two foot long piece of deep red clothe from his pants pocket. He unrolled it, showing that the cloth had the kanji for Sky written in gold on it. He placed the small flag of the Sukai Kingdom at the very centre of the room and closed the door as the first ninja rounded the corner and began racing down to them. The rinnegan king levelled his right arm to the super seal supported wall opposite the door that led outside the facility.
"Almighty push."
The words were low and intimidating as his rinnegan pulsed afterwards.
Crack!
Booooom!
The entire wall of the Yondaime's wife's room exploded outwards and the female twin chuckled, impressed at the feet. Naruto couldn't hold back from buffing his fingernails on his shirt. There was a terrible shriek from outside the room and a loud whooshing sound as the drill beaked bird swooped down from the sky and flapped in place outside the room. The creature had been flying in circles in the sky for the past few minutes, as per Naruto's command, and now it was going to make itself useful. The red haired girl leaped onto the bird and Naruto hopped on as well; the rinnegan of the teen could see very well through the animal's but he could not control it, though he still had ultimate command over all the animal summons, so being able to control the animal like a device was almost pointless, seeing as Naruto could just as well mentally or verbally command them.
The door of the room they had just jumped out began banging as strong shoulders began ramming into it when the keys failed to work.
"Hold on." he said and Naruko bent her knees, gently placing their tranquilized mother on the back of the bird. She hurriedly plopped down beside Kushina and held the limp woman firmly with her hands. When Naruto was sure she was secure he said to the bird. "Hokage Mountain."
Screeeeeeeee! The bird called and its mighty wings flapped twice before it zipped to the monument.
Black with red ringed eyes turned to bright purple eyes and their excitement shone between them when they sensed a large amount of wind chakra flash from the Hokage's mansion to the mental facility. Their father.
Their bodies tingled; they wanted to fly back and kill him so much. But they stayed strong; if they swept aside the other nations then Konoha would be stewing in their paranoia.
Naruko though quirked an eyebrow. "Why the Hokage Mountain?"
The quick bird touched down on the head of the Nidaime Hokage, cantering forward in four steps before it stopped, its wings flapping greatly to slow it down from its speedy flight. The girl watched as Naruto flew down gently and she waved her hand; he helped her down by lifting her up and dropping her beside him, their mother followed suit.
"I want mother to be taken back home."
Naruko nodded, knowing that 'home' meant the Sukai kingdom, but her eyebrows furrowed. "How? Didn't you say that home was all the way south of Kumo?"
Naruto tried to suppress the smile as he didn't answer her, instead he tapped his right ear, the ear bud clicked and he said. "Patch me over to division head Nora of Scout and Retrieval."
"Patching you over, my lord."
His twin sister pouted when he ignored her. "Bro?"
He smiled a little and spoke when he got a reply. "Send over a Stealth Retrieval Vehicle to my location." A stealth vehicle was a sleeker variation of the Retrieval vehicle used normally but instead of being used to carry and safeguard transport of dozens of soldiers it could take about thirty at a time and travelled in near silence, with little to no hope of ever seeing it, especially at night. The King of the Kingdom had ordered for the vehicle to readily have three Medical Division personnel and four of their best Retrieval guard soldiers in each vehicle.
"Right away, my king." Nora, the black masked woman that headed the division of Scouts and Retrievers said with a deep bow. She had still been in her office sifting through names of people, from the ages of one to six, that could potentially be the new jinchuriki of the Three Tailed Turtle. She had been working with the head of Fuinjutsu, Magi Haruhi Gamatomo, and the head of Intelligence and Interrogation, Hamato Toshi. The Retrieval division of the kingdom had acquired the tailed beast, at Naruto's command, during their invasion of Water country. It was during the time the daimyo was being subdued. The loyal till death woman leaped over her desk and shouted for a SV (Stealth Vehicle) to be ready away from the ear bud. "I will be with you in four minutes, sir."
"Take your time." The king said and cut the connection as the woman jogged out of her office and into the large storage room (just outside her office, to clarify) filled with about a hundred Retrieval Vehicles of all kinds, from the regular Sukai soldier Retrieval Vehicle to the ones used to retrieve grounders, like Yugito and Kirabi. She spoke into her ear bud for Stealth Vehicle 1 to begin preparations for take-off as she leaped into the driver's seat. The personnel rushed in and the roof of the Scout and Retrieval Division Headquarters opened up, allowing the vehicle to levitate up with powerful and heavily muffled engines, and with a flash of blue fire it shot into the night sky. Nora pressed three buttons on her dash board and the vehicle shimmered, camouflaging itself into the starry night sky.
Naruto though was smiling at his pouting sister.
"When I said that our home is the most advanced places on the planet I was not joking."
"And she'll be here in four minutes. How is that possible, bro? Kumo is miles away from here."
"Through the power of dedication, breakthrough engineering and seals." He said as he bopped her nose. "Now we have to worry about the Konoha ninjas coming before the vehicle gets here." Not forgetting that he could simply just fly and feed his mother into the Stealth Vehicle, it didn't necessarily need to land, but what fun would it be to pass up a chance at killing a few of them? "They have ninken trying to sniff us out." the rinnegan holder said as he saw through the eyes of a wall gecko that was lying on the wall just under the broken wall. The tiny creature had the same eyes as him. He had summoned it to keep a careful eye on the ninjas before he and his sister flew off with the bird.
The girl suspected so. She didn't know much of the legendary eyes but her connection with her brother eased her in on what it could do little by little; like raise the dead, apparently. "I still think we should blow this village sky high."
"Patience, sis." The bird squawked in agreement by his mental command. "How about you go and kill those that come while we're waiting? Would that make you feel better?" he pinched her cheeks and she rolled her eyes before swiping his hands away.
"For now." She steadily jogged towards the incoming Konoha ninjas, her features slowly changing as she began channelling her mutant abilities.
"Don't forget, we have two minutes before the Vehicle arrives." He called after her.
"More than enough time!" the ears at the side of her head pulled in and on the top two red fox ears came out, her long red hair covered her missing human ears. Her fingernails elongated till they were about four inches long and the nails on her bare feet too out till they were four inches long. She might not have known too many jutsus, because her training slash torture had focused primarily on physical strength, flexibility, agility and some work on her intelligence, but she was still more than enough to handle the approaching jounin.
Eight, her senses counted, with only two ninken, that began barking wildly as they caught the scent of fox permeating through the air, a smell that only those with a keen sense of smell could catch.
Her long nails changed to silver and she rubbed them against each other, making white and red sparks to fly off it as she surged towards them. Adamantium bones, that was what her godfather had called it. He said that he had taken the DNA from a Dead Bone Pulse user and altered it with the Magnetic release of Sunagakure, so she was able to sprout more metal claws from other places. Though the girl preferred the traditional, savage animal claws to having them come out of her fists or her knees and elbows.
Her head lowered and her speed increased, her metal bones didn't slow her down, and when the first ninja caught sight of her it was too late; she pounced forward and her right foot used his mouth, open in a shocked gasp at immediately assuming it was Kushina Uzumaki, as a stepping stone to dive onto those coming behind him, her metal toenails broke out of the back of his neck and killed him as she gingerly removed her foot before he could fall and spun in the air to the others.
Her nails raked down a ninjas face as she dropped down and she back flipped under a ninken, grabbing its tail before it could zip away and using the poor dog as a bat to smash into the face of its handler. She ended the creature's life by slamming it into the ground and finished off the Inuzuka partner by slicing all five fingers under his chin, elongating her nails to puncture the brain. She didn't stop moving for one second as she gave a brutal right hook to an approaching woman and punched her fists into the stomach of another ninja, she ripped his smaller intestine in a shower of blood and roped the organ around the neck a shinobi that had attempted to tackle her, yanking the intestine down to crack her knee on his face, shattering it. Naruko wrapped the bloody intestine in her hands and swung it at the last ninja, using the dead body hanging limply in it as a club. The ninja was slammed into three trees before he finally stopped in a ditch.
The girl dropped the organ onto the ground and puff out hair to push away a bang that touched her lips. She turned to Naruto and smirked proudly at the mildly awestruck nod as she jogged to him, her features smoothening out till they returned back to human.
'If I didn't know any better I wouldn't suspect she was dead just yesterday.' He raised his right palm and she slapped it deftly in a high five. 'Seven years with the Shinigami and she still knows how to fight.' He watched her slump against the drill beaked bird and pant for air. "That was amazing."
"Oh stop, you're making me blush." She said with a wave of her hand. Their godfather had been conditioning them to better serve Konoha and this had to do with body crippling exercises, chemicals being injected and traumatizing fights with Sound ninja and training. The Naruto's Rinne-rebirth technique could be said to be a perfect, flawless version of the Impure World Resurrection technique. Instead of being at less than half her strength after being brought back, an effect of the non-rinnegan jutsu, Naruko was able to reclaim all of her training memories, both muscle and mental. The only minor problem was that she was still a nine year old in a sixteen year olds body, seeing as she had been killed when she was nine and revived at sixteen. Though this wasn't too much of a problem with the twins upbringing because any child that stayed a month in the slave pens of Hidden Sound and survived was not a child anymore; they had to grow up fast or die even faster.
It was similar to the Red light district in Konoha except the violence was not mutual.
Naruto looked up when he heard a low whistle and a dark mass dropped down lightly before him. The driver hopped out of the window, giving the wheel to the Retrieval Captain for the Stealth Vehicle. Nora the masked head of division fell onto her knees before Naruto and placed her right hand over her heart.
"Division head Nora of Scout and Retrieval reporting, my Lord Naruto." She said in a low, polite voice, her head tilted down and her whole body in the respectfully submissive posture all Sukai Soldiers were trained to do before their ultimate master, Naruto.
"Help me transport my mother and my sister back home, please." He said and nodded to Kushina, still lying on the ground, and Naruko, who shot to her feet and exclaimed.
"Wait, what?!"
Nora too abruptly looked up and gaped at the red haired girl that stomped over to her king. She looked exactly like her master, except a few small features that made her look more feminine, but looking at the girl confirmed that she was truly one with her master and he was with her.
"Is this Lady Naruko, my king's sister?" Nora said in a quivering voice, barely holding herself back from standing to her feet and kneeling before the girl.
"Yes, Nora, this is my sister Naruko. Naruko, this is Nora, division head of Scout and Retrieval." His sister nodded politely to the older woman but gasped when Nora shuffled closer and bowed deeply, placing her forehead on the ground.
"It is an honour to meet the sister of my lord. I am humbled."
"N-n-no, its fine. Please stand up." the sheer politeness and utter devotion expressed in those few words threw the girl off her enraged yell at her brother. The medics were placing Kushina in a stretcher, strapping her down when Naruto idly called that she was not in the best health and making sure that there was a constant drip of mild sedatives in case the woman woke up. His sister whirled him around and jabbed her finger into his armoured chest. "And where will you be going?"
"Hidden Rain, I have a few things to do there."
She crossed her arms stubbornly. "I'm going too." Her purple eyes flitted over his shoulder when the medics hefted the stretcher onto its wheels and began carefully shuffling their mother over the uneven rocky ground on the top of the monument; this was their king's mother, they had to be extra gentle.
Naruto palmed his face and sighed deeply. "Sis, I know we still have a whole lot of catching up to do but this mission is very, very important. I want to clear it up quick and get back home."
She narrowed her eyes and a large drop of sweat grew on the side of Naruto's face after he revised his words. "Are you saying…I'm a burden?" she balled her fists and her shoulders tensed.
"Come on sis, you know you're not a burden." From what he saw he she could very well hold her own, even if they were chunin trackers. Speaking of trackers, the village was alight, alarms blared from the psychiatric ward and he could sense pandemonium occur as people spread out to find the missing patient.
"Then it's settled, I'm coming with you." She then glared at him. "And if you dare try to knock me out…" she left her warning hanging in the air but Naruto scoffed and nodded, she pumped her fist to her side in accomplishment.
"Is there any spare armour in the vehicle?" the king asked the still kneeling woman. Nora, despite being told to rise, remained on her knees because she was in the presence of the two red heads that had impacted the lives of her and thousands of others, whether directly or indirectly.
The woman trembled at the question. "M-my sincerest apologises my lord, I did not know-"
"It's fine. I should have known she would want to tag along." His sister winked when he shot a mild glare at her.
"If you wish, my king, I shall take off my own armour and give it to my lady Naruko." She said without hesitation.
Naruto shook his head with a small frown. "Your armour is your rank; you should wear it with pride." He said firmly. She deserved to have the platinum rank, the only rank directly under the obsidian rank of the king. The woman had scratched and clawed her way up the ranks and Naruto did not like the idea of a person relinquishing his or her rank, even for the briefest of moments.
"You are right as always, my lord."
"If you don't mind, is there any underwear or shoes in there." She looked at Naruto frostily and he sent a wink back. "My brother didn't seem to give me any." Besides, her clothes were a bloody mess, as were her hands too.
"I thought you would have appreciated the privacy."
"Privacy? Between you and me? What's that? Really, I do not know what privacy between us means." she replied teasingly with an elbow jab to his arm and playfully waggling her eyebrows. After a few short seconds Naruto pursed his lips and nodded in agreement. They didn't know what privacy meant between them. They shared practically everything when they were in Konoha and even when they were out of Konoha, why was it going to change now or any time soon?
"Yes, my lady, we have spare clothing and equipment in the Stealth Vehicle."
"Perfect. Go and bring…her…the…clothes…" Naruto started but his words slowed down till he stopped. His senses flared and his godly rinnegan glowed. The world slowly ground to a stop around his eyes and the still regularly moving teen narrowed his eyes and looked around; Nora and Naruko were frozen, looking at him as he spoke, as his eyes saw and processed much faster than any normal human ever could. His head turned to where he sensed the danger and walked over to the Retrieval vehicle, having to enter the massive open back door to get to his mother's stretcher, which was strapped down securely in the vehicle so that it wouldn't move around when the vehicle was flying. The medics and Retrievers were sitting at the seats, making idle chatter but at the moment they were not moving as Naruto walked faster than any normal human could comprehend. He stopped beside her and frowned at the seal glowing on her forehead.
The Flying Thunder god seal.
He could see the seal slowly brighten up despite how fast his eyes could see; testament to the sheer speed of the legendary S rank seal.
Naruto pulled out a palm sized scroll from his wrist in a small burst of smoke and he placed it over the seal on Kushina's forehead. There was a seal on the back of the paper written in gold with another separate kanji beneath it in red and the last one at the bottom written in black. It was called the Fuinjutsu Absorption seal; it was primarily meant to be used transfer the contents of one storage seal, copy the same seal onto the paper and transfer it there, but it could also double up as copying seals the paper was placed on and absorbing the copied seal, though this meant it could only be used once.
It was the creation of the Fuinjutsu Division by the deputy division head to combat the threat of trap seals.
The rinnegan king ripped off the successfully copied Hirashin seal and crumpled it in his fist, setting it on fire and repelling Minato before he could flash to their position. Back in Kushina's former room, the Yondaime was suddenly thrown back the room by a swirling vortex he had momentarily flashed in, his cloak singed at the sleeves and soot in his blonde hair. While his ninjas rushed to him to see what had happened Naruto walked back to his frozen in time sister and masked subordinate. He allowed time before his eyes to move normally again and the two sharply looked to him.
"We have two minutes before they arrive." He said and ushered them to the vehicle. He snapped his fingers, ignoring the soldiers in the vehicle that snapped to their feet in a salute before bending onto their knees, placing their hands over their hearts and inclining their heads down.
Nora rushed to the seat directly behind the drivers section of the vehicle, where there were a total of thirty seats in the vehicle, and hit the seat. It lifted up to reveal a neat black duffle bag and as pulled it out, putting the seat back in place as she ran back to Naruto. She handed it to Naruko in a bow and the girl graciously took it, still flustered at how respectful she was being treated.
"Tell division head Karin of the Medical Division that she is to place our mother in a secure room, treat her well and to begin treatment." Karin was a stellar medic. The kingdom did not only have great technological, fuinjutsu and advancements in civilisation but their medical field had also taken a big leap above what could be seen on the ground. There was a safe, secure and healthy way to heal those that had lost their minds but Naruto's mother was a bit different. "Also tell division head Magi of the Fuinjutsu Division to start fixing the broken seal shackles as soon as our mother is secure."
"Yes, sir." Nora said and saluted as Naruto walked out of the vehicle with his sister behind him, carrying the duffle back of spare clothes and equipment in both of her hands. "Good luck, sir." She called before she bumped the door of the drivers section of the vehicle three times with her right fist. The Retrieval vehicle began lifting off the ground, the wide open back closed up as they continued their ascent into the sky.
The king with his sister kept their eyes on the rising vehicle before it merged with the sky and zipped back to the Sukai Kingdom.
"What now?"
"I was thinking we spend the night in the hideout of one of my spies near the Fire country capital before we head over to Rain." Gravity picked up the rinnegan king and he had it take Naruko up into the air as well before they blasted in a ground shaking thud of wind towards the capital, the question of how they would get there suddenly lost on the startled girl.
The bird was sent back to the summoning realm but that was fine; it had served its purpose for now.
The red haired twins left the village in a total state of emergency, terror, panic and paranoia.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Underground Akatsuki meeting room
The Amekage tower
Ameagakure no Sato
There were three Sukai spies in the Akatsuki, two of who shared the same experience in how they changed allegiances and one who had been recruited much longer.
As the leader of the S rank organization spoke one of the Sukai spies narrowed his eyes and his mind wandered back to when he had been recruited by the legendary king of the Sukai Kingdom.
It was five years ago…when the remarkable godly boy was only eleven…
Art was something that lasted forever and ever, unchangeable, incorruptible and indestructible. That was the philosophy Sasori of the Red Sands lived by since the day he began his study of the Puppeteering arts under Lady Chiyo.
Art was immaculate. Art was eternal. Art was forever. Art could not die.
"I hear you are a great spymaster." A low voice said above his broken body. The red heads eyes flickered open and he tried to move but there were solid black rods impaled through every joint in his arms and his legs. The presence of the rods disrupted his chakra painfully. The S rank missing ninja saw that he was still in his regular clothes, besides the tears from the black chakra rods, and like that he realized that after five minutes of continuous effort he had been easily bested by this person without much effort. He felt like the person had even allowed him to attack to make him realize that it would never work against him.
The puppet man had been in Mountain country after then a Mountain lion that he felt would be a great addition to his arsenal but after climbing into a cave on the side of the mountain the people of the country reported the creature resided he was met with a calm red haired child sitting on the bleeding corpse of the lion he sought.
After that he allowed his frustration from weeks of searching to flood out in the form of his puppets.
The Kazekage puppet was nailed to the ceiling of the cave with at least fifty of those black rods. His Hiruko puppet lay at the very back of the cave, shattered to pieces, too broken to be salvaged from an invisible crushing force that had the puppet man inside escape before he get crushed with it. All of the one hundred puppets of his Hundred Puppet technique were nailed to the walls and the ground of the cave with at least one rod, like they were mere ornaments to the boy.
He had been bested like he was child by a child; dragged to the boy by a great pulling force and slammed into the ground with a choke slam that would surely have killed any other living creature, because, despite the fact that he could feel no sensation from his wooden body, he still knew that the mountain he was in bowed as his back hit the ground.
He was then summarily impaled with the rods, ending his control over his chakra.
Sasori hummed stoically and looked up…
His eyes clashed with a pair of orbs that held so much power that every thought in the prodigious mind of the puppet master fizzled to a stop. His light brown eyes enlarged slowly and his puppet mouth fell open.
Coal black with red concentric rings. A face so pale and so immaculate it glowed, even in the dark of the cave. Red hair that seemed to sway in the non-existent breeze. Expressionless and cold while at the same time exuding power and commanding respect.
The only words the infamous puppet master could after five long minutes at staring at this godly child were. "You…are…art…"
The boy narrowed his eyes and Sasori, for the first time in years, feared for his life.
He clenched his eyes shut tightly and whispered. "You are beauty…you are perfect…you…are…art…"
The person was silent after that. Until he said again. "I hear that you are a great spymaster."
"Yes, my lord. The best on the continent." The puppet man said as he eagerly nodded, his once dead eyes glowing at the acknowledgement. "How may I be of service to my lord?"
A small, barely visible twitch came to Naruto's lips. "I want you to be my eyes and ears on the ground."
That time Sasori immediately concluded that the boy was a god.
"I will do anything to make my lord pleased." The interests of the perfect art had to be protected. And as long as he lived he will protect those interests with all his power.
"Good. You will hear from me soon."
The person stood up straight and made to leave, his feet lifted off the ground as he prepared to rocket into the sky, but the red haired puppet man stopped him with a hurried yell. "If I may be so forward, my lord…what is your name?"
The person looked down at him and Sasori fell onto his knees instinctively, placing his right hand over his heart and tilting his head to the ground. "My name is Naruto. I am the King of the Sukai Kingdom."
Two years later he had been invited to the great kingdom in the sky and immediately the puppet man had felt even more humbled to have been privileged to attract the attention of the king. He became the deputy head of the Espionage and Infiltration with Yu Akuso as the head. He had also been giving a gold rank under armour, which the red head puppet man wore with pride under his Akatsuki robes. The unbreakable armour did not hinder his creation of puppet strings in anyway.
He reported everything to his new master. As soon as he got wind of an S rank organization and he had received an offer to be among the higher ranks he immediately sent word to Naruto about it and inquired what to do next. This was a year before he was given his gold rank.
He was ordered to agree and a few months' later two spies of the Sukai kingdom in the Akatsuki were added.
"Sasori, what have your spies said about this rising threat, the Kingdom Hidden in the Sky?" Nagato asked him from the head of the meeting room, on his throne. Konan stood beside her childhood friend, her eyes looking towards Sasori, as were the others. The spy master had been given the role as chief informant of the rogue organization.
The red haired gold ranked spy hummed from deep inside his Hiruko puppet. "A spy in Kumo told me that the king and his forces marched in without being detected and brought the village under his control before the Raikage noticed." The leader of the organization and the angel of Ame remained stoic but a few of the others expressions were vaguely surprised. Sasori continued. "Roughly five thousand of the Sukai forces arrived but only a thousand actually took over. An informant told me that they were all jounin rank at least." He allowed their imaginations to fill in on what he was implying. "As far as the reports go, they say that their armour in impenetrable, their skills are unparalleled and their king…" the puppet master tapered to a stop, unsure of whether he should continue or not.
"…Yes? What of their king?" Itachi asked, speaking for the first time since the meeting began.
The wooden man remained silent, but spoke when an order from the head of Intelligence and Interrogation came to his mind.
Make them aware of who we are and of the might of our great king!
"The king of the Sukai kingdom…he has the rinnegan," there was a painful silence after he spoke as they all gaped at him. His words and his informants had so far helped the organization but to go as far as saying that the king of the Sukai Kingdom had a rinnegan…it was too farfetched. "But…his eyes…I apologize for saying this Leader…his eyes are much more powerful than yours." His puppet passed a photo of the king to his right towards the leader and Nagato narrowed his eyes at the picture of Naruto holding the Raikage by his neck, hovering over the village. The picture had been taken by a bronze ranked hunter ninja and had been given to the spy of the puppet man before the Sukai left.
Kisame stifled his laugh in a cough. "How can there be two rinnegan at a time?"
"I do not know. I can only speculate that he had the genes in him to activate the eyes. The specific genes though…I do not know what they are."
Kakuzu then asked his own question. "How are you so sure his eyes are greater than Leader's?"
"Besides merely looking at it?" Sasori said, exaggerating his words. True, the black with red rings looked more intimidating than purple with black rings, but he saw that they needed more proof. "My informants in Spring told me that he was able to grab hold of the daimyos neck from several feet away-"
"That isn't proof-"
"He was able to crush the heads of her ninjas without a serious thought." the members were not aware of the full power of the rinnegan, so even if Sasori kept listing out his observations they still might not believe him.
Still…
If he was able to do that then who was to say that if they faced him they stood a chance…?
'They will know art soon.' His eyes flicked to the two other spies and they shared secret looks.
Most of them were not aware but the king of the Sukai Kingdom and his revived sister were going to enter the rain village the next day. He had ordered Sasori to keep them all in the village until he arrived, while his stayed the night in the spymasters Fire country hideout with his sister.
Off at the far end of the meeting, standing opposite Zetsu and beside Deidera, who stood beside Sasori, Obito forced down his grin. 'If this 'king's' rinnegan is more powerful than Nagato's then I will have no more need for him.' his hands tightened in suppressed excitement. 'And…I can have his army too…'
Katoametsukami is a very powerful jutsu.