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Title: Enmugakure
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: M
Pairing: Hidan/Temari, mentioned Ino/Shikamaru/Temari love triangle and past Hidan/OC.
Genre: AU Adventure/Mystery
Warnings: Swearing, some sexual situations, violence
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: The secret to defeating the Akatsuki lies in the demolished village of Enmugakure, but only one person knows where it is. Pity he's in pieces...
Far better, yea, to me it seems to die;
To set glad lips against the lips of Death--
The only thing God gives that comforteth,
The only thing we do not find a lie.
The Land of Illusion
Madison Cawein
Part II
Puzzle
A hand landed on her shoulder, and Tsunade jerked awake. She blinked up at Shizune in confusion; her head still fuzzy with sleep, until the events of the previous night came crashing down on her. She drew her brows together in a frown and sighed, wishing that she could have more sake so that she could try and forget all over again. Then she wrinkled her nose. A toothbrush would probably be better.
A gentle hand peeled away an unrolled scroll that she hadn’t noticed had been stuck to her cheek, and she glanced up at Shizune again. She looked worried, and she was studying the scroll intently.
“What is this?” she asked, her words deliberately quiet so she didn’t aggravate Tsunade’s headache too much.
“A scroll recording a battle that occurred before the first Great War,” Tsunade told her. Her voice was dry and raspy, and she reached for the tea Shizune had placed on her desk. “When Suna and Iwa teamed up to annihilate a small shinobi village that lay between their two countries. At the time, no records were taken of anyone who survived. They were wrong. Look at the village symbol.”
Shizune did as she said, and her eyes widened in horror. “But that’s -”
“I know,” Tsunade said. She placed her tea down and stretched her arms above her head, sighing with relief as vertebrae popped back into place.
“What’s all this about?” Shizune asked her.
Tsunade sighed. “I’m only going to explain this once, so put the scroll down and send out summons for Naruto, Sakura and Nara Shikamaru.”
Shizune looked down at the scroll again. “Do you think it’s wise to involve Shikamaru-kun in this?” she asked.
“No,” Tsunade admitted. “But we’d be worse off not to.”
“Alright then,” Shizune said, though she sounded doubtful. She placed the scroll down carefully on Tsunade’s desk and left, leaving the Hokage in silence.
Tsunade sipped her tea and stared down at the symbol of Enmugakure: three vertical, wavy lines. She closed her eyes wearily and sighed. “Damn it, Uchiha,” she whispered. “If this is a hoax you’re going to wish that disease had killed you sooner.”
There was no answer.
She had finished her tea and a bowl of miso soup by the time Naruto, Sakura and Shikamaru arrived in her office, and after she spotted Shizune slip in behind them, she cleared her throat to begin.
“I have a mission for the three of you,” she said.
“Hey grandma, is this to do with last night?” Naruto asked.
She glared at him. “Yes, now shut up and let me talk, brat,” she snapped. He fell silent, though she did notice Sakura sending him quizzical looks. Tsunade waited for her student to realise that she was still waiting to deliver the mission brief before she continued.
“Last night, Naruto and I received intelligence pertaining to the Akatsuki,” she said. After…long consideration, I decided that it would be stupid for us not to check it out, despite how improbable it sounds.”
She paused, and saw Shikamaru nod slightly. He was thinking over her words carefully, she was glad to see, though he wasn’t going to like what she had to say.
“It regards the Bijuu,” she said, “and Akatsuki’s plans to make an ultimate Jinchuuriki who contains all nine of the tailed demons.” They shivered, and she saw something dark stir behind Naruto’s eyes. “We cannot allow them to do that, obviously, which is why I’m going to send you to check out our informant’s tip off.”
“What is the mission, Tsunade-shishou?” Sakura asked.
“You will be sent on an information gathering mission to a place called Enmugakure,” Tsunade told them. “It was a hidden village located somewhere between Earth Country and Wind Country that was almost completely destroyed before the first war. Apparently, the ruins of the village hold vital information about the Bijuu, which would give us an advantage in the war against the Akatsuki.
“This is the part you won’t like. At the time of the battle, it was thought that there were no survivors. However, we have since discovered that there was one. He will be your guide.”
“But you said the village was destroyed before the first Great War,” Sakura said. “Surely no one’s that old.”
She could practically see the pieces of the puzzle fitting together in Shikamaru’s mind. Oh yes, there would be fireworks.
“Like I said, there was one survivor and he will be your guide,” she said, still looking at Shikamaru. She met his eyes. “You’ve already met him.”
She saw Naruto and Sakura exchange confused looks from the corner of her eye, but she kept her gaze fixed on Shikamaru. She held up the scroll she’d used as a pillow the previous night and showed it to them.
“This is the symbol of the village.”
That was all it took. Shikamaru’s eyes widened in realisation, and his cheeks flushed with anger. “Are you insane?” he demanded. “You’re going to dig up the head of a psychotic serial killer and ask it for directions? With all due respect, Hokage-sama, that is the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”
“Your opinion is noted, Nara,” she said, “and I agree with you, but it is the only plan we’ve got.”
He looked away from her and closed his eyes, visibly trying to restrain his temper. “This is so troublesome,” he muttered.
Tsunade didn’t argue. She decided to clarify for the others. “The survivor in question is Hidan, previously of the Akatsuki,” she said. “I’m beginning to suspect that this was the reason why they invited him into their ranks in the first place.”
Naruto looked stunned, while Sakura looked sceptical. “Can we even trust him?” she asked.
“Probably not,” Tsunade admitted. “But he’ll be on his own against the three of you, and one of you has already killed him once already. I don’t think he’d push his luck.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nara forest was quiet as they walked through it, the only noises being their own footsteps and the twittering of birds. Tsunade thought she spotted a few deer sometimes, but they vanished before she could take a closer look. They were such timid creatures…
But despite the pleasant experience that was their woodland walk, their more macabre purpose dulled the mood. Shikamaru was not reacting well, having thought that his sensei’s murderer was done with forever, and he was chain smoking; the tendons in his neck standing out as he tried to suppress his anger.
Naruto and Sakura had taken it better, but Tsunade could see their concern for their friend etched in both their faces. The ANBU team escorting them were indifferent to their purpose. Or at least, she thought that they were; their blank masks hid their feelings well. Actually, they were probably more confused about why she had asked them to bring two empty crates on a trip through the Nara deer reserve.
Then Shikamaru stopped suddenly, and Tsunade looked past him to see a patch of barren earth, still loose from being used to cover the pieces. She sighed, wishing not for the first time that she wasn’t making a huge mistake, and waved a hand at the ANBU.
“Get digging,” she told them. There was a definite confused look at her words. “You’re looking for human body parts,” she said. “When you find them, put them in the crates.”
They got to work, and Naruto and Sakura joined in to help. Shikamaru didn’t, choosing instead to stand next to her and smoke like a chimney.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said eventually.
“So do I,” she replied.
Minutes passed, and all they heard was the sound of the ANBU digging and the twittering of the birds, until there was a yelp from the pit the ANBU, Naruto and Sakura were standing in.
Then, “Shut the hell up, Pinkie. What’s the matter? Never seen a severed head before, you stupid bitch?”
“Um, Tsunade-shishou?” Sakura called. She sounded stunned. “I found the head.”
“No shit,” said the voice, whom Tsunade could only assume was Hidan.
“Bring it here, Sakura,” she called back.
Second later, she saw Sakura leap out of the hole and land neatly on the forest floor in front of her. In her hands, she gingerly held the severed head of a silver-haired man. Her face was twisted in an expression of disgust, and Tsunade supposed that while Sakura – as a medic – was used to seeing severed body parts on occasion, she was not used to them talking to her.
Sakura held the head out, and Tsunade took it, turning it so that she could talk to the missing-nin face-to-face. He was, she supposed, pretty handsome despite his foul mouth and the fact that he was missing his body. He was also glaring at Shikamaru from the corner of his eye. Shikamaru was glaring back. Tsunade cleared her throat.
“Are you from Enmugakure?” she asked him.
His violet coloured eyes turned to her and he sneered. “No,” he said. “I’m not.”
She frowned. “Your hitae-ate…”
“Wasn’t originally mine,” he said.
Okay… “Do you know where the ruins of the village are?” she asked.
He looked at her oddly. “Yeah.”
That was, she supposed, good news. “Good,” she said. “In that case, I’ve got a proposition for you.”
He raised an eyebrow, which she took as a cue to continue talking. He was listening, at least, and that was good.
“I’ll put your body back together,” she said. “If you lead a team of my shinobi to Enmugakure and back again, and promise not to rejoin Akatsuki.”
He blinked at her. “Why the fuck would I want to rejoin those miserable bastards?” he asked, and she supposed that that was a good thing. “And what the fuck do you want with Enmu? There’s nothing there except dust and corpses.”
She sighed. “We were told that we could find information about the Bijuu there,” she told him.
“Who told you that?” he demanded.
“Uchiha Itachi,” she told him, and from the corner of her eye she saw Shikamaru give her an incredulous look. She hadn’t mentioned that earlier.
Hidan gave a low whistle. “Fuck,” he said simply. “What if I refuse? Are you going to kill me?”
He sounded almost hopeful. Then again, Tsunade would admit that death would be infinitely better than being buried alive.
“I’ll just toss your head back into that pit and get my ANBU to bury you again,” she told him.
He scowled. “Fine,” he said. “You’ve got yourself a fucking deal. And don’t forget my rosary and my hitae-ate, alright? And don’t leave me dickless either.”
Tsunade placed his head in one of the crates. Putting him back together was going to be a very long task.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the end she got Sakura and Shizune to help her sort through the pieces of Hidan’s body, clean them and put them in some semblance of order. Hidan was pretty vocal at first, but he eventually shut up. When he did fall quiet, Tsunade turned to look worriedly at the head – thinking incredulously that he might actually have died – only to find him sleeping soundly, soft whispery snores falling from his lips.
How he could snore when and talk when he wasn’t actually attached to his lungs or vocal chords was beyond her. He was some sort of medical miracle in addition to being a freak of nature.
When they had identified all of the pieces and washed the soil off them, she sent Shizune out to get clothes in Hidan’s size. She wouldn’t let him wander around stark naked, no matter how physically attractive he was. She also ordered Shikamaru and Naruto to find him weapons like his old ones. Shikamaru had initially objected, but it was only really hot air. He knew that she knew that he knew that they would have a better chance of getting through the mission unscathed if Hidan was armed and capable of holding his own.
She also sent Rock Lee to Suna with a message saying that she would be sending a team through their country, with a general summary of the team’s purpose. Lee returned two days before she and Sakura finished piecing Hidan back together again. The message he brought back said that the Kazekage would be sending an escort to meet them at a small border town, and that he wished them luck.
She was pretty sure that was code for ‘you’re all crazy’.
Then, five days after Uchiha Itachi had betrayed the Akatsuki, Hidan was whole again and the team was ready.
And Tsunade still had no idea if she was doing the right thing.
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: M
Pairing: Hidan/Temari, mentioned Ino/Shikamaru/Temari love triangle and past Hidan/OC.
Genre: AU Adventure/Mystery
Warnings: Swearing, some sexual situations, violence
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: The secret to defeating the Akatsuki lies in the demolished village of Enmugakure, but only one person knows where it is. Pity he's in pieces...
Far better, yea, to me it seems to die;
To set glad lips against the lips of Death--
The only thing God gives that comforteth,
The only thing we do not find a lie.
The Land of Illusion
Madison Cawein
Puzzle
A hand landed on her shoulder, and Tsunade jerked awake. She blinked up at Shizune in confusion; her head still fuzzy with sleep, until the events of the previous night came crashing down on her. She drew her brows together in a frown and sighed, wishing that she could have more sake so that she could try and forget all over again. Then she wrinkled her nose. A toothbrush would probably be better.
A gentle hand peeled away an unrolled scroll that she hadn’t noticed had been stuck to her cheek, and she glanced up at Shizune again. She looked worried, and she was studying the scroll intently.
“What is this?” she asked, her words deliberately quiet so she didn’t aggravate Tsunade’s headache too much.
“A scroll recording a battle that occurred before the first Great War,” Tsunade told her. Her voice was dry and raspy, and she reached for the tea Shizune had placed on her desk. “When Suna and Iwa teamed up to annihilate a small shinobi village that lay between their two countries. At the time, no records were taken of anyone who survived. They were wrong. Look at the village symbol.”
Shizune did as she said, and her eyes widened in horror. “But that’s -”
“I know,” Tsunade said. She placed her tea down and stretched her arms above her head, sighing with relief as vertebrae popped back into place.
“What’s all this about?” Shizune asked her.
Tsunade sighed. “I’m only going to explain this once, so put the scroll down and send out summons for Naruto, Sakura and Nara Shikamaru.”
Shizune looked down at the scroll again. “Do you think it’s wise to involve Shikamaru-kun in this?” she asked.
“No,” Tsunade admitted. “But we’d be worse off not to.”
“Alright then,” Shizune said, though she sounded doubtful. She placed the scroll down carefully on Tsunade’s desk and left, leaving the Hokage in silence.
Tsunade sipped her tea and stared down at the symbol of Enmugakure: three vertical, wavy lines. She closed her eyes wearily and sighed. “Damn it, Uchiha,” she whispered. “If this is a hoax you’re going to wish that disease had killed you sooner.”
There was no answer.
She had finished her tea and a bowl of miso soup by the time Naruto, Sakura and Shikamaru arrived in her office, and after she spotted Shizune slip in behind them, she cleared her throat to begin.
“I have a mission for the three of you,” she said.
“Hey grandma, is this to do with last night?” Naruto asked.
She glared at him. “Yes, now shut up and let me talk, brat,” she snapped. He fell silent, though she did notice Sakura sending him quizzical looks. Tsunade waited for her student to realise that she was still waiting to deliver the mission brief before she continued.
“Last night, Naruto and I received intelligence pertaining to the Akatsuki,” she said. After…long consideration, I decided that it would be stupid for us not to check it out, despite how improbable it sounds.”
She paused, and saw Shikamaru nod slightly. He was thinking over her words carefully, she was glad to see, though he wasn’t going to like what she had to say.
“It regards the Bijuu,” she said, “and Akatsuki’s plans to make an ultimate Jinchuuriki who contains all nine of the tailed demons.” They shivered, and she saw something dark stir behind Naruto’s eyes. “We cannot allow them to do that, obviously, which is why I’m going to send you to check out our informant’s tip off.”
“What is the mission, Tsunade-shishou?” Sakura asked.
“You will be sent on an information gathering mission to a place called Enmugakure,” Tsunade told them. “It was a hidden village located somewhere between Earth Country and Wind Country that was almost completely destroyed before the first war. Apparently, the ruins of the village hold vital information about the Bijuu, which would give us an advantage in the war against the Akatsuki.
“This is the part you won’t like. At the time of the battle, it was thought that there were no survivors. However, we have since discovered that there was one. He will be your guide.”
“But you said the village was destroyed before the first Great War,” Sakura said. “Surely no one’s that old.”
She could practically see the pieces of the puzzle fitting together in Shikamaru’s mind. Oh yes, there would be fireworks.
“Like I said, there was one survivor and he will be your guide,” she said, still looking at Shikamaru. She met his eyes. “You’ve already met him.”
She saw Naruto and Sakura exchange confused looks from the corner of her eye, but she kept her gaze fixed on Shikamaru. She held up the scroll she’d used as a pillow the previous night and showed it to them.
“This is the symbol of the village.”
That was all it took. Shikamaru’s eyes widened in realisation, and his cheeks flushed with anger. “Are you insane?” he demanded. “You’re going to dig up the head of a psychotic serial killer and ask it for directions? With all due respect, Hokage-sama, that is the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”
“Your opinion is noted, Nara,” she said, “and I agree with you, but it is the only plan we’ve got.”
He looked away from her and closed his eyes, visibly trying to restrain his temper. “This is so troublesome,” he muttered.
Tsunade didn’t argue. She decided to clarify for the others. “The survivor in question is Hidan, previously of the Akatsuki,” she said. “I’m beginning to suspect that this was the reason why they invited him into their ranks in the first place.”
Naruto looked stunned, while Sakura looked sceptical. “Can we even trust him?” she asked.
“Probably not,” Tsunade admitted. “But he’ll be on his own against the three of you, and one of you has already killed him once already. I don’t think he’d push his luck.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nara forest was quiet as they walked through it, the only noises being their own footsteps and the twittering of birds. Tsunade thought she spotted a few deer sometimes, but they vanished before she could take a closer look. They were such timid creatures…
But despite the pleasant experience that was their woodland walk, their more macabre purpose dulled the mood. Shikamaru was not reacting well, having thought that his sensei’s murderer was done with forever, and he was chain smoking; the tendons in his neck standing out as he tried to suppress his anger.
Naruto and Sakura had taken it better, but Tsunade could see their concern for their friend etched in both their faces. The ANBU team escorting them were indifferent to their purpose. Or at least, she thought that they were; their blank masks hid their feelings well. Actually, they were probably more confused about why she had asked them to bring two empty crates on a trip through the Nara deer reserve.
Then Shikamaru stopped suddenly, and Tsunade looked past him to see a patch of barren earth, still loose from being used to cover the pieces. She sighed, wishing not for the first time that she wasn’t making a huge mistake, and waved a hand at the ANBU.
“Get digging,” she told them. There was a definite confused look at her words. “You’re looking for human body parts,” she said. “When you find them, put them in the crates.”
They got to work, and Naruto and Sakura joined in to help. Shikamaru didn’t, choosing instead to stand next to her and smoke like a chimney.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said eventually.
“So do I,” she replied.
Minutes passed, and all they heard was the sound of the ANBU digging and the twittering of the birds, until there was a yelp from the pit the ANBU, Naruto and Sakura were standing in.
Then, “Shut the hell up, Pinkie. What’s the matter? Never seen a severed head before, you stupid bitch?”
“Um, Tsunade-shishou?” Sakura called. She sounded stunned. “I found the head.”
“No shit,” said the voice, whom Tsunade could only assume was Hidan.
“Bring it here, Sakura,” she called back.
Second later, she saw Sakura leap out of the hole and land neatly on the forest floor in front of her. In her hands, she gingerly held the severed head of a silver-haired man. Her face was twisted in an expression of disgust, and Tsunade supposed that while Sakura – as a medic – was used to seeing severed body parts on occasion, she was not used to them talking to her.
Sakura held the head out, and Tsunade took it, turning it so that she could talk to the missing-nin face-to-face. He was, she supposed, pretty handsome despite his foul mouth and the fact that he was missing his body. He was also glaring at Shikamaru from the corner of his eye. Shikamaru was glaring back. Tsunade cleared her throat.
“Are you from Enmugakure?” she asked him.
His violet coloured eyes turned to her and he sneered. “No,” he said. “I’m not.”
She frowned. “Your hitae-ate…”
“Wasn’t originally mine,” he said.
Okay… “Do you know where the ruins of the village are?” she asked.
He looked at her oddly. “Yeah.”
That was, she supposed, good news. “Good,” she said. “In that case, I’ve got a proposition for you.”
He raised an eyebrow, which she took as a cue to continue talking. He was listening, at least, and that was good.
“I’ll put your body back together,” she said. “If you lead a team of my shinobi to Enmugakure and back again, and promise not to rejoin Akatsuki.”
He blinked at her. “Why the fuck would I want to rejoin those miserable bastards?” he asked, and she supposed that that was a good thing. “And what the fuck do you want with Enmu? There’s nothing there except dust and corpses.”
She sighed. “We were told that we could find information about the Bijuu there,” she told him.
“Who told you that?” he demanded.
“Uchiha Itachi,” she told him, and from the corner of her eye she saw Shikamaru give her an incredulous look. She hadn’t mentioned that earlier.
Hidan gave a low whistle. “Fuck,” he said simply. “What if I refuse? Are you going to kill me?”
He sounded almost hopeful. Then again, Tsunade would admit that death would be infinitely better than being buried alive.
“I’ll just toss your head back into that pit and get my ANBU to bury you again,” she told him.
He scowled. “Fine,” he said. “You’ve got yourself a fucking deal. And don’t forget my rosary and my hitae-ate, alright? And don’t leave me dickless either.”
Tsunade placed his head in one of the crates. Putting him back together was going to be a very long task.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the end she got Sakura and Shizune to help her sort through the pieces of Hidan’s body, clean them and put them in some semblance of order. Hidan was pretty vocal at first, but he eventually shut up. When he did fall quiet, Tsunade turned to look worriedly at the head – thinking incredulously that he might actually have died – only to find him sleeping soundly, soft whispery snores falling from his lips.
How he could snore when and talk when he wasn’t actually attached to his lungs or vocal chords was beyond her. He was some sort of medical miracle in addition to being a freak of nature.
When they had identified all of the pieces and washed the soil off them, she sent Shizune out to get clothes in Hidan’s size. She wouldn’t let him wander around stark naked, no matter how physically attractive he was. She also ordered Shikamaru and Naruto to find him weapons like his old ones. Shikamaru had initially objected, but it was only really hot air. He knew that she knew that he knew that they would have a better chance of getting through the mission unscathed if Hidan was armed and capable of holding his own.
She also sent Rock Lee to Suna with a message saying that she would be sending a team through their country, with a general summary of the team’s purpose. Lee returned two days before she and Sakura finished piecing Hidan back together again. The message he brought back said that the Kazekage would be sending an escort to meet them at a small border town, and that he wished them luck.
She was pretty sure that was code for ‘you’re all crazy’.
Then, five days after Uchiha Itachi had betrayed the Akatsuki, Hidan was whole again and the team was ready.
And Tsunade still had no idea if she was doing the right thing.
