[Sometimes after Wave Mission]
[Hidden Mist Village]
The office of the Mizukage was quiet when Zabuza finally stood before Terumi Mei.
Mist still clung to his clothes, his sword resting against his shoulder like an old habit that refused to die. Haku stood silently behind him, while Kimimaro and Suigetsu were too injured to come with him to report; they were in the hospital. The tension in the room was thick after Zabuza arrived back to the village unannounced or ordered.
Terumi Mei leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. "You caused quite a stir returning like this, Zabuza. Start talking. What happened."
Zabuza snorted. "Land of Waves. Simple job. Escort, intimidation, killing if needed." His single visible eye narrowed. "It didn't stay simple."
"Yes, yes… if it was simple, then you wouldn't be assigned to this mission, nor would you be here unordered. Now explain, what happened."
Zabuza sighed, recalling everything that happened.
He spoke of Gato first, of course, the reason they were there and where everything started. The man needed a bridge builder gone; the said bridge builder then ended up hiring shinobi from Konoha, Kakashi Hatake of all people.
There was no reason to explain the skill of the Copy Ninja; the name was enough to make Terumi know why problems arrived.
"A jonin through and through," Terumi Mei nodded, sighing. If only Hidden Mist also had talented shinobi like him, no, if only she had talented and handsome men like him under her.
'Konoha is lucky to have so many geniuses.' She muttered under her breath.
Zabuza nodded. "Sharp. Dangerous. Exactly the kind Mist used to produce."
Mei didn't reply to anything; she was suffering from a lack of talent in Kiri after the Bloody Mist. A lot of their bloodline clans and talent had been lost.
Mei sighed one more time and went back to the topic. "What else."
"Brats… Kakashi's brats," Zabuza said with venom in his tone.
"His brats…" Terumi raised one brow in question. "Is that supposed to make any sense?" she asked rhetorically.
"No… that's where it stopped making sense," he growled. "They weren't normal brats. One Uchiha, arguably the last loyal one the Leaf got, and he already opened his Sharingan, three tomoe. A loud blond idiot, actually he might be the most normal one there. Two girls, one of them was Uzumaki and another sister of the biggest wild card in this mission."
"Wild card…" Terumi asked, expecting a little more than these cryptic replies.
"A pink-haired brat. If it wasn't for him, then I would have killed Kakashi by now," Zabuza spat.
"Pink hair," Terumi muttered, trying to recall whether Konoha had any major clan with that trait, but nothing came to mind.
"How strong was he?" she inquired, a bit curious now.
"Strong. No way he was a genin; he was definitely Jonin rank," Zabuza said with a sigh.
Terumi Mei nodded at this. "Hmmm, interesting, so Konoha still has strong seeds, huh… lucky fuckers." She clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction.
Then her expression tightened. "And Yagura? What of him." She almost spat the word.
Needless to say, the current Kage didn't get along with the previous one, especially after what Yagura did, no matter whether he was under someone's control or not.
Zabuza hesitated.
"He appeared there as planned," Zabuza said slowly. "Fought that pink-haired brat alone. I didn't even see the fight; it happened pretty far away."
Zabuza clenched his jaw. "Later, Yagura vanished. No body. No proof. Just… gone."
"Gone," Terumi said with an almost threatening manner.
Terumi's eyes hardened. "You're telling me the Three-Tails' jinchūriki went rogue?"
"No," Zabuza snapped. "Well, I don't know."
"He might have lost…" Zabuza shrugged.
Silence filled the room.
"Are you telling me that Yagura lost to a genin?"
"He wasn't a genin. Listen to me, woman… he was strong. I can at least say the boy was at least Jonin rank. He fought Yagura to a standstill until Yagura transformed…"
"Yagura transformed…" Mei asked, a bit shocked.
"Yes… not only that, he unleashed two Biju Dama when fighting that brat."
Needless to say, Terumi was now very interested in this pink-haired brat Zabuza talked about. The interest only grew upon learning that the brat fought Yagura to a standstill, previously put Zabuza under genjutsu, and even had learned the Fourth Hokage's Flying Thunder God technique, that last one being the most shocking.
Once again, the silence in the room was palpable.
Terumi remained silent for a while, mind running while features eternally calm.
Terumi ultimately exhaled. "Yagura going rogue makes more sense than his death. Even if that brat was a Kage-level shinobi, which is most unlikely, killing Yagura wouldn't be so easy."
Zabuza nodded once. "If so, then we have another jinchūriki on the run…" he scowled.
"I'm afraid we do."
Terumi's fist clenched with irritation, but she didn't lose her composure. She just dismissed Zabuza, and once the Demon of the Mist was gone, she turned to her most trusted man.
"What do you think, Ao? Do you think Yagura went rogue?"
The man standing in the shadows until now finally came out. He was the shadow of the current Mizukage, from advisor to protector. Terumi Mei believed in him completely.
This was Ao, the only non-Hyuga member who possessed a Byakugan, stolen from a main branch member of the Hyuga clan.
"Lord Yagura is a formidable shinobi. I doubt he would die that easily to just anyone. I too believe that him going rogue makes more sense…"
Terumi nodded, and after a bit of pondering, asked,
"And what do you think about that pink-haired boy Zabuza talked about…"
"What is there to think about? Konoha always had geniuses," Ao shrugged. However, there was an edge to his tone. It was no secret what the man was thinking about. Killing off talented shinobi from other villages was the norm in wartime.
"I need everything you can find about this boy…"
"Understood."
And just as she was about to move on from the topic, she suddenly remembered something…
"By the way, isn't the Chunin Exam date coming close? Mist hasn't participated in any of the joint village participation in years. Remind me where it will take place this time…"
-x-
[Land of Thunder – Hidden Cloud Village]
Thunderclouds gathered over Kumogakure as unease spread through the village like a slow-burning fire.
At first, it was nothing more than silence.
The Raikage was known for vanishing on missions without warning. His temper was fierce, his will ironclad, and his confidence absolute. No one questioned it when messages failed to arrive on the first day. Or the second.
By the third, the village began to worry.
Messengers were sent. Signal hawks released. Sealing marks activated to search for any trace of the Raikage's chakra. None returned with answers. It was as if the Raikage and his entire entourage had been swallowed by the land itself.
The elders convened in emergency council.
"He was pursuing the Nokizaru group," one advisor said. "Last confirmed sighting was near the border of the Land of Fire."
Another slammed a fist onto the table. "And then nothing. Not even a distress signal."
The room fell silent at the unspoken truth. The Raikage did not vanish without a reason.
An investigatory squad was dispatched immediately after the reinforcement sent after the Raikage's small party couldn't find him. Elite shinobi, trackers, sensory types, veterans hardened by war. They followed every possible route, checked every village, questioned travelers and mercenaries. Days passed, then weeks.
They found nothing.
The village entered turmoil.
Without its leader, command fractured. Patrols doubled. Borders tightened. They had to find him.
Finally, the elders made the decision no one wanted to make.
Killer Bee was summoned.
If the council didn't wish to deal with one person in the entire village besides their hot-headed and muscle-bound Raikage, then it was his more enigmatic brother and the current Jinchuriki of the Eight-Tails, Bee.
However, if anyone could find the Raikage, it was him.
Bee departed alone the very same day, moving fast and loud in his own strange way, rapping under his breath while his senses stretched wide. He followed the faint trail left behind, not chakra, but chaos. Broken terrain. Disrupted ecosystems.
Eventually, Bee tracked down the Nokizaru group. At least some of them.
Their bodies were twisted, faces frozen in terror. Their chakra systems were damaged beyond repair. Bee knelt beside one, his expression finally serious.
"Insects," he muttered.
Now he was getting some idea of what would have happened.
They had been infected deliberately, their bodies turned into time bombs. Bee searched the area thoroughly, but there was no sign of the Raikage. No blood. No armor. No weapon.
Nothing.
Only silence.
This situation was getting troublesome now, even by Bee's standards.
"Yo, which town's close by? If my brother's sick, he'd seek a doc, right!."
xXx
A/N : Just a bit at what's going on around the world, I wished to do this after land of Waves arc, but the content wasn't enough to put in a single chapter, so I waited.
Tell me were I can improve in my writing. I'm currently trying to improve my fics. Thanks.
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