"Isn't the fact that they're willing to try and kill you, and plunge the village into unrest at such a time when we're still so vulnerable, evidence that sensei was correct?" Koharu backed.
"But is it the inevitability brought on by their own nature or merely that of a self fulfilling prophecy?" The old monkey drawled, moving to sit down across from his old comrades. "Perhaps it is time to enact some changes in policy"
"Even if you are correct in that, if you were to come to Fugaku with this now-" Danzo drawled. "He'll smell blood in the water. It will make him bolder. He'll try to take a mile when you give an inch."
Sarutobi remained quiet.
Danzo raised an eyebrow. "You have a plan?"
"The makings of one." He answered before waving them off. "Go on. Its late. I'm getting old...so I'm going to bed." He stood and without another word, turned and left the room. His advisers wondering if the old monkey was finally succumbing to his weariness.
-0-
In the morning, with the camp already packed and the column already on their horses and moving did Naruto try his hand again.
Manuevering his horse to Kurotsuchi's side the faux six year old decided to venture into a subject a bit easier to deal with.
"So what'd ya learn in Iwa's academy?"
The girl snarled, using the slack of the reigns in her hands to slap his horse across the face, nearly throwing him off as his beast reeled, startled. "Get away!"
Naruto frowns, then grins. "They probably didn't teach much from what we saw of your gennin."
"They taught us better than anything your leaf academy teaches."
The blond grinned. Progress.
"Yeah right!" He taunts.
The girl pulls back on the reigns and the sneer she throws over her shoulder at him.
"You probably hit like a girl." He sticks his tongue out at her.
If looks could kill-
"Naruto." Orochimaru drawls. "Enough."
The blond starts to laugh, despite himself then he stops, eyes going wide.
Two chakra signatures, powerful ones, were heading straight for them.
He looks to his right and can tell Orochimaru feels the same thing.
Before the blond could say or do anything Orochimaru forms a seal and galloped his horse forward, catching a slumping Kurotsuchi before she slid right off her horse under the genjutsu. "Magojiro-dono." He shouted, catching the Daimyo's attention.
"Hey what's going on?" Kyofu asked as Orochimaru picked the girl up, off her horse, placed her in Koutou's arms as the man untied his red and black cape, handing it off to a Samurai who tied it around his own neck and pulled a hay filled bundle of cloth from the back of his horse.
"Go!" The older man demanded and, as one, the whole column of men turned and began to charge off in a different direction.
Orochimaru turned to them, one hand pulling out slips of paper. "Come here all of you!" The command in his voice made them all obey nearly without question, the Sannin placed a slip of paper on Ryoko's head first.
Instantly Naruto felt the effects, Ryoko's chakra signature very nearly vanished behind the veil of the seal's effect.
Before anything more could be said he placed the small slip of paper over Kyofu and his own heads.
"Stay with Magojiro-dono. Guard him with your lives." Without another word, the Sannin flew up into the trees, a single leap carrying him to the highest branches.
"Come on!" Koutou barked, before bringing his horse to a full galop, nearly charging off without them before the kids had enough presence of mind to kick at their own horses.
"What's going on!?" Kyofu asked again, ducking under a branch.
"There is too little trust between us for Onoki to let this happen." The Daimyo answered. "He believes I wish his granddaughter to come with us to use as a hostage."
"And you don't?" Naruto asked.
Koutou shook his head. "She is useful. But never as a hostage." He answered. "I didn't come to Iwa to kill children."
"So what he's just sending these guys after us to take back rock girl there?" Ryoko cursed as the horse bounced her around. She hated riding.
"Or to kill us if we were to resist."
"That's an act of war!?"
"Not if he can pin it on Kumo." The man laughed.
"Where'd sensei go?" Kyofu asked.
"To stall their pursuit of course!"
"Alone!?"
Koutou's smile turned sad. Aye. He thought. 'I risked my life for his gamble. Its only fair he return the favor.'
-0-
"Look out!"
Roshi's words were wasted, Han's hands crossed over his face, the thick, absurdly heavy splint mail armor deflecting the hail of shuriken with clinks that barely scratched at the cloth beneath it.
"I'm almost insulted." The snake drawled, his voice echoing around them, bouncing off the trees as the man laughed. "Merely two? I did not think Onoki's opinion of me was so low."
"Go." Roshi demanded, holding his place at the side of a tree. "He's not the target here. I'll deal with this, get the girl!"
"Oh I don't think so!"
A serpent, three times as big or as wide as any of these trees exploded from the ground beneath their feet, its maw gaping wide in order to swallow them both.
Roshi formed a seal, ready to spit out a stream of molten rock only for the sound of someone breathing to come up behind him.
He turned, raising his hand in a hasty block and cursed when a kunai blade was shoved straight through his palm, the spurt of blood spattering across his eyes and face.
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