The Ultimate Weapon (Naruto Fanfic)

36-Saved at a Price

There was utter silence as the two figures stole through the night air, the one on the ground completely unaware that she was being followed from the rooftops. The giant orb of white hung low in the sky, glowing brighter than the stars surrounding it and lighting the landscape. Aoi slipped onto the next rooftop, and before he could jump off caught himself as the woman changed her actions.

Slowing down, she stopped under a broken street lamp that no longer gave off any light. Shifting the boy she held in her arms, she touched her face in an obvious signal to someone hiding in the shadows. Watching intently, Aoi noted that the man's face, as it was obvious from the build that the figure was male, was covered entirely in a dark grey cloth.  He stepped forward with the same silence the woman had run with, carefully taking Jinhai and heaving the limp body over his shoulder.

Pulling something out of his pocket, Aoi could just barely make out the color of the papers, identifying it as money. Quite a bit of it. After that, the woman and man parted ways. Hesitating slightly, Aoi finally decided on who to follow, and in a low whisper he was sure neither were within earshot to hear, he told Ibiki the situation.

Twenty minutes of running later, Aoi stood on a branch of a tree watching the figure below him search the forest floor. Seeming to spot what he was looking for, the man placed Jinhai at the base of a tree before heaving on a thin, yet strong, green wire. The cleverly disguised metal cover slid open, and the man quickly maneuvered both himself and Jinhai into the tunnel it had concealed. Giving it a five minute wait, Aoi's hand went to his back where two swords were strapped on. After losing on of his sai, Aoi had shelved the weapons until he could get another pair, and instead wore two swords on his back that Tsunade had approved him having.

The faint hiss of the sword was the only sound, and then Aoi jumped down to the ground where the cover was once again in place. Rather than find the wire that had triggered it to open, Aoi simply struck his sword between the earth and the metal and heaved the two apart, forcing it to open. Once the gap was big enough, Aoi jumped into the black hole in the earth.

_+_

After Aoi had informed Ibiki of the kidnapping and the trade off, the older man began to move. He roused chunin from their beds, and they soon stood bleary eyed before the man in the black trench coat. Quickly issuing orders, it wasn't long before two teams of chunin were heading to two separate homes of the woman and man Aoi had tracked before. Turning to the last four chunin that he had summoned, he began to give them their orders.

"As you four are the most familiar with Aoi, and have a rank required for a mission like this, I would like you to assist him. He has followed another accomplice to what we suspect will be where the children are, and has told me that there is a secret base hidden beneath the forest floor." The group nodded almost collectively, except one who let out a lazy yawn. "Get going."

They all ran off, headed to the west where they knew Aoi's current position was likely to be. On the way there, Shikamaru turned to his teammates. He regarded Shino with acceptance, knowing the other boy's skill, and had to admit from his time in the chunin ranks that Migota was a fierce opponent as well. The last member was the one that had him uneasy however, and he didn't know how to bring up the topic. The issue was solved for him however when Shino spoke up.

"Murasaki, are you sure you can handle a mission? I ask because you are blind."

Instead of getting upset like most would, Murasaki simply smirked. "No problem, if you hadn't noticed I'm not tripping over my feet yet." Migota smiled slightly as well.

Shikamaru spoke then, "What are you using to get around then? I assume you're still not able to see."

"Have to thank Aoi for that one. About a month after we came back from that mission, he saw me sitting in the park. Not much else I could do, I couldn't really go on missions. Anyway, he came over and said he had a way to help me sense things, and so I followed him. He taught me a jutsu that uses my wind chakra and air pressure, this way I can know about things in about a fifty meter radius from where I'm at depending on the situation."