17 Disappearance

They took five days for them to reach the Earth Kingdom again, all thanks to Lei the slaver, the poor crew hugged the ground once they stepped on land, many with tears falling down the dark circles under their eyes due to sleep deprivation.

Many people started to think that Lei was spending a bit too much time under Madara's tutelage and was starting to absorb some of his traits, the worse traits! We couldn't even sleep properly you fucker!

The crew kept moving inland towards Gao Ling at a comfortable pace.

Once they reached the great city was already sunset and Madara went to his training cave with Kaliya and Lei, the rest of the crew ran to their houses to get some sleep, some left after spreading some sailor's speech out loud through the clean city streets.

"You will stay here for a while Kaliya, this place is my training grounds and there's a bedroom and a bathroom inside, you can use the main area to practice your waterbending if you need or want and Jackie here will be responsible for bringing you meals." Madara said

Kaliya whistled "This is a damn fancy place to train, money be praised!"

The corners of Madara's mouth raised into an understanding grin "Finally! Someone gets it!"

"So, how long will I be staying in this fancy place?" She asked

"I will check how's the situation inside the estate and will come back later tonight to discuss future plans, for now go in take a bath and rest" he turned to Lei "Jackie bring her food and clean clothes later, I know Lao Beifong won't give her anything so give her one of my old black robes that I brough with me, the ones that are too big for me, it might not be perfect for her height but it's better than nothing."

"Leave it to me Mr. Uchiha" Lei bowed his head.

The duo left Kaliya to her things and walked back to the estate, it wasn't far, roughly 10 minutes away, but when they entered the estate, the mood was … heavy… something isn't right...

Hastening his steps Madara went straight to the main residence with Lei on his tail, reaching there he informed the maid that he was back and asked to inform Mr. Beifong that he was back.

Less then a minute later she requested him to enter his office, and when he entered, he heard a loud female voice exclaiming anxiously.

"….YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING, IT'S ALL HIS FAULT AND YOU KNOW IT!"

Madara was faced with the sight of a grim Lao Beifong listening to the shouts of a panicked Poppy Beifong, once they turned and saw him Poppy rushed towards him while pointing fingers.

"IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT, WE SHOULDN'T HAVE EVER ALLOWED YOU INSIDE OUR HOME!" she yelled like a crazy person.

Lao kept his cool but his face was serious and grim "Poppy, leave us" he said.

"NO, I WILL NOT ALLOW HIM TO SWINDLE YOU AGAIN! THIS BOY IS A DISASTER, EVERYTHING IS HIS FAULT, EVEN YOU STOPPED LISTENING TO ME LIKE YOU USED TO BEFORE THIS PEST ARRIVED AND RUINED OUR LIVES!"

Lao lost it and raised his voice "POPPY, LEAVE US NOW!"

The poor woman could only let out a "yelp" and run away in tears, it was the first time her husband ever yelled at her, he was always so calm and gentle.

"What-" Madara tried to talk but was interrupted.

"Toph disappeared, one of the maid's saw her earthbending through the wall." Said the man with a serious tone staring at Madara's eyes.

Madara was relieved, since Toph ran away she will finally learn from the badgermoles and develop her skills just like in canon, but he had to keep a straight serious face.

"How long has it been?" Asked Madara

"Three days…" Said Lao.

"I will go look for her"

"Yes, you will" he said narrowing his eyes, regardless of being friends with Madara at this point he knew Madara and Toph were quite close, and he also knew that Madara's personality could very well rub off on Toph, especially at such young age, kids absorbed things like sponges, he had no doubt that Madara had an indirect fault for what happened.

Madara nodded and turned around to leave when he heard Lao's final words.

"We believe that she is on the foggy swamp Madara, do you know what that means?"

Madara stopped on his tracks and his eyes widened, hurriedly he turned to Lao with a panicked expression "You can't be serious…"

Lao just nodded and said nothing.

"But… it has been a year…"

"Yes, but they never caught you, do you think they gave up? No, they are angrier than ever, they will not stop until they find you… or someone to take the blame for your actions."

Madara's heart raced at this point, if the Fire Nation finds Toph before he does… regardless of being a blind little girl, they wouldn't care… yes, the 12-year-old Toph Beifong could play with Fire Nation bastards like they were children, but the 5-year-old Toph with no Earthbending mastery whatsoever? A cold sweat ran down the back of his neck at that thought.

"Say no more." Said Madara as he dashed out of the office full speed towards his house.

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((Music time! Play Naruto OST Chain Explosion (FULL) ))

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Once inside he threw his fancy robes on the bed and started wearing his full black old ones, putting all weapons he had inside his sleeves, wrapping the metal wire perfectly inside his robes.

'If it's the Greedy Ghost that they are looking for… the Greedy Ghost is exactly who they will find' His blood red sharingan activated immediately. As he ran out of his house he stopped a maid on his way.

"Tell Lei that he should let my guest know that we might need to speed up our plans." He said on dark somber tone.

The poor maid was terrified of those red eyes, these are not human eyes! She nodded while shaking in fear and he just ignored her reaction, he had bigger problems right now.

He ran towards the nearest wall of the estate and climbed it, jumping on the tree nearby disappearing with the setting sun.

It was a dark night, the sky was cloudy and the moonlight was completely hidden behind the stormy clouds, it would rain at any moment as thunder echoed from above.

Between the trees a small girl covered in mud could be seen running while being guided by big badgermoles.

Toph had escaped her home three days ago and found herself lost in the Foggy Swamp, after half a day she was discovered by big brown badgermoles that resided in that specific region, initially scared she tried to escape but being blind prevented her from doing anything, eventually she discovered that the badgermoles were rather pacific creatures, not only that she made friends with them and by following them for two days she already discovered a few things about earthbending.

A few hours ago, she was asking the badgermoles to help her to find her way home, her parent's must be really worried by now and she was afraid of implicating her big brother Madara in this mess.

Just like Appa and the dragons, badgermoles could roughly understand human speech and led her out of the cave, cleaning the road through the swamp for her.

Halfway through her trip though, she was spotted by a Fire Nation scout and that scout shouted out loud and called for all the nearby soldiers, soldiers that called even more soldiers, and right now she was running covered in dirt and bruises through the swamp from a wave of soldiers that followed behind while shooting fire.

Thanks to the badgermole's earthbending they managed to create some distance but the creature was too big thus easy to spot, Toph was too slow, and the Soldiers were too many.

She was already exhausted when she fell on the ground after tripping on a tree root, before getting up she heard a raspy voice.

"We finally got you" a thunder echoed on the sky and illuminated the Fire Nation soldier behind her, she couldn't see but she knew she had no hope at this point, the Badgermole fought a couple other soldiers that were trying to catch up.

The man raised his fist and a flame was ignited.

But before he could finish the attack his body stopped moving, the fire was extinguished and his arm dropped, all that Toph heard after that was a light 'thud' sound followed by a a louder 'thud' sound, there was no scream.

"Are you alright little midget?"

Toph eyes widened as heard a very familiar voice.

"M…Madara?"

She felt a hand patting her head "Its good to see you safe" she could feel the warmth of his touch even though he wore gloves.

Looking around Madara stared at the massive wave of soldiers approaching and threw two kunais towards the soldiers fighting the badgermole, they both yelled in pain and dropped on the ground.

The badgermole turned towards him cautiously but when he saw how Madara and Toph seemed to know one another, it approached them and nodded in appreciation.

"Toph, can you feel the ground already?" he said with a serious tone.

"H-how did you…" she was shocked, she roughly learned that yesterday, how could he possibly know?

"We have no time for that, use your skills and run away from here" he turned to the badgermole "Please lead her to safety" the beast nodded and poked toph with its nose, telling her to follow him.

"But-"

"No buts, leave NOW!" he shouted.

She gulped and nodded.

"And don't worry, your badass brother won't be bested by these pesky cannon fodder" he said on a snarky tone.

She said nothing, got up and with the help of the badgermole she started to move away.

Not long after the whole battalion of Fire Benders arrived at the place, led by none other than Commander Zhao, Zhang's son, that took the mission to destroy the Greedy Ghost for the sake of revenge, he had a higher rank than his father due to his own connections and ruthlessness, a thing that his father lacked.

"So, you're the Greedy Ghost, I presume? we finally meet. I thought you would keep hiding inside your hole, too scared to come and face the consequences for your actions"

Madara laughed. "Nah, I heard that a bunch of losers were starting a party in my swamp without my permission, so I came here to kick you out."

Zhao snorted "Pretentious commoner, today you will understand what happens when someone defies the Fire Nation!"

"Oh yeah?" Madara smirked sinisterly and assumed his fighting stance while pulling a bunch of kunais, holding them between his fingers, and stepping on the decapitated head of the soldier that tried to hurt Toph "Then let's dance!"