The Dark Side of Akatsuki. Chapter 15

Title: Strangers in a Strange Land

Naruto and Sasuke crossed the great forests east of Konoha, moving quickly through the ancient trees. After a time, the terrain began to open up, settling into more civilized roads and vegetation that they crossed on foot. Eventually, the trees thinned to a degree that the two ninja had never really found normal. They'd spent their entire lives surrounded by the giant forests of Konoha.

They crossed the open terrain at a reasonable pace, stopping to camp just once before reaching the coast in the afternoon of the next day. During that time, they got caught up with the events of the last year.

"So you were only gone for a year with some toads," mused Sasuke, "How the hell do you get crowned as the child of some prophecy?"

Naruto's face assumed a familiar grimace as he continued setting the leisurely pace through the increasingly civilized terrain. "Well, it kinda boils down to how the Old Pervert's student is supposed to save the world or something, and he hasn't taught anyone jackshit besides me. Not that he bothered warning me or anything. Look, you gotta promise me you're not gonna tell anyone about this. I'm not even supposed to tell you, alright?"

"Sure, sure, you're a terrible ninja, I already knew that-"

"Hey, screw you!" Naruto interrupted, grinning.

"-but, what is that all supposed to mean? You're supposed to save the world? Do you have some new responsibilities to go along with this?"

"Not… really? I was supposed to keep training, but that's kinda out the window for right now. They just told me there was a lot riding on me and kept talking about right and wrong, and peace, and… well, you know."

"I really don't know."

Naruto shrugged. "Just a lot more secrets being kept. I mean, I guess I've already got a demon in me, so what's one more big surprise?" He paused. "But, hey, on the plus side, they pretty much all agreed to help me, so I can get all the toads I need, whenever I want!"

Sasuke looked doubtful. "That sounds… great?"

Naruto sighed. "Yeah, they're cool people, but there's only so much toad a guy can manage, you know?"

Sasuke wasn't sure where to go with all this. It was great talking to his friend again, but acting like everything was just normal was getting tougher and tougher. He really should be leaving the village for good during this trip, when security and organization was scattered, but… He glanced at Naruto, who had stopped talking, lost in his thoughts. How do you tell your best friend you're leaving forever? Especially one who was so terrible at keeping his mouth shut.

They reached the port town of Urasoe an hour later, and Sasuke still hadn't come up with anything.

-Urasoe no machi-

-Fire Eastern Territories-

It was well past midday, but Naruto and Sasuke still had plenty of time to begin their investigations. First, though, they had to prepare. It wouldn't do to just barge in and start asking questions while still wearing a name-tag that read "HELLO! I AM A NINJA!" They had to be a little more circumspect.

Luckily, they had plans for these sorts of missions, even if one of their teammates was currently absent. Subterfuge, that was the key.

Naruto and Sasuke split up before reaching the town after agreeing on their rough destinations. Each of them was capable of using a Henge technique to change their form into something less suspicious, but each of them also brought a different strength to the table.

Sasuke had almost perfect control over his transformations, and could choose a form for any specific situation. Naruto, lacking Sasuke's finer chakra control, was limited to a few well-practiced forms when mimicking other humans, but made up for that disadvantage with the enormous chakra well that allowed him to engage in other forms of espionage. Thus, Sasuke would target a couple of the most likely places to find information and craft a disguise specifically for the job, while Naruto would spread out a dozen or so shadow clones and cover a wider area.

Sasuke moved through the noisy streets looking short, surly, and red-skinned. He liked this disguise well enough, since in reality he was still fairly small for an adult and being in a disguise that was similar in height to your natural stature was more convincing. Besides, the short, angry sailor look was pretty easy to sell.

The town was lively, but not overly-crowded, though if anything the people here just seemed noisier than those in Konoha or the outlying towns. It was a warm day, but the sea breeze carried cool, salty air along with the distressing smell of fish. It seemed like everything was about as normal as could be, but how could he really tell? Regardless of his target, he needed to spend some time acclimating to the town if he wanted to understand what was going on, so he meandered through the market streets, glaring nonchalantly in no specific direction. There were definitely people talking about the unknown arrivals causing trouble, but he didn't hear much usable information to go after.

He hadn't expected to get his first real hint so soon.

A man standing at a market stall that sold a variety of simple weaponry was arguing with the harried shopkeeper about the wares. From the three swords sheathed in his waist-wrap, Sasuke could only assume the swordsman wasn't pleased with the selection. A town like this wouldn't carry much, being nowhere near a ninja village nor any source of samurai power.

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