Chapter 15

Taro summoned his students to him. When Number Two went to speak, Taro held up his hand in a "hold" signal.

He led his students outside the village walls and then took off at a dead run. He led his students through five large stands of bamboo zigging and weaving all the way for kilometers. He finally slowed as he approached a bolthole he considered expendable. It would be used for this meeting only and then destroyed.

It took fifteen minutes to get underground and into the secure room. It had only a table and four chairs. Taro beckoned them to take chairs.

"Awfully cloak and dagger, Number Four," Number One joked.

"Yes, I apologize. But circumstances have changed for me. I was banished from Grass…."

"What!" Number Two hissed.

"Don't interrupt, please. I said I was banished from Hidden Grass today. I must leave by tomorrow evening." He held up his hand when Number One tried to interrupt. "It's fine. I can accept their reasoning. If I stay then I might drag Orochimaru and Sasori into conflict with us. So it was a mutual decision, up to a point.

"I did negotiate a few concessions. I will not be considered a missing ninja. Also, if any or all of you wished to accompany me, you would not be considered missing ninja. If you wish to remain, then you would be promoted to Chuunin of the Grass. Before we leave this safe space today, I must have a decision from each of you."

Taro gestured. They were now permitted to speak. But his students were silent for more than a minute.

"You are banished because you saved us from Orochimaru?" Number Three asked.

"In part. I am now considered S-rank by the village council…and Grass never permits S-rank ninjas to remain. I am the third to be expelled for this reason in the last decade. The last was a truly vile ninja called Zetsu. He transformed his body into some sort of plant…and he practiced cannibalism. I'm in rather poor company in that regard."

"What do you plan to do?" Number One asked.

"That is the right question to ask. I have quite a few plans, some involving dealing with the Snake Sannin. He would never have come to my attention had he not attacked you. I also need to deal with that red headed boy from Hidden Sand. Beyond that, I can see us developing our own village. During all this I will continue the ninja training we've started and development of more…elusive arts."

Number One looked confused, but it washed off his face. "I want to be a great hunter, killing the worst missing ninjas. We only got to do as much of that because we were with you. I don't know that I can accomplish my goals if I remain behind."

Taro nodded. Number One wanted Taro to promise to help him with his goal. Taro wanted to…he wanted to help sway them, but his students needed to work this out for themselves.

They knew their goals. They needed to determine for themselves how best to achieve them. Whether it was with Taro or not was up to them.

Number Three bit at his lip until it bled. "I always thought I wanted to be Jounin of Grass, like my father and my older brother. But I hate the idea that I would be kicked out if I became too powerful. The compressed steam I prefer to use could eventually become an S-ranked technique, at least I hope it could. I would hate to achieve so much and then be dismissed like so much trash."

Taro looked at Number Two.

She sighed. "I have no reservations about leaving."

"Be sure. I don't know if Grass would take you back if you chose to return," Taro said.

The conversation continued for a few more hours, talking it all out. How they would harass Orochimaru to gain experience; where and when they might set up a village.

After Naruto was confident in their decisions and loyalty, he decided to take a major risk.

"I have one final…detail to show you. I hope it will not change your decision, but you do deserve to know. I am…well, let me just show you."

With that, Naruto kicked open the hatch and fell out. A rather inelegant introduction to the students he'd trained for the last two years.

His students, who were fairly unflappable, looked aghast. Some boy had just climbed out of their sensei. What was going on?

"My name is Naruto. I am a puppeteer, like that bastard Sasori. I have been your sensei these years, operating behind the scenes with my good pal, Taro, there."

The conversation that sparked lasted well into the evening hours.

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Number One turned his silver hair black. Number Two's long hair was now braided and fashioned into a bun of the back of her head. Number Three had dumped his green colored clothing for blacks and reds. Each of them had decided to have a ceremonial 'rebirth' after they departed Grass.

Naruto was gratified they had taken his secret in stride. In public he still rode within Taro, but soon that would need to end. Taro had to have a public disaster of some sort. He had the rough outline of a plan, but the details needed sorting.

They moved rapidly south of Grass Country, eventually to end near Wind Country. Naruto really had told Gaara that he would track him down and kill the jinchuuriki if he did not present himself for seal enhancements at a particular date and time. It just so happened that Naruto and his students would arrive only two days before Gaara was due.

When they arrived in River Country, Naruto gave his students a brief tour of the sights on their way to the largest civilian village in the country. He missed living here. It was beautiful, peaceful…save for that horrifying memory of being attacked by Suna ninjas years ago.

Naruto and his students slept that night in tents.

They had a restful day, almost like a vacation. Some of them swam in the river for hours, for fun rather than for training. Taro wandered in the forests he remembered so fondly. They ate a brace of rabbits caught by Number One, roasted over flames with root vegetables found nearby. There was little more satisfying than that.

Sleeping out of doors, faces a bit cold, bodies warm from sleeping bags was a wonderful thing. It was a nice evening for all.

…and then Gaara appeared at five o'clock the next morning, hours before the scheduled meet. How he'd found them, Naruto didn't know.

Taro was up within moments of detecting Gaara's rather unique style of chakra.

He stood outside while he students dressed. It didn't take long for the Sand ninja to traverse the trap field laid by Numbers One and Four. His sand, even now, aided him.

"You know how to defeat Mother," Gaara said, pointing at Taro. "Help me. Mother has been sleeping, but she'll come back eventually."

Taro stared at the jinchuuriki. "It is good you came. Take off your shirt and lay on the grass in the clearing. I will be instructing my students as I work on your seal. Let me explain what will happen to you as a result."

"Yes," Gaara said as he knelt down and waited for freedom to come. He had had time to dwell on his mortality…and it was a glorious time without Mother whispering to him, goading him.

He wanted a different sort of life.

"I will be adding seals to what was already done to you." Taro bent over and examined the structure on Gaara's back. As he'd feared, it was a hatchet job. Weak, perhaps intentionally so, dangerously so.

"Sit up, Gaara. I need to sketch this out on paper first to be sure there are no mistakes. Once a seal like this hits flesh, there's no changing things."

"What do you intend to do? How will it silence Mother?"

The three former chuunin of Grass wondered how Number Four…err, Naruto…could be so calmly speaking with this crazy ninja. They watched and listened and did not interrupt.

"I had intended three new sealing arrays, but I may need four or five now. One will end your bijuu's ability to access your body or mind. Another will force open the demonic chakra possessed by your bijuu and permit you to draw upon it freely. A third seal will assist in purifying the demonic chakra into something you can use without dangerous consequences."

Gaara didn't blink while Taro was speaking. He looked like he understood what Taro said, but it was unnerving talking to someone who didn't react, who didn't act at all human.

"How do you know this?" Gaara asked.

Naruto had access to his father's research on bijuu sealing, but he couldn't admit that. "I have made a study of this…and have access to much research done over the years. Many of the greatest sealing masters study the jinchuuriki seals precisely because they are so complex and touchy. There are few techniques in the world more complex."

Gaara nodded. "Would you have come after me as you threatened?"

"Had you not come here, today? I'd have been in your bedroom by this time tomorrow ending your life, little ninja. Do you have any questions about the seals?"

"When will you be ready?"

Taro pointed to the ground. "Sit and be silent for twenty minutes. I should have this done by then."

The time passed slowly for the nervous students. Gaara didn't seem to move at least during that time. Naruto finished his sketch and checked over the final points. He decided to add a fourth seal, based on an item Naruto carried in his seal. It guaranteed that should Gaara die, then all the chakra would instantly bleed into the earth. A bijuu dispatched in such a way should never be able to reform.

Naruto looked up and saw Gaara staring at him. Naruto did not like the jinchuuriki, but he realized he could just have easily turned into this type of insane, murdering monster. He felt empathy…which was why Gaara was still alive, rather than buried underneath one of Konoha's many forests.

Taro stood up to cross over to where Gaara was sitting when he felt a disturbance in the micropuppets one kilometer away. Someone was approaching quickly from Suna.

"Does anyone know you're here, Gaara?"

The red head shook his head. "They would not wish me to meet with a foreign ninja."

Taro nodded at his students. They prepared for a violent confrontation of some sort.

Less than a minute later, a jounin walked slowly out of the nearby forest. He held his hands up in a non-threatening way. Taro had been awkwardly interrogated by this jounin inside a dive bar in Konoha…he was Gaara's sensei.

"Gaara, you are needed back in Suna."

"Wait, Paku. I am consulting with this ninja on some of my problems."

"Gaara, leave now. Anything you might say to these…people would be a state secret…."

Taro began walking toward the Suna jounin. "Gaara's presence this day was the cost for me not killing him in Konoha. I intend to fix what your people have left incomplete. In less than an hour, Gaara will have no more mental or bodily interconnection with his bijuu."

"You may not do this. I am Acting Kazekage. Do not touch a ninja under my command…."

Gaara looked at his sensei. "Why would you stop this, Paku?"

"I would not have you weaken yourself."

"I will strengthen myself. I will have the power to help my country, rather than terrorize it. Do you not wish this?"

"We have need of your talents, Gaara. Orochimaru betrayed us. He murdered your father, the Kazekage. I would send you against him, to destroy him entirely…."

Gaara breathed slowly for a few moments before he responded. "You wish to assign me to a suicide mission, then. Orochimaru can be beaten, but I have not trained to do this. I do not accept."

"So be it," Paku said, before dispelling. A clone of some sort.

Taro had expected this, but everyone else seemed surprised. The attack came first from the north, a hail of spears. Number Three let loose with a widely dispersed blast of steam. The spears began to melt, their shapes distorted. Instead of cutting through the air like weapons, they hit wind resistance and sunk like stones.

Taro knew precisely where Paku was, but he wanted to give Gaara a test of his hopefully new ideals. What would Gaara do to a former mentor who now stood in his way? He was a murderer…what were his instincts now that his bijuu was temporarily silenced?

Rivers of sand erupted from the nearby river and flew outward in every direction. They were hunting deadly prey.

Taro observed the depth of control Gaara possessed over the sand. It was impressive. His crude approximation, with wind affinity chakra, was perhaps twenty percent of what Gaara could do…it had been good that Gaara and Number Three's battle had been, ahem, interrupted during the Chuunin Exam Finals.

Gaara's sand erupted above the treeline to the west. Number Two ran off to confront this jounin…perhaps her common sense was still lacking? Number One began making the handsigns for one of his stronger genjutsus. Number Three used a hand sign to question Taro. 'Should I kill him?'

'No,' Taro signed back. 'I wish to observe what Gaara will do.'

Number Three hung back, hypervigilant.

A few minutes later there was some kind of explosion near to where Number 2 and Gaara's sand had concentrated their efforts. Then the sand began to contract, returning to the central point where Gaara stood.

Sand was wrapped around Paku like so many thick bandages. Number Two followed behind this sand mummy. Paku was bleeding from a few wounds, signs of some of Number Two's nonlethal attacks.

Gaara's sand brought his sensei to a halt a few week from where he stood. "How did you follow me?"

Paku looked more than a little terrified at being wrapped in Gaara's sand. "You are under constant surveillance, of course."

"I knocked my watchers unconscious before I left," Gaara said with his emotionless voice.

This wasn't going to end well. But the confrontation had given Naruto all the information he needed on Gaara. The red head's immediate instincts, without Mother whispering in his head, hadn't been to slaughter Paku. There was something to work with here.

Taro interceded. Paku could be dealt with later, but Gaara's Mother could choose to return at any time. "If I may, I can put this ninja into a prison of sorts. We can finish up what we came for…and Gaara can cart you back to Suna."

Gaara nodded finally.

Taro scrawled out a quick storage seal and then locked Paku into it. Gaara cradled it for a moment before he dropped it into his sand gourd.

"Now, you, Gaara, may recline over there. This won't take too long," Taro said.

"Good."

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Wave Country was far more prosperous than it had been when Naruto first journeyed here to build a safehouse. He and his team had settled on basing themselves here for their operations against Hidden Sound.

The distance between the two was significant, but it was safer this way.

They left on a Wednesday evening and arrived in Sound Friday at dusk. They planned to remain over the weekend, scouting out bases, trying to find where the actual Hidden Village was located. Kabuto was strangely unhelpful in this regard, as he had never been. Orochimaru had always come to him in order to keep his spy safe.

The new line of work agreed with Number One most of all. He loved the Hunter Nin calling. He had specifically developed his skill sets with this profession in mind. He couldn't have been more perfectly suited for this unless if he had a bloodline trait of some sort related to tracking.

From Friday evening until Monday in the predawn hours, the four ninja explored the flat floodplains of Rice Country. They found and destroyed a few guard posts, and took the heads of whomever they killed. They found one roving party that reminded Naruto of that raiding party with the bone-wielder he'd fought and killed years earlier: this must have been one of Sound's insertion parties journeying to other countries.

Their heads joined the bounty sack.

Not least of all, they took action against the Rice. They poisoned every field they passed. They needed to undermine Orochimaru's strength. If he held back opposition, internal and external, with the threat of his personal power and the promise of no more rice shipments…well, it helped weaken Orochimaru if he had little rice to bargain with.

The guerilla war against Hidden Sound had begun.

During the morning hours of that Monday, the four of them journeyed to Lightning Country and another safehouse. They'd rest up for a few days and raid again, this time cutting a swath through Rice over to Waterfall Country. Then the final leg would take everyone back to Wave for a week or more of recuperation time.

They'd deal with collecting bounties listed in the Bingo Books then. This was how they were funding their little plan.

Instead of fishing for tuna or eel, they went fishing for ninja.

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