Game of Shadows - 108 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto nor The Gamer. I own nothing, really.

Cover Art: Kissuli.

Chapter 108

“Eiji…”

“It’s fine,” He said, giving Kabuto a tight smile as he took a step back. The minty glow around the med nin’s hand vanished as he ended his technique. “Everything alright?” The team leader asked then.

“As good as you can be,” The ex-spy answered, which was good enough for him.

“Great,” He nodded, giving the man a slight smile when he shot a mild glare his way. “You are doing a great job, by the way. Keep it up.”

“What do you-?”

“I’m taking a little break, Kabuto, but I’m not blind,” Eiji said, amused that Kabuto thought he wouldn’t notice. He always had his Web Sense active, especially after the mess with Sasori. Last thing he needed was to be caught off guard again. No, that wouldn’t happen. “Thanks for keeping an eye on everyone.”

“It’s no problem,” Kabuto replied, looking like he didn’t know how to react or proceed from there. “I thought given your desire to rest, we could do our part and make things easier on you.”

Eiji was very amused by that response and he wasn’t the only one. Hachi and Kage’s brushed against his own, meshing together in a slightly weird feeling. Tsuchigumo, for her part, was all but laughing, mostly because of what they were feeling though, really.

“You are certainly helping, so thanks,” He told the med nin, his eyes dropping a little until they were only half open, his posture deflating as he slouched forward. “Anyone that I have to have a talk with?” Eiji asked. He was pretty sure nobody had been particularly problematic from what he’d picked up, but he had to admit that his focus had been looking for threats, not on his team.

With Sasori out, there was nobody in the team that was likely to betray him, he thought. Especially not after his little display after dealing with Kakuzu. He was pretty sure he’d scared the fuck out of everyone, if their behaviour afterwards was any indication.

“No that I know of,” Kabuto reassured him with a slight smirk. “On that note though, I better go make sure it stays that way, don’t you think?”

“Go ahead, man. Best of luck,” Eiji replied, waving the boy off.

“So, it’s really happening?” Shirakumo asked, sounding subdued.

“There are a few things that could help, but otherwise, yes,” He replied, smiling sadly as the spider pushed herself against the side of his neck and his cheek. “Don’t worry too much though. There’s lots of time.”

“For now,” She shot back.

“Don’t worry about it,” He repeated, but the little thing didn’t seem very eager to listen to him. “Now, let’s go with Tayuya, yeah? We gotta keep working on your genjutsu training or your mother will get angry with me.”

“Ok,” Was the simple answer the spider gave him. After that, he momentarily closed his eyes before starting to move.

[}-o-{]

[Tayuya]

“Thanks for this,” Eiji told her, through genjutsu, just like she usually did with everyone else. It was the first time he did so himself though. Then again, he’d said he wanted to start using illusions more. “I know it kind of gets on your way.”

“It’s no problem. Makes for a light warm up, I guess,” She replied, as was usual lately, hesitating with her words. She knew her personality was aggravating at best and the situation didn’t allow for room to mess up now. The last thing she wanted was to screw up her chance by annoying Eiji a little too much, which seemed like something that was more likely to happen at that moment, all things considered. “Whitey is the least annoying one around, honestly,” She added as she continued playing her flute.

“Well, you are not wrong about that,” Eiji replied, turning towards his shoulder where the arachnid sat struggling to break from the illusions Tayuya kept placing on her.

“You moved a tree’s branch,” Shirakumo pointed out after dissipating a genjutsu. That was part of the exercise. She had to find what the illusion was doing. After all, out in the field, you couldn’t know if you were being placed under one unless you had that kind of perception.

“Correct,” Tayuya replied with her illusion voice as she went to place another illusion.

“You don’t need to be so tense,” Eiji said after a moment of just hearing her music. He seemed to love it, which was nice. People usually didn’t complain about it, but they didn’t enjoy it either. Her music being ignored was worse than it being disliked, in Tayuya’s opinion. At least if people complained it was because it generated an emotion in them. If they didn’t care then… What was the point? So, it was nice to have someone that liked her music, even with the eerie and sometimes unnerving tunes. “You are annoying, yes, but if I’ve put up with you this far, then I can do so a little longer. Just don’t be annoying around higher ups and don’t cause too much trouble with the team. That’s all I ask for.”

“I think I can do that, Fearless Leader,” Tayuya replied, considering his words.

“Feel free to annoy Yugito if she’s being an idiot,” Eiji commented then, gaining her attention instantly. Being given free reign to make someone hate her? Sign her the fuck up. “She’s testing me at the worst time, but I don’t want to cause an international event.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Tayuya said with a nod, ideas forming in her head. Maybe she could make her hear gibberish the next time she tried to get information out of Skitter? Or maybe she could give false information… Oh, that sounded good. She’d need to check with Eiji and Kabuto, but it sounded like a good plan.

Truly, she’d lucked out with her team leader, she thought to herself.

[}-o-{]

[Eiji Satou]

“So, you’ve made up your mind?” He asked, a dispirited smile on his face.

“I have,” Temari answered, giving a similar grin back. “I like working with you, and the team is great… for the most part… But I’m not strong enough for this,” She admitted, looking down. “I’m not ready yet.”

“You don’t have to give me reasons, Temari. It’s fine,” He reassured, waving the whole thing off. As it was, the team was out of their league with the remaining Akatsuki members. There was no way they’d be able to do anything in those situations. At most, he could count on them buying a little time. And that was the best case scenario.

Chances were that they would die.

Thus, he’d offer them a chance to leave it once he reached Konoha. He’d already decided to convince Hiruzen, Tsunade and Danzo to give Kabuto, Tayuya and Jirobo a chance, leave Yuki with his friends and send Temari and Yugito back home. That would be it for the Suicide Squad, he supposed. Yugito might be able to help, but he didn’t trust her enough to be alone with her and he’d prefer to work by himself than to have to constantly watch his back with no back up.

“I just… I feel like…”

“Temari, I said it’s fine,” He repeated, giving her as reassuring a smile as he could manage. “I was already planning on dissolving this team once we reached Konoha,” He admitted, making her eyes widen. “The people that remain out there to hunt, you guys most probably wouldn’t survive fighting against. You are great, but great isn’t enough against these people.”

“I see…”

“So, you’ll be going back to Suna once we reach Konoha. If anything happens over there, buy time. I have Spiders keeping an eye on things. If anything happens, I’ll be there as fast as possible,” He told her. Might as well have the conversation then, if they were already talking about the future.

“Which I guess would be pretty fast,” Temari commented with a slight grin.

“You bet. I might arrive before you finish calling,” He shot back with a light chuckle. That was a thought though. How fast would he be able to travel if he put his all into it? With Tsuchigumo and maybe Senjutsu, the Flickers and Energy skills… That sounded like he’d go pretty damn fast.

“I wouldn’t even be that surprised,” Temari said, looking down and her smile dimming. “I’ll miss this, I think.”

“I think I will too,” He admitted, turning to look at the rest of the group, sitting somewhere a little further to the side. He often took moments to sit by himself and enjoy the relative quietness of those days. A whining sound made him tilt his head down towards Yuki, who had her head on his lap. “You too, huh?” He asked, placing a hand between the canine’s ears.

[}-o-{]

“Kage’s having fun,” Hachi commented from where she sat in front of him, inside the Mindscape. In her hands was a guitar that she was playing. Eiji supposed he shouldn’t be surprised the twins had gotten good with the instruments he’d made for them, even if they weren’t familiar with them. They had the time to practice, he guessed.

“Good for him,” He commented with a slight smile as he felt Tsuchigumo’s soft fur against his back. The eight-legged wolf was sitting on the ground, acting as a backrest for him. The chakra beast seemed quite content with that and he certainly found the training ground peaceful, so it worked for both of them. The ambient music provided by Hachi certainly helped. “I’m sure the same can’t be said about the team.”

He’d started letting the twins do some physical training for him. Not a whole lot, since he’d still feel the soreness and weariness later, but still. Kabuto would usually help him deal with those a little better. He couldn’t be bothered to put up with that at the moment, honestly. Only reason he was going through the trouble was because the twins liked to do it, really. If not, he’d been happy with the progress his clones were making on his skills and would have called it a day with just that.

“I’m sure they missed the training,” Hachi commented, with a smile that spelled nothing good for the Squad.

“You know that they won’t need to be that strong going forward, right? There should be a relatively calm time after Akatsuki is out of the picture. Hell, they probably won’t even have to deal with them,” Eiji pointed out. Idly, looking at one of the deers that he’d made for Tsuchi to hunt in the distance, he wondered what else he could make. They’d made birds and a handful of other things, but he wanted for there to be more life in his mindscape. Maybe he could start with the weather though, because the sunny one was nice and all, but some wind and a few clouds would be nice. Adding night sure sounded like a good idea too.

“You don’t think they’ll follow you anyway?” Hachi asked and he chuckled.

“What? Follow me to their deaths against the remaining Akatsuki members? I know we called ourselves Suicide Squad, but come on,” He said, still laughing.

“You’d be surprised what people can do when you are the only one that is willing to help,” His mind creation said solemnly, giving him a sad smile. “How you manage to so severely underestimate the things you do even in your own mind outstands me, Eiji,” She added. “You’ve pulled the Sound ninja and Kabuto from the verge of having their lives ruined and wasted. I imagine there are few things they wouldn’t do for you.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can, Eiji,” Hachi insisted, her fingers stopping and with them the music. “Kage and I, there’s few things we wouldn’t do for you either. Not when we know all that you do, all that you think. You aren’t fighting alone, Eiji. Maybe it’s time you realize that.”

There was silence then. The quiet stretched for a while, with the boy unsure of how to respond to that and Hachi leaving her message to sink in. Eventually, she started playing again, but nobody in the Mindscape said anything even when Kage finished training and he swapped places with Eiji. His mind remained without voices for a while, not even his own.

[}-o-{]

Eiji’s ears picked up with the slightly annoying clicking sound of wood hitting wood and metal hitting metal. Normally, it was a sound that would have concerned him at least a little, especially after Sasori had gone rogue on them. However, he knew the puppet master was in the Spider’s realm and heavily guarded, just like Kakuzu and Hidan.

Besides, there was nothing that escaped his Web Sense. He’d grown even more paranoid than before, keeping an eye on everything. It was good that he was taking a rest from most things, because just keeping watch on his surroundings took its own toll on him.

The point was, he simply turned around and raised an eyebrow.

“Huh, it works,” Kabuto said, his eyes fixed on the three fingered hand puppet. It looked like a wooden bird foot, the little claws clicking as he tested this movement or that. “What do you think? I learned a few things from Sasori. You think it’s worth working on?”

“It might be,” Eiji replied with a tilt of his head. Puppets could be very handy for a lot of things. If one were good at multitasking, they could work as pseudo-Shadow Clones. Sometimes even more useful than those, depending on the situation, with all the tools you could put into them and the fact that they didn’t disappear with the slightest of hits.

“So long as you didn’t learn his backstabbing ways, Four Eyes,” Tayuya commented, out loud for once. It seemed even she could get tired of playing. The silence around felt strange to Eiji, like it did everytime the girl put her flute down. Considering she played for most of the time she was awake, he thought it was a fair reaction. Still, he couldn’t help but want to fill that silence. ‘Maybe I should learn how to play an instrument,’ He mused.

“No worries there,” Kabuto replied dryly. “If I had any such ideas, I don’t have them anymore after what happened.”

“As if he did in the first place,” Kage said in Eiji’s mind.

“Well, I’m sure there must be some information about puppet making and control in Konoha. If not, I’m sure we can get some from Suna, right?” The leader mused, before turning towards Temari with that question.

“We are allies now, I’m sure there won’t be any problems as long as you don’t spread that knowledge around,” She answered after thinking that question over. “I know some things from Kankuro, if you are interested.”

“Hm… I guess I can look into it on our way back and decide then,” Kabuto considered before nodding to himself. Then the small clawed “hand” moved through the air and picked up a branch from the ground.

[}-o-{]

“Your mindscape sounds like both a nightmare and a dream, Tayuya,” Eiji commented, sitting on the ground together with the two ex-Sound Four ninja. He was currently helping them with their mindscape training to deal with the Cursed Mark. He’d been doing that for a good while now, and they were progressing nicely.

They could now safely use the first stage without being influenced at all. Every use of the thing needed some time to repair damage, but overall it was a viable tool in their arsenal now, instead of a security risk. From there, they were now working towards making it so that the thing didn’t affect their mindscapes and maybe start working on their second stage.

“You are one to talk, Fearless Leader,” The redhead shot back. “I can’t believe you put… that in your mind. You are absolutely mad,” She said, which was a fair accusation, he supposed. The both of them had been quite shocked, especially Tayuya, when he’d told them that a portion of his mindscape was just the Void.

He thought the girl didn’t have that much room to talk. Her mindscape, apparently, wasn’t even a physical place. It was made completely of sound, apparently, or music if one wanted to be more accurate. Honestly, Eiji had a difficult time picturing how that would be.

“I can’t even begin to imagine how being in your mind would be,” He commented.

“I’m sure the Bimbo clan could throw you in,” Tayuya commented and he was both tempted and worried by the proposition. Her head sounded like a dangerous place to be in for a variety of reasons.

“I think I’ll pass,” He replied with a wry smile as she cackled. “Have I told you how much I appreciate you being so normal, Jirobo?”

“I don’t think you have,” The boy told him, although he wore a similar grin to his own on his face. “Then again, how normal can I be, if I’m part of this team?” Jirobo asked, which was… fair, Eiji supposed.

“You are not wrong,” He replied. “So, how is yours coming along? I can barely understand what Tayuya’s saying, so I guess she’s on her own,” He commented with a chuckle.

“I think I liked my idea of building a pond with a place for me to be safe in the middle. I’ll grow it from there, but I want a solid place first. Something that won’t fall apart when using the Mark,” Jirobo explained and Eiji considered that idea. It sounded solid, how well it’d work was something they’d have to find out later though.

“We can work on that. Even if a place in your mindscape is ok, we need to protect your actual mind. Put most of it in that zone and then work from there,” Eiji explained. He’d barely kept his mind when Tsuchigumo raged through it. He didn’t know how the Mark affected things, but he was sure it wasn’t much better.

When the chakra beast gave a whimpering sound, he sent a wave of reassurance towards her. It wasn’t even really her fault, so she didn’t need to feel guilty anyway. She just needed to understand that.

“We’ll take care of that,” Hachi told him and he mentally nodded.

Time to focus on helping his team.

[}-o-{]

“They’ve got to be kidding. Is this because of Freaky?” Tayuya grumbled, nervously looking around as they walked through the streets of Konoha.

Unfortunately for Eiji, there had been no friendly reunion at the gates. Instead, once they showed up there, a group of Anbu appeared in front of them. Immediately afterwards, they’d been told to make their way to the Hokage tower. The redhead’s guess as to why they were being escorted by the aforementioned group was a good one, Eiji would admit.

However, he had another idea that had him failing to control his killing intent. Everyone was tense because of that, even his escorts. There was little mistake to be made though, considering the cat-masked Anbu to his right. Or, more importantly, the face that was hidden behind it. He could see it clear as day with his Web Sense.

“We knew it was a possibility,” Kage said, but even he sounded annoyed.

“Everything alright, Eiji?” Kabuto asked hesitantly, but Eiji could respect that he did. It couldn’t be easy, considering how he must have looked like.

“No,” He answered curtly. “I’m angry. Very much so.”

“Someone must have screwed up big time,” Tayuya pointed out.

“It seems so,” Eiji agreed, even though she was just reading that from him instead of actually guessing. She didn’t seem to be wrong. If he was right though… His bloodlust grew heavier around them. So much so that even the civilians that stayed further away seemed to be affected.

“Eiji Satou,” One of their escorts started, before stopping when the boy’s eyes turned towards them. Eiji simply waited then, to see if they dared say something.

He’d been having a terrible time since he left on his last mission. Now this was added on top of that and no amount of resting and taking it easy would keep his mood up. He wanted a goddamned break. However, since the world seemed intent on screwing him over, then he would make sure that everyone else had as hard a time as he did.

It was only fair, right?

If they weren’t going to help, then they better be ready.

“Take it from someone that knows,” Jirobo said then, directing his words towards the Anbu. “You don’t want to annoy Eiji right now. Or ever. So, do your job and leave it at that, yeah?”

Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, the Anbu nodded stiffly and took a step away from the Squad as they continued moving. Turning back forwards, Eiji continued on his way, with his team walking behind him on both sides, the whole group being surrounded by Anbu. They must have made quite the sight, he supposed. The good thing about that was that his friends would probably hear about his arrival really quick, since it was so over the top.

Eventually they made it to the tower, in tense silence.

“What happened?” Eiji asked, once he was standing in front of the three people he was starting to associate with the office. Hiruzen, Danzo and Tsunade.

“No hello?” Tsunade asked, but even she seemed to know it was not the time, because her smile seemed supremely forced.

In response, Eiji simply raised an eyebrow. The room remained silent, with the Anbu team positioned against the walls and looked at the Squad. One of them, one that had already been in the office before they arrived, all but appeared in front of Eiji, passing a file to him. Opening it, he felt his eyebrow twitch as he started reading.

“Why am I not surprised?” He asked under his breath, but clearly not low enough.

“Because you are not stupid?” Tsunade asked, her grimace of a smile remaining in place as Hiruzen took a drag from his pipe and Danzo’s expression seemed to turn more sour than usual. “There’s a number of things we can do about this though.”

“What do we know about Akatsuki?” Eiji asked instead of continuing with that thread of conversation. He needed to check on some things first, but he already had things in mind. Another Anbu appeared, passing him yet another file.

“Eiji?” Temari asked, but he didn’t turn towards her as he started reading.

“Temari is leaving the team. She’ll go back to Suna,” He informed his superiors absently.

“We’ll arrange for an escort,” Hiruzen said, but it was obvious that he was waiting on Eiji to say something regarding either Akatsuki or this new problem. So, silence fell around them once more as he considered the information in front of him.

A smile slowly formed on his face.

“Well, someone’s fucked,” He heard Tayuya mutter next to him. She wasn’t wrong.

“I’ll take care of this,” Eiji said, closing the files and storing them in a seal. “You lot go to the usual training grounds,” He said, his wires moving out of his sight. Instantly, he received a nod from both Temari and Kabuto.

“Is there anything you need?” Surprisingly, it was Danzo the one to ask that.

“Fuinjutsu study material, lots of it,” He said as the Squad started leaving the room. Instantly, all three of his superiors’ eyebrows rose. “I kind of like the coat, so if you guys could get me one that’s actually built for Ninja use, that’d be nice,” He commented, almost flippantly. “Having some ramen from Ichiraku delivered to the Training Grounds when I arrive would be nice.”

“Who are you, the brat?” Tsunade asked, looking almost amused if it weren’t for the sad glint in her eyes. The other two simply nodded to everything he listed. He was pretty sure Hiruzen was directing a resigned expression towards him.

“Anything else?” The current Hokage asked.

“Next time, don’t have me escorted here like I’m some kind of criminal. Or I’ll do something drastic.”

“Noted.”

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

No rest for the wicked, amirite? My characters are doing their thing, as usual, and it seems that stuff even I didn’t see coming is happening. Fun stuff.

Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: Any guesses as to what’s going on?

See you.