Chapter 1
When Gaara first went there, the shared mindspace of the bijuu was black and blank. Over the last two years the people who meet there have gradually added decorations: Fuu initially made it look like an enormous treehouse, and she fought over whether it was dignified enough with Son Gokuu until everyone agreed they should meet around a fire, like the bijuu used to. Choumei added paper festival lanterns overhead, Gaara soft rugs around the fire, and Kokuou faint stars that suggest there is a sky instead of nothingness. Now it’s a very welcoming place.
When Gaara opens his eyes there and looks up, the stars are gone. In their place is a field of solid black with stylized red clouds bordered in white.
Son is already there, staring at the sky, but Roushi isn’t.
“The hell’s going on?” asks Shukaku. “You must have felt it too.”
Son Gokuu looks down from the sky and says, “We were not with them. Roushi is trying to track Han now, from the last place we saw him a month ago.”
“Do you have any idea what that means?” Gaara gestures up at the clouds. “It almost looks like something you would see on a kimono.
Son Gokuu looks down and frowns. “I have not seen it before, although Roushi may have. I will look into it. But there is someone powerful enough to subdue a jinchuuriki, and we cannot guarantee they will not come for us too. Roushi says we should join forces to make sure we are prepared in case of another attack.”
“You think I need your help?” screeches Shukaku, taking a step toward Son Gokuu. “It’s not like Han and Kokuou were tough. We can take on anyone in the world and come out on top!”
“Can the same be said of Son Gokuu and Roushi?” asks Gaara. “Perhaps they need our help. Roushi has always been cautious, and it seems to have worked for him so far.”
Shukaku looks down at Gaara with slitted eyes, like he knows he’s being manipulated, but shrugs his sloping shoulders and says, “Fine. Where are you right now?”
“Western Thunder Country, heading west.” Son Gokuu is almost as proud as Shukaku, so he must also understand he’s not truly being insulted, because he looks amused rather than angry.
“We’re a ways north of Iwa,” says Gaara. “We should meet near Taki. I’ll leave a message for Saiken, telling her where, in case she comes here later.”
“A message that’s not shit,” mutters Shukaku. “One with actual words in it.”
Gaara has been staying at an inn carved into a cliff face on the coast. The innkeeper is a stern woman who let him stay in exchange for excavating a new wing. She doesn’t know he’s a jinchuuriki—if she did, no doubt, she would call a platoon of ninjas from Iwa to chase him away. But she has been kind in her own way.
Gaara leaves the inn immediately when he comes out of his trance, steps out of the window three stories up onto a platform of sand. He flies as straight as he can toward Taki, and it only takes him two and a half days to get there.
He arrives at the Uchiha apartment at nearly midnight, but the light is still on in the kitchen so he knocks on the window. Itachi and Shisui look surprised, but Shisui gets up to open the window for him.
“It’s a bit late, isn’t it?” says Shisui. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“I’m sorry for coming unexpectedly. Is Fuu in the village right now?”
Itachi frowns slightly. “She’s asleep in the other room. What’s going on? Sit down and I’ll make you some tea.”
Gaara sits, and says, “The five-tails has been killed or sealed, as well as her jinchuuriki, Han. We don’t know yet who did it, but if they’re powerful enough to take down a jinchuuriki we may all be in danger. I’m meeting Roushi, and hopefully Utakata, near here, although we won’t impose on you. I have a few questions I’d like to ask you now, though.”
“Go on,” says Itachi, leaning back against the stove. Her information network is one of the best Gaara knows; although she pretends to be only an administrative assistant she is also a formidable spymaster.
“First, have you ever come across a pattern of red clouds on a black field?” He forms some sand into an approximation of the stylized cloud on the table. “They look something like this. It’s a clue Kokuou gave us before she died, but we don’t know what it means.”
Itachi leans forward to study it, and hums thoughtfully. “I think there are some missing-nin who wear that pattern. I keep a recent bingo book in my room, I can get it for you. Shisui, don’t let the kettle wake up Fuu and Sasuke, please.”
“Aye-aye,” says Shisui, saluting lazily from beside Gaara, where he’s drinking his own tea. “Gaara, you know this through your vaguely mystical bijuu brain network, right?” Gaara nods. “Why didn’t she just say who did it?”
“We don’t know,” says Gaara. “Son… The four-tails and Shukaku felt it almost immediately when she died, and we entered the shared mindspace to find that she had changed sky to that pattern. Shukaku was extremely put out that she didn’t leave a note.”
Shut your fucking face, says Shukaku.
“He’s still put out,” says Gaara, smiling.
Itachi comes back into the kitchen, puts the bingo book down in front of Gaara, and takes the kettle off the heat to start making tea. “Start near the end,” she says. “They must be S-rank if they can take down a jinchuuriki.”
Gaara finds them grouped together very close to the end—they all have bounties above thirty million ryou. “They’re listed as belonging to an organization called Akatsuki.”
“A former revolutionary party founded in Amegakure thirty years ago,” says Itachi as she sets down Gaara’s tea. “Recently, that is, in the last ten years, they have been taking large long-standing bounties and high-paying missions. Especially…” She flips back one page and points to a man whose face is covered. “This one, Kinyaku Kakuzu.”
“Perhaps they were after Han for his bounty, then,” says Gaara. “He has been a missing-nin for at least ten years.”
Itachi frowns and looks back a few more pages to where Han’s entry lists him as 12 800 000 ryou, alive only.
“So probably no.” Shisui leans over to look at the book. “Hey, Gaara, do you know how much you’re worth?”
“I’ve checked, but not recently. I think I’m still A-rank.” Shukaku was furious when he found out they weren’t S-rank. Gaara is willing to give it time, and anyway, he’s happier fighting less skilled hunters.
“Ah, see! You’re actually worth two million ryou more than Han,” says Shisui.
“He used to be more,” Itachi observes. “They lower the price once they stop caring. Gaara, do you want to go to bed? I’m getting quite tired. You can have the couch if you don’t want to wake Fuu and Sasuke.”
“Thank you,” says Gaara. “I’ll finish my tea and go to sleep.”
Shisui stretches and yawns dramatically, ruffling Gaara’s hair as he passes. “Me too. Seeya tomorrow, Gaara. C’mon, Itachi.”
As he drinks his tea, Gaara makes note of all the jinchuuriki’s entries. It comforts him, a little, that Naruto and Fuu are worth almost nothing.