Chapter Text
Ino smiled as everyone was relaxing at the hotel after a hard mission. Naruto and a clone were dancing, making everyone laugh, except Sakura, Sai and Shino, and everyone was trying to recover. Two were simply reserved or doesn’t laugh. The pinkette just had no sense of humor;
Besides some minor injuries everyone was fine and they got to this hotel just in time to avoid the bad storm that was approaching fast. They were lucky the hotel had enough room and enough medical supplies for them to treat what injuries they had. Granted, they had to share two rooms, but they will be dry and getting a hot meal so the only complaints came from Sakura.
“Come eat, you guys! The food is here!” Ino called out so Naruto and Lee could hear her over the music.
Sakura huffed, “Finally. Took long enough.”
Naruto grinned, “Yay! I’m starv-“ the blonde was suddenly hit with a mild coughing spell.
“Hey, man. You ok?” Lee asked curiously. Sakura gained a few nasty glances with her silent uncaring eye roll.
“Yeah. I’m fine!” Naruto said cheerfully, shrugging off the coughing incident as he sat with Sai and Shino.
Shino raised an eyebrow, “That’s blood.” He pointed to a couple red specks on the hand the blonde coughed into.
“Oh?” Naruto blinked curiously and looked at his hand. “It is!”
“Umm How many ribs did you break in that fight again?” Ino asked, knowing Naruto took a lot of hits in their mission. “It could be blood from your wounds.”
Naruto pondered a moment as he sat down, “I did break one … and all that dancing probably didn’t help!” Naruto chuckled and snapped up some chopsticks.
Shino adjusted his glasses, “Take it easy then.” He said, but sighed as the blonde just started munching happily as if nothing happened.
The ninjas ate their fill and went to their rooms. Naruto shared a room with Sai, Lee and Shino while Sakura and Ino shared a room. With the sounds of the storm overhead everyone relaxed in their beds and fell asleep. However, just as they were in the middle of the night Naruto started coughing slightly.
“You ok, man?” Lee asked groggily as he glanced at the wall that separated them from the medics. It wouldn’t take much to wake them. They might even be able to hear this conversation with these thin walls despite the storm.
“Yeah, just .. a tickle. You … guys sleep.” Naruto pressed out between coughs and stepped out of the room to not bother his teammates.
It should’ve just been an annoying tickle in the back of the throat. It wasn’t supposed to last for very long, but it did. After 2 minutes of mild coughing it became violent body shaking coughs that forced Naruto onto his knees.
“Hello?” It seems despite the storm his coughs became loud enough to alert a staff member. “Are you ok-“ the guy gasped fearfully. “Oh dear god! I’ll get some help. Just stay here!” He yelped before running down the hall.
Of course, that last part was not something he needed to say. At the moment Naruto was coughing so hard he couldn’t even stand let alone go anywhere. However, the poor guy probably wasn’t thinking logically considering the bloody scenario he witnessed.
Naruto was on his knees with his head down so low that his forehead was touching the cold floor. Both of the blonde ninja’s hands were covering his mouth. Of course, the hands did nothing to stop the coughing, but the most frightening thing about this scene was pouring out between them.
Copious amounts of blood was coughed up and freely flowed from his mouth . So much blood had collected in his hands that it was overflowing and dripping to the floor. It was more than enough to scare most people. Even Naruto seemed quite scared as he clearly struggled to breathe.
At least, he seemed to be. As Naruto coughed violently his blue eye opened briefly and it looked oddly calm as it glanced around for people. Once that eye saw that a group of people were headed towards him it closed.
“Oh my god!” One person exclaimed as they knelt down next to naruto. “Help me lay him on his back! Did he come with someone?” Naruto felt the people hold his arms and tried to move him onto his back. “Can we just … You know, get rid of him?” The person whispered. Despite the storm and violent bloody coughing Naruto heard and his eyes cracked open showing a bit of shock before closing again.
“Sorry, sir. He came with the ninjas.” Another person said indifferently as he placed a strange smelling cloth over Naruto’s mouth to catch the blood. “Oops … Wrong cloth.” He commented when he caught a whiff of the fumes coming off the cloth and swapped it out for a plain cloth.
“Don’t waste the chloroform … Go wake the ninjas. Maybe we can dump him on them and they’ll leave early.” The man ordered casually. Clearly he thought the ninja coughing up a lung in front of him couldn’t hear the whispers.
“Right!” A person, who sounded a lot like the scared guy who first found Naruto, exclaimed and ran off. Seconds later, and a little bit of coughing, Shino, Sai, Lee and Ino came running down the hall with Sakura trailing slowly behind them.
Sakura yawned, “Why did I have to come?”
Ino deadpanned, “Because you’re the main medic and that guy said Naruto was coughing up blood … which he is. This is our department!” She snapped as Sai, Lee and Shino tried to help the blonde to his feet.
“He seems fine. See he’s already sleepy. Let the demon handle it.” Sakura muttered when she saw the sleepy dazed look in the blue eyes. She started walking back to her room even though Naruto was still weakly coughing and there was blood all over his clothes, hands and the floor.
The man who accidentally used the chloroform cloth just hummed, “That’s probably more blood loss related than plain sleepiness. Should we help you get him to a room? It seems far more serious than anything we can handle.”
“What youthful service!” Lee yelped.
Sai shook his head, “We aren’t too far from our village.”
Shino nodded, “We only stopped because of the storm.” He quickly clarified when he saw the puzzled looks on the hotel staff. “Help him onto my back.” He said and Sai, Lee and Ino placed Naruto exactly where it’d be the easiest for Shino to carry him and secured the blonde in place.
As her fellow ninjas jumped through the window and took off through the storm, Ino gave the hotel staff a sharp look, “The pink haired bitch is picking up the bill.” She said and rushed out after Lee, Shino, Sai and Naruto. Once she caught up with them she chuckled. “No one is around, Naruto. You can stop.” She said, but frowned as Naruto stopped coughing, but the blood didn’t. In fact, she noticed his lips were turning blue. “We need to stop!”
Sai raised an eyebrow as they stopped on a tree branch, “Did something happen with the seal?” He asked and he saw the blood gush out when Shino put his fingers into Naruto’s mouth.
“He didn’t turn it off.” Shino said as he inspected a little seal on the roof of Naruto’s mouth, which was dripping blood. As Lee held Naruto upright, Ino cleared Naruto’s airways. The insect user gently reached into the blonde’s mouth and used a fingertip to turn off the seal on the roof of the mouth. When he leaned close he noticed an odd smell. “Was chloroform part of the plan?” He asked, recognizing the distinctive smell coming from around the unconscious blonde’s mouth.
A baffled Ino shrugged, “Maybe Lady Tsunade knows. We need to hurry anyway so we’ll ask her soon.” She said and they rushed towards their village with the unconscious Naruto being dragged along.
XXXXXXXXXX
“I already said no many, many, many times.” Tsunade said as she kept a steady glare on the old bandaged fool standing in front of her desk. The pissed off woman was restlessly squeezing a red stress ball as fast and as hard as possible.
Danzo winced at the ear piercing squeak that the abused stress ball gave off, “Naruto is the son of the fourth hokage and the vessel of the demon fox. We can’t miss out on-“
Tsunade forced the ball to squeak again just to cut Danzo off, “I. Said. No.” She hissed dangerously as she stood up and glared at the old man. “If you bring up breeding programs again I will sign you up for the breeding program’s clean up crew. Is that understood?”
Danzo grimaced at the disgusting punishment, “Yes, hokage-sama.” He grumbled through clenched teeth.
A worried Shizune opened the door, “Lady Tsunade, we have an emergency-“ Shizune was cut off when Danzo rudely turned and brushed past her. “It’s Naruto. He’s sick.”
Tsunade saw Danzo pause slightly before officially leaving, “Where is he?” She asked and, to waste the smallest amount of time, they jumped right out of the window taking the red ball with her. Barely 5 minutes later they jumped through the window of the hospital. “Asshole is persistent.” She muttered as the window she and Shizune came through was closed. “Ok, how was … Is he actually out cold?” She asked Ino, Shino, Lee and Sai after she saw that Naruto was asleep on the hospital bed.
Ino raised an eyebrow, “Wasn’t chloroform part of the ruse?”
“Nope.” Tsunade commented only to shrug it off. “Naruto is good at improvising. Anyway, did Sakura buy it?”
Shino nodded, “Obviously, she wasn’t concerned, but that’s no surprise. We left her with the bill so she’ll realize how serious this is soon.”
The red ball started wriggling on its own. It was even mumbling, but the words were muffled inside Tsunade’s fist. All that seemed to annoy Tsunade, however, and she threw it at the wall. The red ball rolled out of the dent it made in the wall. As it rolled to a stop it seemed to unravel revealing it wasn’t a ball at all. It was a very dizzy small toy sized person with red hair, red eyes, nine fluffy fox tails and two fluffy fox ears.
Tsunade tapped her chin in thought, “Now the next steps will be crucial. Everyone needs to believe it.” She said seriously and looked at Sai.
Sai nodded and pulled out a canvas and some ink, “Danzo will be having me help report, but he doesn’t fully trust me. I’m sure he’ll have another ROOT agent checking in on Naruto so this mouse, or one like it, will appear whenever another agent is around.” He said as he drew an ink mouse, which came to life with a little chakra.
The hokage nodded as she looked at the mouse, “We’ll all play our roles when we see it.” She commented and tilted her head as she pondered something. “Make a few more of those.” She ordered and she absentmindedly stepped on a tail effectively preventing the little humanoid fox creature from escaping as Sai proceeded to paint several more mice.
“What the f*ck?!” The living human-like fox plush yelled angrily. “You stupid humans make everything so complicated. Just give it back and everything will be solved. Maybe I’ll even be merciful.” He said as he tried to pull his tail out from under Tsunade’s foot, but nothing worked.
Shino scoffed as he adjusted his sunglasses, “It’s your own fault you’re in this mess. As far as we’re concerned you’re on your own.”
Lee huffed, “So unyouthful.”
“Exactly.” Tsunade hissed furiously as she easily grabbed the plushy sized creature by the scruff of the neck and glared at it. “We refuse to let your screw up drag Naruto and Kakashi down too.” She threatened as the army of ink mice went off to guard the perimeter.
“You humans are all pathetic!” The creature snapped and sulked as he dangled from Tsunade’s hand.
“Oh shut up, Kurama!” A finally conscious Naruto grumbled as he sat up. “For creatures that you think are so pathetic we certainly screwed your plans up a lot. My father-“
“Don’t you dare bring him up!” Kurama growled furiously, but his size made him sound like an annoyed cat instead of a threatening demon. “I can crush-“
Tsunade squeezed the mini demon, “Not anymore.”
Naruto rolled his eyes, but then he remembered something, “Oh. About that hotel we went to-“
One tiny squeak from an ink mouse standing under the window alerted everyone to a spy. In a split second Tsunade rolled the Kurama back up into a ball and quickly shoved Naruto back down on the bed. Shizune moved to take the blonde’s vitals, but not only to sell the story. It really sounded like Naruto smacked his head on the way back down on the bed. In fact, he really was out cold again …
XXXXXXXXXX
Danzo went into a hidden compound and looked at the nearest ROOT agent, “Go to the hospital and keep an eye on the demon brat. I want to know his condition.” He ordered and without question the agent left.
The ROOT agent quickly made his way to the hospital. Without being spotted he found the window in Naruto’s hospital. His target was clearly unconscious on the bed. There didn’t seem to be any obvious wounds, but there was a lot of blood on his clothes.
Despite only seeing the medics’ backs it was easy to see how worried Tsunade and Shizune were especially with how hard the hokage was squeezing her stress ball. Another disturbing thing was that Shino, Lee and Ino also had blood splattered on them. The only one not showing concern or covered in blood was Sai, who was secretly a fellow ROOT agent so that made sense considering their training.
After sneaking closer to listen in and getting as much information as he could he returned to Danzo, “I learned that while at the hotel the vessel’s team stopped at, Naruto started coughing up a lot of blood. It was so bad that the others immediately brought him back before the storm ended. Tests are being done now.” He reported and noticed that Sai arrived.
“Report.” Danzo ordered Sai while the other ROOT agent remained silent. After Sai obediently reported everything Danzo nodded when all the details seemed to match the first report. “Continue keeping an eye on the situation.” He said dismissing Sai. Once Sai left Danzo looked at the other ROOT agent. “Go to the hotel and confirm this. Considering this came up not long after the first the breeding program issue came up a month ago, I feel like Tsunade is trying to hide something and I won’t let her. Don’t leave anything out.”
“Yes, Danzo-sama.” The ROOT agent said and quietly left to start a thorough investigation …
