Chapter 23: Stubbornness

It took three days for Jiraiya to find a way to suppress Orochimaru’s seal. Not because the seal was a masterpiece of anything like that but because it was badly made and in his opinion made no sense. So did Riku who gave up on subtlety and suggested to plainly deal with it by simply putting another seal on top. One odd based to be in conflict with Orochimaru’s even based. Jiraiya had looked at him as if he had two heads then began working on it. All the while Riku observed silently from the side and took notes. Both agreed that it was a very barbaric way to deal with a seal but they were pressed by time so went along with it.

The results were not what they had expected but it worked. The original’s seal had been suppressed enough for Hashirama and Tobirma to fight against it thanks to their strong will. Tsunade had a brief but meaningful reunion with the two men after removing Riku from his uncle. He really did try to strangle the man even though he knew it was pointless as he was dead and didn’t need to breathe. Riku simply said that ‘It was on principle for being a moron!’ before being kicked out of the room. When Tobirama asked for an explanation and received it. He agreed with the young dirty blond. ‘How could I miss this?’ he simply muttered repeatedly for his lack of cleverness about the use of the shadow clone. In the end, both former Hokages left for the pure lands happy with the knowledge that the village was strong and in good hands.

That wasn’t the only thing that had happened during those three days. While Jiraiya and Riku were working on releasing the Hokages, they had a clone each working on a prototype of a chakra battery tag. The results were mixed. On one hand it worked, on the other hand the seal was badly made and necessitated a huge amount of chakra to activate and would absorb another huge amount in a blink of an eye into the seal. Should an academy succeed in activating the seal they would probably be killed by the absorption effect; completely drained of their chakra on the spot. Thankfully Sarutobi Hiruzen had not been a Hokage for 50 years for shit and giggles. He had appropriate chakra reserves and was able to use the seal without risk but was quite winded afterwards. All that was left to do was connecting his amputated limb to something to start the healing process.

Another thing happened in the village that had far reaching consequences. Uchiha Sasuke had deserted Konoha to join Orochimaru. With no Anbu, Jonins or chunin available, Tsunade had no choice but to fetch for Riku. He had to leave Jiraiya alone and dispelled his clones considering the situation because going on a dangerous retrieval mission with a quarter of his chakra would have been suicidal. With a very restricted choice of members for the teams at hand, he had to go with what he knew. Or rather who he knew. In less than half an hour he had gathered Naruto, Shikamaru, Hinata and Karin. The last one was exceptionally given permission because of her particular skills. She was a sensor, had advanced knowledge in iryo ninjutsu and had her Adamantine sealing chains which could suppress chakra and capture targets.

When Tsunade asked for this particular team composition, Riku simply answered that: each member could do multiple jobs. He could act as a front liner, medic and capture specialist. Shikamaru could act as strategist and capture specialist. Hinata as a tracker, frontliner and possible capture specialist thanks to her byakugan and her Juken. The only difference with Karin was really their fighting abilities. Finally Naruto was a chakra power house and could help greatly with his numerous shadow clones.

While the team had been hastily made, Tsunade mentally agreed with it and Riku’s reasoning. They went as fast as they could and made contact with a team of Oto a few kilometers away from the border with Rice Country. Sasuke was nowhere to be seen and neither Hinata nor Karin could tell where he was with their eyes but the fact that one of the Oto-nin carried a huge crate layered with seals and they couldn’t see one way or another what was inside made Riku think that Sasuke was in it.

Riku had been able to tell that every single one of their opponents was at least chunin level. They were opponents that no one beside himself could deal with one on one. He had put his worry aside and thanked Kami for the Oto-nins’ arrogance. They believed themselves so great for being members of Orochimaru’s personal guard that they looked down on the team. As such only three of them left up ahead while the fourth stayed behind. A tall fatty ginger who used his teammate as a distraction to create a dome of earth entrapping everyone but Riku and Hinata. The Hyuga had been really close to the dirty blond at that moment and he had taken her with him when he had used a kawarimi to get away just in time and out of sight. Of course hiding among the leaves of a tree had been a good idea for a surprise attack. Unfortunately, a captured Naruto had opened his mouth revealing that they were not inside the dome with the others. In consequence, the Fatty started another doton jutsu, whose effect was to gather a huge amount of earth and rock and shape a giant boulder. Riku immediately understood that the rest of the team were going to get crushed. Since Fatty didn’t know where Hinata and he were, he would deal with his prisoners first and quickly to not have them join the fight later against the free leaf-nins.

Riku had acted fast, rushing the enemy with wind laced kunais while ordering Hinata to get everyone out. The fight had been quick but intense. Most importantly it revealed that the Oto-nins had all a cursed mark they could activate at will making them stronger. After making a feint and a clever use of a smoke tag and a shadow clone, Riku had decapitated the Fatty and sealed his body away in a storage seal in his book. They started the chase again, Riku berated Naruto for outing him and Hinata and nearly getting himself, Shikamaru and Karin killed in consequence. The sun kissed blonde had apologized and gave his word he would keep his mouth shut from now on unless necessary.

They met the second shinobi from Oto a few minutes later. He too had stayed behind to stop them or at the very least delayed them. Shikamaru advised to split the team but Riku refused, considering it was too risky a move. With cursed marks involved, he had argued that the faster they defeated their opponent the more efficient they would be in the relative long term. As such a 5 vs 1 should in theory give better results even if they would be delayed a bit. The objective was to turn against the Oto-nin their arrogance and deal with them before they could activate their curse mark. As such the Oto-nin was promptly captured by a combination of Naruto shadow clones, henges, Karin’s Adamantine chains, and Hinata’s Juken, completely sealing his ability to use chakra. At best they lost two minutes.

Things became more complicated when they reached their targets. Sasuke had awoken and got out from the crate he had been in. He had ignored Naruto’s shouts to come back and Riku’s order for the same thing and instead left. The two Orochimaru’s guards left, silently realizing that the team was more than what they thought, used their cursed seals on the spot. With Sasuke getting away, Riku made a choice and changed his mind about splitting the team. He decided to take Naruto with him in pursuit of the defecting leaf-nin, while Shikamaru, Hinata and Karin would deal with the rest. It was a very risky move but the best available. He could have left Nartuo with the three others and face Sasuke alone but with their location so close to the border, if Orochimaru had sent a welcoming party, the possibility of Sasuke sneaking away was great. It turned out to be the right call as a fifth Oto-nin stopped their pursuit and Riku could tell he was way more powerful than the other. He ordered Naruto to keep going and duelled the new opponent.

That has been the hardest fight of his life. The white haired teen he was fighting had a kekkei genkai allowing him to manipulate at will his skeletal structure. Making a bone armor, a bone sword or simply shooting finger bones at incredible speed made the fight a real nightmare but Riku held on. So well and so much that he discovered that the curse mark had a second stage. He had thrown everything he had in his arsenal at his enemy. Shurifuin, ninjutsu, genjutsu, everything but Taijutsu and his Iryoken. The first because it was clear to him that he was battling a taijutsu specialist and was far outclassed, the second because he didn’t practice it at all since his near death experience with Tsunade and thus was useless. Even his speed had been a bit below his enemy and that had been costly. He piled up many laceration wounds. Some deeper than others and that would necessitate stitches if not treated by the use of the Mystical Palm. One of them had been very bad. His spleen had taken a piercing strike from a bone sword and he had begun losing blood fast. Just as he commented that ‘Kekkei Genkai are bullshit’ he had been saved from speeding finger bones by a wall of sand.

Out of nowhere Gaara, his final opponent during the Chunin Exam, had saved his ass. For a moment he had believed that the Suna-nin wanted to kill Riku himself but the defensive posture he took in front of him changed his mind. The sand user was here to help. Feeling relieved, Riku hadn’t lowered his guard one bit and had been right to do so. Even with Gaara’s addition, making the fight a 2 vs 1, it was mostly not a fight in their favor. With nothing to lose, Riku had tried to use his Iryoken again, grazing the Oto-nin just under his left armpit and got impaled in the shoulder for it.

It turned out to be their salvation. The boost in cellular division spread to his opponent’s whole body because of his bloodline and he lost control of it spectacularly. Bones, flesh, organs, everything began to swell disproportionately and the teenager exploded. Thankfully Gaara had been fast enough to cover him with his sand. The situation had still been bad with his bleeding and when Karin along with Shikamaru, Hinata but also Gaara’s siblings arrived she tried to help him. Riku instead sent everyone to assist Naruto with Karin tending to his wounds. When he refused to bite her to heal both because the others would ask questions and because she was his friend and not a healing pack, she punched the top of his head and forced him to bite her, ranting that he was an ‘idiotic moron too dumb to live’.

The mission ended in failure. Sasuke defeated Naruto and crossed the border thus getting away. No one was badly wounded. Naruto just had chakra exhaustion while Riku, to everyone’s curiosity, was brand new. While they didn’t come back with Sasuke with them they brought back two living enemies to interrogate, two dead bodies and lots of organic material for study from the guy that Riku and Gaara fought. He was a bit of everywhere after all.

Tsunade had not been happy when during his report he confessed using his Iryoken but she said nothing because of the presence of others, most notably the sand siblings. With that done and out of the way Riku went back to help Jiraiya and the rest was history.

“How did you do it?”

“Did what, sensei?”

Riku was washing the dishes of the dinner they just had. For the last two days Tsunade had given him the look but had held her tongue and didn’t ask what she wanted to know and that Riku didn’t want to answer. Apparently her patience had worn off and she boxed him in in the kitchen with no way out.

“The others’ reports said you were badly wounded when they arrived at the clearing where you fought. Gaara’s was even more detailed since he saw you get badly hurt a second time. To your shoulder. Yet when everyone got back you had no wounds anymore and were perfectly fine. Soooo… How did you do it?”

Riku sighed but didn’t stop doing his chore. He tried to come up with an answer that wouldn’t be a lie because he didn’t want to lie to her but at the same time he didn’t want to reveal it was thanks to Karin. She was his first real friend of his age and he didn’t want to sell her out. He was in quite the pickle so he went with declining to answer.

“I can’t tell you that, sensei.”

“And why not?”

“I can’t tell you that either.”

“Riku. I need to know.” she said with seriousness in her voice leaving no doubt that this conversation will not end until she got the right answer.

“Why? I’m fine, isn’t it enough?” he replied, swiping the last place and putting it on the rack with the others to dry properly. He dried his hands with the same rag, then turned around to face her.

“No it isn’t. I need to know for you. To determine any possible health issues that may-.”

“There are none. What happened was the same thing that happened to the Sandaime.” he cut her off with a frown.

“... This is not enough, Riku.” she said softly and crossed the distance between the two of them. “It may shorten your lifespan or weaken a part of your biology or so many other things that would have horrific consequences in the long term.” The worry in her voice was obvious.

“...”

Riku didn’t know what to say anymore. He had tried and failed to end the conversation and now… Now he didn’t know. He was back to his earlier choice: lie or sell Karin out. He knew he couldn’t stay quiet either and take his leave, she would stop him from doing so. So he did the only thing he could think of doing. Nothing. Nothing but raise his head a bit and start a staring contest. A very long staring contest. So long in fact that Shizune came to check on them because they were taking too long to join her in the living room for their board games night.

“Tsunade-sama? Ri- Is something wrong?” she asked, seeing Master and apprentice facing each other.

She was promptly ignored if she was even acknowledged to begin with. Neither blond had moved a fraction of an inch nor blinked. They were frozen in their position, refusing to give an inch away. Refusing to give up. The one who would so much but twitch slightly would lose. And more than just the staring contest. Both were making a statement with their silence and stance. Both were too stubborn to back off. For a passing moment, Shizune wondered if the situation would devolve into a fight but after careful observation rejected the idea. The two of them were hot heads and would already have acted if becoming physical has been on the table to begin with.

“Is something wrong, sensei?” Karin whispered next to Shizune, making her jump in surprise. The black haired woman had been so focused on the two in the kitchen that she hadn’t noticed her apprentice’s arrival.

“Yes but I don’t know what. They’ve been like that since even before I arrived.”

“That was more than fifteen minutes ago!”

Because she really wanted to start board games night, Karin walked in the kitchen and stood next to the two of them.

“Whatever is going on can wait tomorrow. It’s the one night we’re all gathered under the same room and it’s to have fun. You’re wasting it.”

““...””

“It’s all on Riku’s shoulders.” Tsunade finally spoke but never broke eye contact.

“I’d say it’s all on yours, sensei. You’re the one blocking the way and not letting it go.” he did the same.

“Argh! What is this about?”

“I’m worried about the way he healed his wounds.”

“To which I told you that you shouldn’t.”

“To which * I * told you that I needed to know to determine if-

“I did it! I’m responsible for his recovery! Uzumaki kekkei genkai! There I said it and now you know! Now let’s move on by moving to the living room and start game night!” Karin blurted out.

She grabbed a dumbfounded Riku’s hand and dragged him out of the kitchen, under the own dumbfounded look of Tsunade.

‘So he was protecting her. That’s cute. Still an Uzumaki kekkei genkai that heals those kinds of wounds? I know they have a strong vitality and heal faster than normal because of their really dense chakra but a kekkei genkai healing others? Grandmother never told me anything about it.’

“What kekkei genkai?” she asked loudly, going after them.

“Clan business!” shouted back Karin.

“I’m a quarter Uzumaki!”

“But a three quarter Senju so a Senju! Now let’s play!”

It was easy to say, Tsunade never got her answer that evening.