A couple of days later in Konoha.
the Hokage's Office.
It was a dark day in Konoha as the remaining members of Team 7 were ushered into the Hokage's office. It had been two day's since they had returned from Wave, bloody and battered, and only an hour since they were released from the hospital.
Sasuke Uchiha had been admitted to the hospital for severe infection, he had a wound on his stomach in the shape of a foot. At first the Medic-nin has thought it was a burn of some sort, however deeper inspection showed that the damaged flesh had actually been rotted, so much so that he gained a nasty infection from the festering wound.
The Medic-nins had had to cut away the diseased flesh before healing it; this was a long process as the Uchiha by that point had become delirious.
Sakura Haruna had been admitted to the hospital due to a spinal injury. Apparently she had been slapped aside during the fight with the enemy Shinobi and had been sent crashing through a number of trees. Her body had been pretty broken, with severe damage having been done to her spine.
The Medic-nins though she would recover, but had admitted that it could take a number of years of rehabilitation before she could be fit to be a Shinobi again.
Mito Namikaze too had been taken to the hospital. But unlike her teammates, she had been taken for mostly superficial reasons. She had admitted to the ANBU team that retrieved her and her teammates that she had used the Kyuubi's chakra, having taken it as far as using two tails.
This had of course concerned Minato who ordered her taken to the hospital, where he asked Jiraiya and Kushina to check her over to make sure she was ok.
Hearing the door to his office open, Minato looked up to see two of the three remaining members of Team 7 file into the room. Minato frowned slightly as he saw the sorry state they were all still in. The Uchiha boy was pale, very pale, his hands still trembling slightly.
Though whether that was in fear or anger Minato couldn't tell, the boy's face was completely blank. Mito though, she was clearly upset, she had dark bags under her eyes, no doubt from her not being able to sleep and was a lot quieter than she usually was.
"Thank you for coming you two. If you take a seat we can begin." Minato said kindly, gesturing to the two seats in front of his desk. Some may think him insensitive for calling the both of them in when they were still so shaken and had only just been released from the hospital. But Minato didn't have a choice; he had a missing presumed dead Jonin and a potential skirmish with a foreign Village.
He needed to know about everything that happened. Only then could he decide where to go from here. At the moment the only action he had taken was sending out ANBU to complete Team 7's mission and search for Kakashi if he was still alive. Those ANBU had returned earlier this morning, reporting back no sign of Kakashi and that Gatou and his thugs were all missing presumed dead as well.
This pretty much made the mission null and void, not that they weren't still keeping the payment for it though.
Nodding the two genin silently took their seats, looking over the desk at their Hokage as they waited for him to speak again.
"So Mito, I would like for you to tell me what happened. Don't leave out any details and make sure you are as accurate as possible. I need to know exactly what went down in Wave?" Minato said as he fixed his eyes on his daughter, conscious as he did so that Iruka their old academy teacher shifted slightly in his chair at the side of the room as he did so.
He had called in their teacher both for emotional support and also so the man could write down everything the two said. He would need their report documented for his records.
Also in the room were both Kushina and Jiraiya, though their reason for being there were quite obvious. Kushina was there for Mito, and Jiraiya was there as Minato's advisor and spy master.
"Sasuke I would like you to add anything Mito might miss." Minato added in as he looked down at the still pale Uchiha. He had brought them both in at the same time because he knew it was the best way to get the truth out of them, their reactions to what each other said would tell him everything. Not that he thought Mito would deliberately lie to him, the Uchiha though…
"Ok." The Uchiha replied curtly, with a swift nod of his head.
"Ok then I would like you to begin with when you got to Wave." Minato said, knowing that this is where the trouble went down. The confrontation with the Demon Brothers had already been included in the report Kakashi sent back when he requested reinforcement.
"We got to the island by boat." Mito began her voice shaky at first, before it strengthened as she continued to speak.
"It was around two in the afternoon when we made it onto the island. It was misty when we arrived and wet. As soon as we docked up the boat we used we made our way in land, heading towards Tazuna's house."
"Where did you get the boat?" Minato asked calmly.
"It was owned by a friend of Tazuna, the guy took us to wave undercover of the mist on the shore." Mito replied slightly confused.
"Was the boat man nervous? Did he ask any questions about what you were doing?" Minato asked again, Iruka jotting down everything that was said as he did so.
"Well yeah he was nervous, but that was more about us getting caught sneaking into Wave. He seemed to know Tazuna quite well." Mito replied her confusion growing.
"Ok and when you docked his boat did he wait around to see where you went next?" Minato asked again.
"No he just left again. Why are you asking so much about the boat man?" Mito asked her confusion turning to irritation.
"I am just making sure we have a clear picture on the exact events of what happened." Minato replied calmly, not reacting to Mito's sudden spike of irritation. He knew being interrogated wasn't easy, even when it was just a simple conversation like this. "So what happened then, you started travelling inland?"
"Yes, we traveled in land from the coast. Everything was quiet as we went, though we were all still on edge because of the Shinobi who attacked us earlier.
As we were travelling I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye, I reacted and threw a shuriken that hit this rabbit." Mito continued, calming down as she once more got into recounting the events of that day.
"A rabbit?" Minato asked curiously. "What kind of rabbit?"
"It was just some white rabbit. Why does it matter?" Mito asked impatiently.
"A white rabbit Minato at this time of year." Jiraiya spoke up, sharing a knowing look with Minato.
"Yes, no doubt one that is meant to be used for substitution if necessary. A bit of an archaic trick, not one you see much nowadays." Minato replied nodding for Iruka to write that down.
"Ok Mito what happened next."
"Zabuza happened; he threw his sword at us. But we noticed it and managed to duck down and avoid it, I mean both me and Kakashi were able to sense him coming so he wasn't able to take us by surprise. After we did that Zabuza showed himself standing on a tree branch." Mito continued carefully, making sure she got her facts right.
"And was Zabuza alone?" Minato asked, sitting up straighter as he did so.
"Well yes, or at least he was at first." Mito replied a frown on her face.
"What do you mean by that?" Minato asked as he waved down Jiraiya who looked like he was going to ask Mito the same thing.
"Well When Zabuza showed himself Kakashi recognised him, just like how Zabuza recognised Kakashi. Anyway Kakashi lifted his headband and showed his Sharingan, which Zabuza already knew about. After that they began to fight.
Kakashi told us to get in a defensive formation around the client while he did this, which is what we did." Mito continued as she looked over to Sasuke, only to see the boy still staring off blankly, seemingly not paying attention to the conversation.
"So yeah Kakashi and Zabuza had just started fighting when someone threw some shuriken between them. The both saw it coming and jumped apart."
"So someone threw shuriken between them to split them up?" Minato asked a slight frown on his face as Mito nodded. "What happened next?"
"Well Zabuza shouted out a name… which was…" Mito began as she tried to remember the name Zabuza called out.
"Haku." Sasuke added in tonelessly.
"Oh yeah, right Zabuza shouted out for this Haku who turned up next to him. But this Haku said she wasn't the one who threw the shuriken." Mito continued speaking, throwing a grateful look to Sasuke.
"So Zabuza and his accomplice did not know who threw the shuriken, which suggests they probably weren't working together. So what happened next?"
"Well a voice started speaking, he told Kakashi to take his team and leave with Tazuna. But Kakashi refused to back off until he knew who they were." Mito continued speaking.
"So Kakashi suspected they might have something to do with Zabuza, which would mean he would not retreat without knowing that they wouldn't attack him from behind. You said they though Mito, were there more than one?"
"Er… yes there were three different voices speaking." Mito replied. "Then when they did reveal themselves I only saw three."
"A standard Hunter-nin team then." Jiraiya spoke up as he once again made his presence known. "And if they were giving Kakashi a chance to leave he should have taken it, caution is good, but being overcautious can get you killed."
"I am sure Kakashi did what he thought was right." Minato replied to Jiraiya before he turned back to Mito. "So what happened next? Did they reveal themselves?"
"Yes they did after telling us to back off once more. A female voice spoke up, she sounded kind of impatient. Anyway she leapt in to attack Zabuza she was wearing a black mask that looked like a skull.
Another guy followed her; he also had a mask on though it was weird, kind of patchwork like. Anyway he went to help his comrade but was instead attacked by Zabuza's accomplice." Mito continued on, trying to remember what she could of the other two, she had only seen them briefly before she and her teammates had retreated from the clearing, as such she couldn't give much of a description of them.
"The other member of their team though, the leader I think, he appeared before us. He was so fast he was almost a blur."
"And what did this man who confronted you look like?" Minato questioned, he had heard how unsure she was about the other two, so decided to focus on the one she seemed more confident about.
"Well he was tall around your height dad. He was also quite stocky; he had big muscles on his arms and probably his legs. He also had a mask on though it was completely black and didn't even have a Village symbol on it… what else… oh yeah, he also had this big silver axe that he had in his hand." Mito continued on as she tried to give the best description she could of him.
"Most Hunter-nin do not usually show their Village symbol so the fact that they didn't is not that surprising. The axe though and the black mask. They seem familiar." Minato muttered to himself before looking up at a thoughtful Jiraiya "Any idea?"
"Yeah the description sounds very familiar." Jiraiya also muttered as he tried to remember which of the numerous Shinobi it could be.
"Oh, Kakashi recognised. He said he was someone called Grimm, and that he was in our Bingo Book and that he might work for Kiri." Mito added in helpfully.
"Grimm that is who it is!" Minato said as he began to search through the stack of documents on his desk looking for his copy of the Bingo Book.
"Okay here we go." Minato muttered as he found the book before he flipped through it. When he got to the right page he showed the picture on it to Mito and Sasuke. "Is this the man you are talking about?"
(Bingo Book Entry)
Name: Unknown
Clan: Unknown
Alias: The Grimm
Rank: A-Rank Hunter-nin
Village: Unknown (suspected to be Kirigakure)
Status: Alive
Abilities: Tracking Skills, Assassination Skills, known to be skilled in Kenjutsu. Further skills unknown, no one has ever survived fighting him.
Weapons: Silver war axe made of chakra metal.
Associates: The Monster (See page 37.) and The Cannibal (See page 43)
Known Bounties:
20,000 ryo in Konoha
25,000 ryo in Iwa
55,000 ryo in Kumo
Known Crimes: Assassination, Torture, Operating without permission in foreign lands.
(End of Entry)
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