Impossible to Forget

Chapter 25: The Five Kage Summit

It was almost like my jounin review all over again. My palms were clammy, and my heartrate was equivalent to that of a rabbit. Nerves. My endorphins were pumping with that primal fear that awakens every time you're faced with authority. And it did not help that the people that I was dreading presenting to happened to be five of the most powerful ninja in the world, five ninja who I couldn't hope to defeat even at half their strength. My mouth was dry and my fingers twitchy, and everyone else looked perfectly at ease.

The five Kage were seated at a circular table, each one with a single representative standing behind them, taking notes and occasionally giving suggestions when appropriate.

After the Kages were done greeting each other and placing their ceremonial hats on the table in front of them, Mei, the Mizukage, looked at Kakashi and I over her steepled fingers. "I see that you have a new assistant with you this time, Hokage."

Kakashi nodded, "Yes."

He sent me a pointed look, and I cleared my throat then said, "Kaiyo Nakahara, head of the Leaf's Strategy Unit."

"Ah," the Raikage's deep voice ground out, "this must be the brilliant tactician that we have heard so much about."

My eyes widened in embarrassment, and I can only hope that my cheeks didn't turn red as well. This was not what I was expecting. I figured that I would just stand there and be ignored when I wasn't giving my presentation. Getting called out for being a good tactician was not part of the game plan.

Kakashi nodded to the Raikage, "That'd be her."

I glared at Kakashi. My expression was clearly shouting at him to shut the hell up.

His response to that: he shrugged.

"It's not just me, you know. Shikamaru mentions you all the time too."

Kill me now. I was mortified in front of the leaders of the ninja world. I was going to kill Kakashi and Shikamaru for this.

Gaara locked his pale, teal eyes on me, "It says here that you have report to share with the summit. Since there are no other major security threats listed, feel free to begin."

Things were happening far too quickly. I was going to start off the summit?

With a nod, I cemented my resolve to be professional and handle this like someone who'd been a jounin for over a decade, not a rookie genin.

I pulled out five scrolls from my hip pouch and passed them out to the Kages. I placed the one down in front of Kakashi last, and he gave me a smile that clearly showed that he had complete faith in my ability. I gave him a grateful smile back before standing next to his chair and turning to the powerful ninja who had just pulled open the scrolls in front of them and were looking at them with pinched brows and looks of concentration.

"For the last year, the Leaf Village has been searching for a S-ranked missing-nin by the name of Nori Kimura. She is a former Leaf Village jounin, and staged her own death during the Nine-tails' attack on the village twenty years ago.

"We believed that she was dead until just over a year ago when she resurfaced as the mastermind of an attempt to capture the Hokage. I- We believe that she has some larger goal which either requires the Hokage or someone from the Hatake Clan, of which Kakashi is the last living member. This goal may be related to a mission in the Land of Lightning that she took as a genin." The Raikage raised an eyebrow at this, but I plowed on. "On that mission, the jounin sensei was killed and the three genin managed to work their way back to the village. However, all records of the mission itself and all data about the team has vanished from the Leaf's archives.

"Through further research, it was discovered that her genin teammates were Sasainako Fukushu and Kanaye Shourai. Both are deceased S-rank criminals. Two years ago, Sasainako was successful in capturing the Hokage and I, shortly after Kakashi formally assumed his office, and attempted to place him under a powerful mind-control genjutsu that has since been destroyed.

"A year later, Kanaye infiltrated the village and took me captive in order to lure Kakashi into a trap. This plan was also thwarted, but during the rescue, it was revealed that Nori was supporting Kanaye and had used his attempted kidnapping as a sort of test run. She killed Kanaye to prevent the village from interrogating him and then vanished so fully that not even hunter-nin could pick up her trail.

"Recently, we have received intel that Nori is close to making her final move." I was not going to mention Bijonko because that would raise a lot of questions, and it would take too long to explain fully. "I also believe that her plans may reach far past just the Leaf Village, and we need the cooperation of the Shinobi Union to see if any other village has data on the mission that she took as a genin."

There were several seconds of silence as the whole room absorbed what I had just said.

A, the Raikage, broke the quiet, "We will look through our records to see if we can find anything on this mission that you mentioned. What year was it?"

"It was 323."

He nodded to one of the aides in the room who then promptly scurried off.

"What's been done about this threat so far?" The Tsuchikage's shrewd eyes narrowed in my direction.

"The village has been placed on a low level security alert, and Kakashi and I traveled with an ANBU escort. Unfortunately, since we do not yet know what Nori's final plan is, it's almost impossible to take the appropriate precautionary measures."

"You seem to have quite a bit of data listed here in this report," Mei stated while glancing through the scroll that I had given her. "It says here that you are personally overseeing the investigation and have been centrally involved with both of the past incidents. Do you have some sort of personal connection to the case?"

I sighed, "You could say that. Nori Kimura is my mother."

You could have heard a pin drop in the strained silence that followed.

"Your mother?" Gaara asked.

"As in she gave birth to me, yes. But beyond that, she is no mother of mine."

Before anyone could respond to that statement, the aide returned.

The Raikage glanced through the scroll handed to him before passing it over to me.

It took me all of thirty seconds glancing at the mission report to know that we had hit another wall.

I passed the scroll to Kakashi before shaking my head, "It appears that the mission itself was nothing special. It was a standard, wartime recon unit. Though this could give us some sort of geographical location to start a search with."

The Raikage nodded, "It was in a part of the Land of Lightning north of the Hidden Cloud which holds inhospitable mountains that even we rarely venture into. It is impressive that three genin were able to survive there alone."

Kakashi looked up from the mission report, "The three of them were quite the shinobi, unfortunately."

A shrugged, "Whatever the case, I agree that this Nori needs to be stopped. I will see about creating a mission to look into investigating the area." That was all that I could have hoped for.

The Tsuchikage folded his hands on the table, "Now onto the next order of business."