Taming Your Demon (Sealing Series Part I)

Jiriaya's Legacy And Itachi's Secret

"What is that huge explosion?!" White Zetsu asked, innocently. He sat alone with his other half on a grassy knoll just miles an enormous explosion. One that lit up the twilight sky and shook the ground as far as the leaf village itself. The shock wave that followed cause the earth to groan around him.

"It's that fool Deidara. He's blown himself up." Black Zetsu answered his other half in a gruff voice.

"Oh no! What about Tobi?" White zetsu responded, alarmed.

"He's dead. He probably got caught up in the blast range." Black zetsu replied, dispassionately. Somehow, he was not surprised.

The two creatures were linked as one inside of the green plant like structure that surrounded them. The plant kept it nice and shady for black zetsu. Just the way he liked it. White zetsu on the other hand was much more resilient and could go for days as anything or anyone under any conditions.

As the light and the quaking from the enormous explosion receded, the two zestsus sunk back underground. There was nothing else to see here.
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Pakkun stared wide eyed at the huge explosion. "What is it, Kakashi?"

Under orders from the hokage, Kakashi had set up another tracking team to search for any traces of Deidara and his partner, Tobi, or Sasuke and his team, Hebi, or Itachi and his partner, Kisame, within the Land of Fire. He had chosen team seven and team eight for this mission, and paired a ninken with each member, with the exception of Kiba and himself who already had K9 tracking abilities and Naruto who was a potential target. Naruto was paired with Yamato, Hinata, and the largest ninken who Kakashi associated with. Keeping mostly in pairs of two would throw off Sasuke's sensory ninja and keep her from distinguishing them from the Akatsuki.

"It's confirmation that Masuku's intel was good." Kakashi responded. Was that good news? Or bad news? "From the feel of that chakra, it's definitely that Akatsuki, Deidara."
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Naruto moved closer to Hinata after they stopped to rest in a small clearing within the forest that extended east and south from the leaf village. It was twilight and the stars were starting to appear like shinny dots of light against the darkening sky. The longer they had been sealed, the easier it was for Naruto to sense Hinata's change in moods. Because she was so reserved, she never expressed any of what was churning around in her mind openly. But Naruto could feel the strain of her jumble of tangled thoughts. "So your cousin maybe alive and traveling with Sasuke, huh?"

Hinata looked up at him and nodded quietly.

Naruto smiled awkwardly, uncertain if Hinata thought this was a good or a bad turn of events. He could feel her worry, but he had no details of what she was worried about. They always fell back into their old pattern of Naruto talking and Hinata listening. The other way around was new territory for both of them. Sometimes, he wished the binding seal provided telepathy too. "We're happy about this... aren't we?"

Hinata looked away, quickly. After all these months, she was still not use to the intimacy that their bond now provided. She had spent so much of her life hiding everything, she was not sure how to handle being totally exposed. "I never knew Neji. He went missing before I was born. I remember my father and my grandfather and uncle being sad all of the time when I was little. And then my uncle was killed... and my mother died giving birth to Hanabi. It's only gotten better in the last few years. I just don't want my family to go back to that dark place again. It felt very lonely there..."

Shaking her head, Hinata blushed and smiled up at Naruto. Again falling back into the comfort of old patterns, she tried to clean up what she just spilled. "But don't worry about me. We're concentrating on finding Sasuke and Neji and bringing them home, right?"