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Leader	By : mannahpierce Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Naruto/Sasuke Views: 2163 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: This story has some of Masashi Kishimoto's characters from Naruto in a universe of my own devising. I do not own Naruto. I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
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- 31
Thank you to my beta and muse, Small Fox. This story grew from a plot idea he gave me.
Also thanks to eunmook, telynaayuri, cynaga, sadie237, satterb, melissen, Aflyingmonkey, disembodiedvoiceofthedying, Slynx and SidonieStarr for reviewing after chapter 29 was posted.
Readers’ feedback, support and comments mean a great deal to me. Feedback keeps me writing.

Leader
Part 4: Parry
30: Response

Shikamaru was out of his seat before Kamatari had finished speaking. He ran to his office, glanced at his desk and then went through to Haru’s laboratory; he wanted to be where Izuna was unlikely to find him.
He stripped and climbed into the simulator.
Once he had activated the interface, he connected directly to the control room, deliberately avoiding the intercom.
“This is Shikamaru. Please may I access the message?”
“This is Kamatari. I haven’t finished deciphering it yet.”
“Raw is fine,” Shikamaru assured him, readying all his programmes. “Thank you Kamatari-san.”
“Shikamaru-san?” a small voice queried as soon as the audio link to the control room was broken.
“I am busy, Sai,” he replied.
The data package arrived and Shikamaru began unpacking it.
“Is there news about Haru?” Sai asked. “And Ran? And Kazuki?”

Shikamaru sighed. Sai was only a child. You did not tell children to go away when there was no other adult available to care for them.
He could not even tell Sai to talk to Sumiko because she was with Nagato and Hana.
“Yes, there is a message. Give me a few minutes to find out what is in it.”
“I can do it,” Sai volunteered.
Before he could say no, the package was decompressed, decoded, deciphered and laid out neatly. Shikamaru swallowed; so much for security.
“You should have waited for permission, Sai-kun,” he pointed out, sending each component of the message to its intended recipient.
There was nothing for Izuna, which was something of a relief.
“I apologise,” Sai replied. “Do you think Haru, Ran and Kazuki made it to the planet? Like Kuuya?”
Shikamaru was not accustomed to being left behind. What planet? “Give me a chance to catch up,” he suggested.
“I shall examine the data about the system,” Sai told him.

Shikamaru scanned the parts of the message marked for his attention and picked the one for him from Naruto. It was marked ‘private and confidential’ and Shikamaru knew it would be coded using their special cipher.
Not that the cipher had stopped Sai.
It was audio-only. Shikamaru imagined Naruto recording it as Sasuke slept.
“Shi-chan. We miss you but it is good that you are there and not here because we need your help. It’s a mess, but no one has died and Sasuke and I, we’re determined that everyone will make it. Haru has been amazing. I am sure he and Kazuki will get the Lancet to the outer of the two standard-ecology planets. That’s the rendezvous and Kuuya is already there.
“Sasuke will give you all the details but what’s important is that we were ambushed. The Akatsuki knew Sasuke was going to be jumping into the system and when. Someone is feeding them information, which means that news of this message is going to be on its way to Orochimaru, either from Tarrasade or from the Maple.”
Shikamaru paused the message. Trust Naruto to see the essentials. Tracking transmissions from the Maple was trivial and it wasn’t much more difficult to analyse every electromagnetic wave originating from the household.
Only Naruto had not said ‘household’, or even ‘compound’. He had said ‘Tarrasade’.
There were five light speed data relays on each of the three gates. It was a mind-boggling amount of data.
Luckily he knew someone who was good with data.
“Sai, I could do with some help with something.”

Within minutes they had a plan to clone all transmissions leaving the system and download them to a three by three by three data crystal array. Shikamaru had to hop out of the simulator to find one.
“We might have to make do with a two by two by two for now until I build one,” he admitted.
Sai’s voice came from a speaker above Haru’s workbench. “Try the storage cupboard marked B4.”
Haru was so organised; it was one of the ways he was like Sasuke. Shikamaru opened the cupboard. Inside was a three cubed array. Shikamaru pulled it out, hardwired it in and jumped back into the simulator.
“We are breaking a lot of rules,” Sai observed.
“I am breaking the rules,” Shikamaru emphasised. “You are doing what I have asked you to do. Even so, please do not tell anyone, even Su-chan.”
“Sumiko is very strict about rules,” Sai observed. “Why are we doing this, Shikamaru-san?”
Shikamaru explained.
There was a short silence. “We find the message, discover who sent it and then find out what person in the household has been telling them things,” Sai summarised.
“Exactly,” Shikamaru confirmed.
“Assuming it is not me or is not you,” Sai checked.
For a moment Shikamaru considered whether it could be Sai. He had eyes and ears everywhere and no level of security could keep him out. “Yes, assuming it isn’t you or me. It isn’t me.”
“It is not me either,” Sai confirmed. “I would never help the Akatsuki. They killed Sumiko’s Pa and Sumiko’s Ma. It made her very sad.” There was a brief pause. “They were your Pa and your Ma too.”
Shikamaru imagined the vast amount of processing represented by the pause. “Yes Sai.”
There was another pause. “Did it make you sad too?”
“Yes Sai. It hurts to lose people you are close to and care a lot for.”
“I miss Haru. It would be like Haru being gone forever.” There was a barely perceptible pause. “If we find the message, do we try to stop it?” Sai asked.
Shikamaru took a moment to readjust; Sai’s changes in subject seemed abrupt from a flesh and blood human’s point of view. “Yes, but it might not be possible. There will the time lag between us cloning the messages and finding the one we want.”
“We could delay all the messages,” Sai suggested.
Shikamaru imagined. “No, Sai. People are relying on those messages to arrive on time. In extreme cases a delay could change people’s lives or even lead to someone’s death.”
“The people who died could be someone’s Sumiko or Haru or Pa or Ma.”
Shikamaru was impressed; so much for an artificial intelligence being incapable of empathy. The trick appeared to be allowing it, him, to be raised by children. “That’s right, Sai. Also delaying the messages will draw attention to what we are doing, which is undesirable.”
“No one outside must suspect I exist.”
“Exactly,” Shikamaru confirmed, remembering similar conversations between him and his Pa. “Now, is there anything we have missed?”
“What is the definition of missed?”
“Is there anything else we should be doing?”
“I am working on finding another hole in the system where Haru, Ran and Kazuki are trapped. The information leaving Tarrasade are already being cloned, coded, compressed, transmitted back and analysed.” There was another, longer, pause. “Who is the spy likely to be, Shikamaru-san?”
Shikamaru almost answered but stopped himself. “Who do you think are the most likely suspects, Sai-kun?”
“The people who have previous connections to the Akatsuki. They are Konan, Hana, Kiba-san, Itachi-san, you and Haru. The people who are new to the crew. They are Five, Izuna and the people who help Kiba-san with his new litter. The people who have people they care about outside the crew and who may be open to blackmail. They are Konohamaru, Shino, Rin, Inari, Izumo, Kotetsu, Anko and Shizune.”
“That’s a good start, Sai,” Shikamaru agreed. “We’ll work on that tomorrow. Today I want to look through the rest of the message and then I will need some sleep.”
“Sumiko is on a sleepover,” Sai stated.
“Yes,” Shikamaru acknowledged.
“You will not be telling her a bedtime story.”
Shikamaru almost missed the point. Once he understood he almost said no, he wanted to think, but pulled himself up short. Sai was a child. “Has Haru ever told you the Supertronnies story?”
“We have discussed Supertronnies. Haru does not tell me stories.”
“That is very remiss of him. Tomorrow, remind me to introduce you to the joy of reading fiction.” Shikamaru settled into storytelling mode.
“Long, long ago all humans lived on a planet. It was the planet where the first ever humans had evolved. No one knows the name of the planet or the name of the star that the planet orbited or even what galaxy the star was in.”

Sasuke watched Naruto sleep. Usually it was the other way around but Sasuke had woken with pains in his gut. He did not know if it was the weightlessness or a reaction to the anti-nausea pills.
Naruto’s muscles twitched and he growled in his sleep. Sasuke put out a hand and stroked his fur, hoping to calm him.
Life in the Blossom was hard on both of them. Sasuke struggled to keep food down. Naruto was being driven crazy by the inactivity.
The T1 mothership had jumped the day before. Hopefully it had only been the ship that had been jamming their transmission and, by now, Shikamaru and Kakashi had their message.
Blue eyes were studying him.
“Sorry, dobe, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Gut?”
Sasuke nodded.
“Maybe we should reconsider,” Naruto suggested. “At this rate we’ll be so out of condition we won’t have a chance.”
Sasuke scowled at him. “I will not be podded. We are doing this together.”
“I’ve given up on persuading you to do that,” Naruto admitted. “Even though it’s a good idea.”
Sasuke opened his mouth to argue but Naruto kept talking.
“I think Asuma would have dispatched the Dart as soon as our transmission was overdue.”
It was a good point. They had been in continual contact via the minigates; there was no good reason for their sudden silence. Also, if anything had happened to the Oak the Silver Leaf was stranded. “Perhaps,” Sasuke conceded. “If so, when would the Dart arrive to collect the pods?”
“Three days’ time, four tops.”
Sasuke tried to think. They had decided that their best bet was to take control of this ship. What they had not decided was when.
There were arguments for acting soon; the course Naruto advocated. The Orochimaru print, for whatever reasons, had left a considerable fraction of his resources behind. The longer they left it, the more likely it was that they would rendezvous with other Akatsuki ships.
But Sasuke had worried about what happened if they failed. The Orochimaru print would realise that they had piggybacked. He might double back and go searching for pods.
If the Dart would have picked up all the pods in five days time, they could risk it once they were another three days into the journey.
“Teme, what if the print decides to mess with one of the kits, or with Hoshi, or to torture one of the others for the fun of it?”
Sasuke froze. He wanted to say it would not happen, but he could not. He remembered what the Orochimaru print had done to Akemi.
“The stealth technology on the pods is excellent,” he conceded.
Naruto perked up. “Superb,” he agreed.
“We could disable the drive,” Sasuke added.
“Good idea. Or we could use a bomb to act as a fail-safe.”
A bomb sounded a bit extreme.
“A small one,” Naruto clarified. “In fact, small, remote-detonated bombs across the ship would be an excellent diversionary tactic.”
“We would have to plant them,” Sasuke pointed out.
Naruto’s eyes were entirely too bright. “Start with in this docking bay. Then go outside. A few holes in the hull would distract them and our people are probably podded.”
Sasuke decided not to mention that one of Naruto’s most persuasive arguments for moving the schedule forward was that their people might not be podded.
“We finalise the plan. We prepare everything we might need. Once we are ready we act.”
Naruto pumped a clenched fist. “Yes!”

Haru woke up and wished he hadn’t.
Being on a planet was an adventure. He should find it exciting. The kits did; Ka-chan and Kuu-chan loved it, particularly when they were allowed out of the burrow. Ran had settled in remarkably well; the toad hybrids had taken to him as much as he had to them.
Haru was struggling. He had yet to adapt to the long days and nights. His gut rebelled when challenged by the food, even though Dan-san insisted it was fine and the others ate it without a problem. He disliked being constantly damp and hated the fact that he woke up each morning covered in blood-suckers.
His nickname among the toad hybrids was ‘Leech Magnet’. Apparently there were lots of jokes about leeches, which, he was assured, explained why they laughed at him so much.
He sighed; he wanted to go back to sleep but he couldn’t. The bedcovers felt damp, which could be his sweat or condensation or both. Once he concentrated he could hear one drip and then another and then a third. They were falling at different rates, creating a complex pattern he could not ignore.

Then Haku-san started talking to one of the toad hybrids, which was a relief because eavesdropping was better than listening to the drips splattering. It had to be Gamariki because he was the only one other than Kosuke who could speak enough of the ‘old way’ to hold a conversation.
Gamariki and Haku-san had struck up a friendship. They had a lot in common. Gamariki managed this burrow, like a queen managed a crew room. He, like Haku-san, cared greatly about his appearance. He augmented his naturally colourful skin with cosmetics and he was the only toad hybrid they had met who wore clothes for ornamentation as well as function.
“Awake little one is,” Gamariki said.
Haru threw back the cover and leapt out of bed intending to get some clothes on. Gamariki had no concept of personal space or privacy. He was quite capable of sweeping into Haru’s sleeping alcove and scooping him up for a hug.
Then Haru caught sight of his skin. He was covered in leeches. As usual, he had not felt it; his pain receptors were numbed by the anaesthetic the leeches produced.
They were everywhere, even on his penis: all different sizes; all fat with blood.
He felt dizzy and sat down.
He thought he heard sniggering. Then Gamariki was looming over him with the smaller figure of Haku-san beside him.
“Haru-kun!” Haku-san exclaimed. “I’ll get Dan-san.”
“No need is,” Gamariki assured him. “Riki show.”

Gamariki pulled up a small stood and sat down. Haru found himself thinking how prettily coloured he was; like something Sumiko would draw. His eyes were an unlikely violet and while the skin on his throat, chest and abdomen was pale, much like Haru’s skin, his face and back and limbs were bright green with a yellow pattern.
He drew a leather purse from the purple sash that was wound around his waist. “Haru-kun,” he said sharply.
Haru tried to pay attention but he did feel woozy.
Gamariki opened the purse and brought out a slim cylinder that smelt strange but nice. “The lamp, Haku-san.”
Haku-san brought over the lamp and Gamariki held the end of the cylinder in the flame until it ignited. Haru watched it burn. The air was suddenly heavy with a sweet, spicy scent.
Next Gamariki blew the flame out. The end of the cylinder kept smouldering. Then he touched the hot end to a leech and then another.
He worked quickly and expertly. Once he had touched twelve he stopped, relit the cylinder and let it burn to reheat the end.
Haru watched the first leech drop away and then the second, followed quickly by the third and the fourth.
Gamariki blew out the flame. “Haru-kun stand.”
He managed it, but Gamariki had to steady him. “Little one blood lost,” he observed, touching the stick to a leech on his stomach.

Finally all seventy-nine of them had gone; Haru had counted. Haku-san shook out his bedcovers and went to get a brush. Gamariki discarded the stump of the stick and brought out a small jar of cream. Using his littlest finger, he placed a small dab on each of the bites.
His touch was gentle. It reminded Haru of Kiba-san.
“Haru-kun sad,” Gamariki suggested.
“I miss my family,” Haru admitted.
Haku-san arrived with the brush and began sweeping away the leeches, some of which were still wriggling in their death throes.
“I thought the leech repellent would keep them away,” he complained, indicating the saucers of green goo on the floor with the brush.
Gamariki turned Haru about to treat the bites on his back. “Riki investigate. Unguent Haru-kun give. Skin smear. Leeches not bite.”

Finally every leech was gone and each bite treated. Gamariki and Haku-san moved away. Haru pulled a pair of underpants out of his pack but, somehow, the damp had got to them. He left them off, sighing as he pulled on the soft, snakeskin shorts that Gamariki had found for them all to wear.
He stood in the archway between his sleeping area and the shared area. Haku-san was making tea with a pot and cups that made his hands look small. Gamariki was watching him; Haru thought that he liked watching Haku-san do familiar tasks in an unfamiliar way.
“Haru-kun us join,” Gamariki insisted.
Haru reluctantly sat on the bench next to Gamariki; sitting anywhere else only delayed the inevitable.
Gamariki hugged him and stroked his hair. Haru submitted. It wasn’t unpleasant but he resented Gamariki treating him like a child.
In Gamariki’s eyes, that’s what he was.

Toad hybrid society, at least the Gama tribe, was very structured. From what Haru could see, what you did depended on your gender, your age, your size and only then on your aptitudes and inclinations.
Gamaken, Gamahiro and Gamabunta were adult hunters and lived with the other adult hunters. There was a separate burrow for the gatherers and another for the scholars; both groups were also all male. Kosuke lived in the scholars’ burrow. A leader’s burrow, a hatchery and a nursery had also been mentioned.
Haru wondered if there were females in the hatchery or the nursery.
Gamariki’s burrow was for youngsters who had yet to be assigned a role. It had been decided that the guests would be more comfortable there than anywhere else.
There wasn’t a guests’ burrow. Apparently interaction between different toad hybrid tribes was very rare.
According to traditional stories, of which there seemed to be many, there had originally been six toad hybrid tribes, each focused around one of the six spaceports that were spaced out over the planet’s surface.
Three of the tribes had died out and a fourth looked like it was going the same way.
Questions about why the other tribes had died out had been ignored; it appeared to be a taboo subject. There were a number of those. Haru was keeping a list: fate of extinct tribes, females, babies, breeding and why the there were only two toad hybrid youngsters in a burrow that could take twenty.
It didn’t take genius traits to see the pattern; the toad hybrids weren’t having enough children.

Once he had drunk some tea he felt better and Gamariki began offering him food. Haru picked out a few pieces of fruit that he knew would not disagree with him.
He guessed that Kazuki and Kuuya were with the gatherers. They kept asking to accompany the hunters but the Gama could not cope with the notion of such tiny people being hunters, no matter how fast or strong they were.
Being with the gatherers allowed them to take the receiver/recorder to the surface. The best time to collect signals was around noon.
Haru had no idea what time it was. The Gama had no chronometers and his body clock was all over the place.

He wondered where Ran was so he asked.
His question led to more hugs and hair-stroking; Gamariki thought his friendship with Ran was sweet.
“Ran-kun is with Dan-san visiting Gama-sama’s burrow,” Haku-san informed him. “They went to ask whether we could put up an antenna.”
An antenna would be good. With an antenna, Haru could check for radio signals all the time. At the moment, one of them had to go to the surface.
He took another bite of the weird-looking fruit.

Gamariki was suddenly very still with his head tilted slightly to one side. Haru guessed that he had heard something.
“Haku-san Haru-kun Riki excuse,” he said, standing up and leaving the shared area.

Haru chewed the stringy fruit pulp and reconsidered what they knew about what was happening off planet. There wasn’t much; someone had finally switched off the battleboard in the Sakura.
The Spear and the Cherry were still out there. Itachi-san was still needling the Orochimaru print. If Itachi-san was up to something, he did not give any hints of what it was over the radio.
Soon, if not already, the jump field disruptor would be finished and the Orochimaru print would turn his attention to finding them.

Haku-san was looking at something. Haru swallowed his mouthful and turned. In one of the archways stood the two youngsters, Gamatatsu and Gamakichi. Gamariki was behind them.
“Gamakichi and Gamatatsu something to Haru-kun say,” Gamariki stated, giving Gamakichi a look.
Gamakichi was the older of the two. He was about the same size as Kuuya with orange skin and purple markings. He looked pleadingly at Gamariki, whose expression did not change.
Gamakichi’s gaze turned to Haru. “Haru,” he began. “We sorry.”
Why were they apologising to him?
“Sorry,” echoed Gamatatsu, who was Kazuki’s height.
Gamariki scowled at Gamakichi.
“Leeches Haru bed put,” Gamakichi explained. “Sorry.”
They had been putting the leeches in his bed? Haru was cross. It had been horrid.
Haku-san was looking at him, waiting for his reaction.
Haru made himself think. He remembered what the litter had been like about outsiders. Even among themselves they had pranked each other and, sometimes, the target had been hurt rather than amused.
“I accept your apology,” he replied. “It was a prank.”
“Prank?” Gamariki queried.
“Joke,” Haru tried. “To make people laugh. Did I look funny?”
Gamatatsu looked at Gamakichi and then at him in confusion.
Haru tried smiling.
Gamatatsu smiled back.
Suddenly the three of them were laughing.
Gamariki looked at Haku-san and shook his head.
“Boys will be boys,” Haku-san agreed.

After that it was much better. Gamakichi and Gamatatsu, or Kichi and Tatsu, sat at the table and they tried to talk. Haru remembered what it had been like trying to communicate with Ran when he first arrived and began drawing things on the table top with his finger.
Soon they had sheets of stretched leather and charcoal sticks. When they finished with a drawing they would rub it off the surface.
Gamariki and Haku-san sat at the other end of the table, watching.

Kazuki and Kuuya arrived back. Kazuki was carrying the receiver/recorder on his back while Kuuya had a basket that had been filled with the best finds of the day by the Gama gatherers.
Haru resisted the urge to examine the recording and decode any messages; it was more important to cement relationships with Kichi and Tatsu.

Ka-chan and Kuu-chan washed up and joined them at the table. Tatsu’s eyes widened and he moved closer to Kichi.
Kichi smiled apologetically, showed his teeth and made quick sketches of a snake and a crocodile with huge fangs.
“We don’t bite our friends,” Kazuki assured them with a grin.
Kuuya nodded and twitched his whiskers.
Tatsu watched, obviously as fascinated as he was frightened.

Next Dan-san and Ran arrived. Haru had expected them to look disappointed or pleased, depending on the decision about the antenna. Instead they looked anxious.
“Yes to the antenna,” Dan-san told them, “as long as we can camouflage it.”
Haru waited; there had to be some other, less welcome, news.
“Gama-sama has had a message from another tribe. Another spaceship has landed at the next spaceport along.”
Haru’s gut flip-flopped. Was it one of theirs or an Akatsuki craft?
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