Author's note: So… yeah… Apparently I'm mean…

Chapter Fourteen: Gone

Naruto stared down in horror at what he had done. In his life, he was well acquainted with death and killing, but he had never been the one to end a life so easily. His hand was covered in the blood that oozed from the torn heart. He had felt no pain… But that didn't help Naruto. He didn't cry out or scream, he only stared in shock. Everything they had done had accumulated to the anger he had shown on the dead man beneath him.

Naruto stood slowly and Hinata grabbed his shaking hand, trying to calm him. He allowed her to lead him away from the corpse as Sasuke and the rest of the team came in. Hinata gently helped him up the stairs. Sasuke and the other wrapped the body up before setting it on fire as Naruto and Hinata walked farther into the forest.

"We'll find her…" Naruto muttered softly, looking down at his bloodstained hands. "They won't get away with this…"

"Keep going…" Naruto encouraged. "You're doing great!"

Boruto was walking to him, clinging to the railing on the wall. After weeks in a coma and hospital bed, he was working on strengthening the muscles in his legs that had begun to atrophy. He was also getting accustomed to the fact that he couldn't see, despite what his brain was telling him.

The boy wore a black blindfold over his eyes. They had looked into transplants for him, but Sakura had explained that his eye was still good, it was his brain that had been damaged in the seizure. A new set of eyes wouldn't fix the damage to his brain…

Naruto opened his mouth to warn the child of a towel on the floor, but bit his tongue. His physical therapist had told him that they had to let Boruto make his mistakes. Sure enough, the boy stumbled on the towel, falling hard to the hospital floor. Naruto refrained from going after him. The child cursed in frustration and hurled the towel towards his father. "This is pointless!" the child snapped. "Why aren't you out there looking for Himawari?!"

Naruto flinched. It had been two weeks and they had nothing. The Tsuchi vanished as if they had never been… It didn't help that they never had a complete grasp of the group… Naruto closed his eyes.

"Your mother is out with a team…" Naruto told him. "Now get up. We're going to try this again."

"It's pointless!" Boruto growled.

"No it's not!"

"I'll never be a ninja!"

Naruto walked over to the child and knelt in front of him. "Yes you will, Boruto… You'll be the best ninja. Blindness doesn't have to stop you from achieving your dreams."

Boruto shoved his father away and turned away. "What do you know about it?" Boruto snapped. "I want to go back to my room!"

Naruto closed his eyes and stood, grabbing the child's hand. "Fine, but you're walking…" Boruto followed in silence as Naruto led the boy back to his room and got him settled in the bed. Once he was, the child put on headphones and turned towards the window.

Naruto sighed deeply and walked out of the room. "Hey Naruto-kun! How is he…?" Sakura called as she came towards him.

"He'll be okay… He just doesn't know it yet…"

"Any word on Himawari…?" Sakura asked hesitantly. Naruto shook his head. "Oh… I'm sure we'll find something soon!"

Naruto shrugged and walked passed Sakura without saying good-bye. He started towards the Hokage mansion. His position had been reinstated after Himitsu's betrayal. It had made him happy, but nothing really made him feel better. His daughter was still missing and nothing seemed to fix that. It was like they had vanished off the face of the planet. He cursed himself for ending Himitsu… The man might have had valuable information. It had been a single moment of overwhelming weakness…

Naruto sat down in the living room and stared around him. He hated staying here, but he and Hinata had agreed that they would take turns looking for Himawari or any sign of her. They didn't want Boruto to be there alone… Naruto reached onto the side table and lifted a torn headband. It had been the one he wore during the war… a reminder.

Naruto rolled the steel-plated headband in his hands, then he looked around the living room. With a long sigh, he put the headband on his head and then lowered it until it obstructed his eye sight completely. He then made a clone. "Move the furniture around," he ordered it.

"Why…?" the clone asked.

"Just do it… please…?" Naruto sighed and listened as the clone moved things in the room. Once the clone was finished, it announced it cautiously. "Thanks… Go wait in the kitchen…" He didn't want to dismiss the clone because then he'd be able to see where everything had been moved.

Naruto sighed again and stood slowly. He closed his eyes and took a cautious step forward… and then another. After the fourth step, he felt more confident until his foot slammed into the table. Naruto bit back a howl of pain. He took a step back and changed his direction, feeling with his feet for anymore obstacles. He gasped as he hit a chair, knocking to air out of his lungs. He cursed and reached up for the headband, frustrated, but stopped himself. Boruto couldn't remove the blindfold.

"Can we just transplant his eyes…?" Naruto asked. He had seen many people in their world regain their sight.

"No," Sakura answered cautiously. "Boruto's eye is fine… it was his brain that had been damaged…"

"Can't you operate?" Hinata asked.

"The brain is complicated…" Sakura explained. "It's not something that we can just operate on… and if we were to do a surgery, there's no way to guarantee that he will see again… His recovery is already a process that will take a long time… adding brain surgery would only cause unnecessary complications to his recovery…"

"Unnecessary…?" Naruto repeated. "Sakura… I'm willing to try anything…"

"I know…" Sakura said quietly. "But we have to pick our battles… his recovery is not only physical, it's emotional… He'll have to relearn everything, and he may never be a shinobi… He has to come to terms with this… We don't want to put him through the multiple surgeries required to fix the damage to his brain when we can't even give him a light at the end of this tunnel…"

Naruto took a deep breath and steadied himself. This was an emotional journey, but Boruto wouldn't take it alone. He reached out and took another step forward. Every time he hit something, he made a note. Time went by and he continued until he could walk through the living room without hitting anything. He smiled. Maybe… just maybe, there was a light at the end of this tunnel. He dismissed the Shadow Clone and took in the new layout of the living room before he removed the headband.

The light was blinding at first, but his eyes adjusted quickly. Naruto smiled softly and looked around him. Deep down, his heart was aching. He wasn't sure how they would recover from any of this… and Himawari was still missing… gone without a trace. Naruto closed his eyes and sat down on the couch. Watch over them… Iruka, Neji, Jiraiya-sense… he thought, hating that he has so many people to pray to. And mom and dad… please let them be alright…

"Hinata! It's time to get moving!"

Hinata sighed and stood. Night had come and gone without any trouble. They were heading back to Konoha after yet another failed search. No one had even heard of Himitsu or the Tsuchi… Not even their time in the capitol had come up with nothing. They had no information on Himitsu or where he had come from…

"I'm coming," Hinata said to Kiba. She walked up to her old teammates. "I don't want to go back to Naruto without anything new…" she muttered.

"I know you don't…" Kiba muttered. "But we've been away from the village for almost a week without any news…"

"Is it wrong that I blame Sasuke for this?"

"No," Shino answered from where he knelt on the ground collecting their things. "Sasuke went against everything we stand for…"

"He put you and Himawari in danger, and in the end, it meant nothing… The Tsuchi still got what they wanted…"

Hinata nodded slowly. "I don't think Naruto's forgiven him either…" she muttered.

"I really shouldn't," Kiba snapped. "I mean, Naruto's a pretty forgiving guy, but everyone has limits, right…?"

Hinata shook her head. "Do we have to head back today…? Surely we can stop at another village…"

Kiba sighed and turned to Shino. "There is a village not far out of the way. We can stop there," he said. "We're out of food anyway, so we might as well. I'm not fond of the food Aoi catches for us."

"He doesn't mean that!" Kiba said to the dog beside him. The dog barked playfully.

"Yes I do…" Shino muttered. Hinata giggled softly. It was like old times on missions with her team. She smiled. They always knew how to make her feel better.

She couldn't help but feel bad for Naruto, though… as she grew closer to her teammates, he seemed to be drifting apart from his… He and Sakura were as distant as ever and, despite his attempts to mend the broken friendship. Naruto still had a strained relationship with Sasuke that seemed prepared to snap. Hinata couldn't help but feel a tiny bit of vindication for that… perhaps it was time for Sasuke to feel the pain he had put Naruto through back when they were young and foolish.

The trio got on their way, discussing old memories and missions as they went… anything to distract Hinata from the terrible reality. Hinata sighed as she listened, but her mind wasn't paying attention. She could only think of their daughter, scared and alone, and their son, forever stuck in a dark world…

When the village came into view, Hinata managed a smile. At least they could now get something hot to eat. The village was small and they walked through a large crop field before even reaching the gates. The crops looked as if harvest had just happened. Once they were in the market of the village, Hinata felt sadness overwhelm her. The village was striving, but she noticed that many of the men had battle scars and most of the children who took note of the headbands ran to hide from them.

The men were the most hostile. They glared as the group of Shinobi walked through their streets. Hinata bowed her head and Kiba put a protective hand on her back. "Don't worry about them," an elderly woman said with a smile. She had a small stand that seemed to be serving some sort of roasted bird. "They just don't like strangers…"

Kiba smiled and the trio moved over to take a look at what she was selling. "What kind of birds are these…?" he asked. "They don't look like chickens…"

"Pigeon!" the woman announced proudly.

"We'll take five, please…" Hinata smiled. Of course Kiba would order two for Aoi.

"Certainly!" She began bagging the meat. "What brings ninja into our humble village?"

"Just stopping through on the way home from a mission," Kiba answered. Hinata was only half listening. She was looking through the crowd, hoping to see anything that might help their search.

"You're lucky the Kakusu family isn't here anymore…" the old woman said. Hinata stiffened. "They truly hated your kind…"

"Oh…?" Shino asked, taking over for Hinata's speechlessness. "How so?"

"Oh, that family couldn't let things go…" the woman said, waving her hand. Hinata spun, wanting to get information out of her quickly, but Kiba grabbed her arm. It was best to let Shino handle this… he was always so calm…

"Did we wrong them?" Shino asked.

"It was years ago… I was only a young girl when it happened. Young shinobi like you were probably not even born yet… The man was a deserter anyhow. Did he honestly expect to get away with abandoning a war effort like that?" she ranted. Hinata clenched her fists.

"Why aren't they here anymore?"

"Oh, they took off when they couldn't rally enough support or something," the old woman said. "That was years ago… But… I did see the father here a couple days ago…" Hinata's breath caught in her throat and she let out a soft whimper.

"Was he alone?" Shino asked calmly.

"No… I don't think so… Himitsu wasn't with him, which isn't odd… I heard that boy went on to do greater things with the Fire Daimyo or something… No, he had a little girl with him… Said it was his granddaughter or something. No one asked a lot of questions… this village doesn't take kindly to that family."

Hinata bit her lip, but continued to let Shino handle this. "Did they say where they were going?"

"No… sorry…" the woman said with a shrug. Hinata wasn't to scream because this woman wasn't taking this seriously, but she couldn't expect the woman to know the gravity of the situation. "Well, actually… I know that family has an estate not too far from here… Perhaps they went there…"

Hinata's eyes widened and she turned to Kiba. He nodded and darted away. "Where is this estate?" Hinata asked. The woman told them approximately where it should have been. They thanked her for the information and the food and quickly headed out of the village to wait for Kiba.

"She's still in the country, Hinata… That's good!" Shino assured her. Hinata was shaking violently. Maybe, just maybe, they could find her! Excitement and hope filled her. Kiba returned with what he had gone to buy… Two horses. Horse travel was not common in their world, but they were fast creatures.

"Okay, Shino, you head back to the village and tell Naruto where we're going!" Shino nodded and mounted one of the beasts. Aoi barked at them as Shino jabbed his feet into the horse's side. It snorted in discomfort before taking off in the direction of the village.

Hinata took the second beast and Kiba jumped on behind her. She put the animal in the direction of the estate and urged it forward. Aoi kept up well as they took off towards their destination. Hinata prayed that they weren't too late…

"Again!" Naruto called. Boruto aimed a punch at his father's hand and landed it on the man's palm. "Good!" Naruto moved his hand and instructed the boy to punch again. He did and only missed by a couple inches. "Great, Boruto! You're doing great!" Naruto had managed to get the boy out of his bed when Sakura told them that he could go home soon. She believed his recovery would be better in the comfort of his own home.

Boruto smiled sadly at his father. "Am I really getting better…?"

"You are! When we get home, we'll start your training whenever you're ready…! That is… if you still want to be a ninja…"

"Of course!" Boruto snapped. "You said so yourself… I shouldn't let this beat me… right…?"

Naruto smiled. "No, you shouldn't…" He didn't want to mention Himawari… Even if Boruto was feeling better now, he would still miss his sister… and this process would not be easy… Naruto thought about trying to find a blind Shinobi to mentor the child, but he wondered how hard that would be… How many blind Shinobi were there…? "Well, anyway, Boruto, you're coming home tomorrow. Is there anything you want?"

"Ramen! And… Himawari…" the child muttered. The good mood they had established vanished.

Naruto sighed. "We're doing everything we can, Boruto…"

"I have to get stronger so I can help you find her!" Boruto declared.

"Hopefully we'll find her before you have to get stronger! But when we do get her back, you're going to have to train hard to keep her safe…"

"Yessir!" Boruto declared with a smile. Naruto patted the child on the head and looked up as he heard footsteps rushing towards them.

"Shino?!" Naruto ran towards the bug shinobi. "Did you find her…?"

"N-no… not yet," Shino gasped. "But we think we know where she is!"

Naruto nodded and ran back to Boruto. "You have to stay here, kiddo…"

"I want to come! What if she's in danger?"

"That's all the more reason for you to stay here," Naruto reasoned. "You aren't ready to fight."

"But… dad!"

"No! You're staying here, Boruto!" Boruto shrank back, but nodded slowly. "Okay… We'll be back…" He kissed the child on the forehead and ran after Shino. He made sure the ANBU that they had guarding the child were aware that he might not be back any time soon.

Shino explained the situation as they ran out of the hospital and mounted the horse. "Why a horse?" Naruto asked.

"It's faster than me leading the way for you…" Shino explained. "Should we gather a team?"

"No!" Naruto snapped. He wanted to get there as quickly as possible. He didn't even want to waste time trying to find anyone else… They had to get there! The horse ran at its top speed as Shino urged it on. Naruto clenched his fists. The ride seemed like an eternity, but eventually they met up with Kiba.

Naruto jumped off the beast and ran to the man. "Anything?" he asked desperately.

Kiba nodded. "You won't believe this…" he breathed. Naruto followed him into the gates that led into the estate and his breath caught. Himitsu, who had complained about being poor and downtrodden had a father with a lavish estate. It was massive with a main house in the center and several smaller buildings all connected. The entire estate was beautiful. Even though it seemed to be abandoned, the gardens in the estate were well kept and they even had sand gardens that were perfect.

Naruto looked around the estate as they walked towards the main house. Hinata was probably already search, but Naruto didn't even have to slip into his sage mode to realize that they were alone in the massive estate. There were no chakra signals coming from any room. It didn't look like anyone had left in a hurry. Everything looked as if they had taken their time leaving.

Naruto stopped at the green-jade door on the main house. He had only seen imperial palaces with better architecture… He reached out and opened the heavy, cold doors that creaked only a whisper as they moved. Inside there were two large statues of Fuu dogs facing each other on either side of the foyer. "What did this family do…?" Naruto asked. Surely they were rich… Naruto walked out from the foyer and headed out into the main living space. There were no seats in the living space. Instead there were strange statues with writing on them that Naruto wasn't sure he could read, or at least understand.

He looked down at the polished floor beneath him to see strange markings all over the floor. "It's a map…" Hinata called.

Naruto looked up at a cat walk that was suspended over the room. "A map…? Of what?"

"The ninja nations…" Hinata answered. Naruto made his way to the catwalk and his eyes widened. It was, indeed, a map, but not just a map. It had the main exports and imports, trade routes, populations… anything and everything about each country. The statues that Naruto had noted were simply placeholders… Countries that were compromised… Villages that were mostly Tsuchi…

"Naruto!"

The man turned around to see Kiba motioning for him to come into a room. Naruto nodded to Hinata and followed. The room was small, but his whole body shook when he saw what it was. Pictures of his family… Pictures of the other Kages… Naruto reached up and touched a single picture. They were, indeed, thorough…

Every room in the estate came up with different evidence that grew more and more disturbing. Murders and mysterious deaths that they were involved in… targets crossed out one-by-one… And targets that were next… It was obvious that the Tsuchi had been operating in the shadows since long before the Fourth Shinobi War… And they had enough members to get away with everything… There was no way a group this large could function… Or, at least that's what the world believed…

"All this… was here in our country… and we never found it…" Naruto whispered.

"It's easy to hide when no one's looking for you…" Kiba muttered. Naruto nodded. He felt sick… but there had to be information about where they might have taken Himawari. Aoi was becoming agitated the more they explored until finally they were led down a stairwell. The scent of blood hit Naruto before they made it all the way into the cellar.

Naruto opened the door slowly and stopped. Bodies covered the floor… All servants of the house and all of them with their throats slit… Recently… The bodies still oozed blood from their wounds. Naruto began to shake. Whoever did this didn't want there to be any witnesses… And that same person had his daughter! He turned to Kiba. "We need a team here immediately! This is a wealth of information on the Tsuchi! There has to be a member list somewhere, or at least a list of all the other bases!" There was no way a group this large could function without extreme organization.

"Naruto!" Hinata shouted. "We have to leave! Now!"

That sent both Kiba and Naruto running up the stairs away from the horrific sight. Naruto made a note the get the ANBU to give the dead proper burials and get them out of the mass grave…

When they got to the top of the stairs, Hinata and Shino were running for the door. Naruto and Kiba followed, trying to figure out what was happening. The four Shinobi didn't stop until they were well out of the gates of the estate. It was only then that Shino and Hinata stopped. "What?" Naruto snapped. They were nowhere near finished with that place.

Shino opened his mouth to explain their reasoning for fleeing, the reason became clear. The ground shook as bombs went off inside the estate, destroying the estate and every ounce of evidence it held. Naruto's eyes became wide. They had set it to explode… Naruto was sure that no one was meant to be caught in the inferno.

Hope drained from him and he dropped to his knees, letting out a scream that tore from his mouth. It was the sound of a broken man… a man who had no more fight left in him…

The pier was busy… People getting off ships, and people getting on ships and families saying good-bye to those about to take a journey were enough to crowd the large dock. A tall older man with short white hair held the hand of a small child tightly. He didn't want to lose her in the crowds.

"How are you feeling?" he asked the girl quietly.

"F-fine… It's just… busy…" the girl muttered, holding onto the hat that she had on her head. The man smiled down at her.

"I know. We'll have our own private cabin, don't worry, sweetie…" the man assured her. She smiled up at him and smoothed down the yellow and purple sundress she had on. The man was wearing the suit of a merchant. He searched the crowd until he spotted his destination. A large ship that was preparing to depart. He hurried with the small girl beside him, holding on tightly. She had to jog a little in order to keep up.

The man stood in line to board the ship. Once it was their turn, he handed the ship's guard two passports and their paper work. The guard looked at the papers and then the two people standing there, "Have a safe journey, Kakusu Akuma," he said with a smile. "And you as well, Himawari," he said as he handed the papers back to the elderly man with a smile.

"Thank you," Akuma said with a slight bow. The girl in the sundress smiled as well and curtseyed for the sailor. The two walked up the plank side by side. She was only just now well enough to travel… that was why they had waited so long to go on their journey.

He led the girl to the front of the ship and smiled down at her. "Where are we going…?" she asked quietly.

"Across the seas, child," Akuma answered with a smile. "To a beautiful country where my family is from, sweetie…"

"Will we come back, grandfather…?"

"Of course, my child…" Akuma said, holding the girl's hand tightly. "We will return to this country… when you're ready…"

Fin…

Author: Sequel to come…! Maybe… I love cliffhangers, don't you?! Anyway, I really want to thank you all for reading this story and enjoying it! (As much as you can) I promise, Part 2 will be happier and more action heavy… If that's what you want! I'm not sure when Part 2 will be out. I'm considering writing about fic before writing Part 2… So let me know your thoughts on that!

Again, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!