Reincarnated Despair

Chapter 9

The Immortal Duo

It's now been a few days since they returned to Konoha, and as predicted, team Yamato took the mission to get the spy, other than that, nothing of import has happened yet, and so all that was needed was for them to wait on the team returning from said mission. They didn't have to wait long, only a week before they got back from their mission, and that was when things were made clear, so clear that it was sickening to watch what happened, or hear the report, Tsunade wanted Ulquiorra and Orihime there since they might have a related mission. They walked into the hokage's office and found team Yamato already there, not only were they there, Orochimaru and Kabuto both were there as well and acting like they didn't have a care in the world with being in a village they tried to destroy. Tsunade was sitting in her chair with her fingers interlaced in front of her face, "good, now that everyone is here, I can explain what happened, we received a report that one of the Neo Akatsuki was going to meet with his spy, a spy that was spying on you." This was directed towards Orochimaru and Kabuto, "we did not however know who this spy was, when team Yamato found out it was Kabuto, they almost went off had it not been for their advanced shinobi skills keeping them in check. Later, when Orochimaru showed up and claimed to have followed Kabuto, Kabuto put on an act to catch Sasori, who was being played by Yamato at the time, off guard and kill him, Kabuto didn't get his shot at Yamato to connect so his life was spared, Yamato, that's your cue."

"When I was made out to be in the wood clone of Sasori, Orochimaru-sama explained the situation, he had already dispelled the mind control jutsu that Sasori had placed on Kabuto, they were going to work together to kill Sasori and strike a blow to the Neo Akatsuki. When I came out of the armor, I told them that Sasori was already dead and told us that there was a spy amongst him and that it was Kabuto, that is when they informed me of the double agent fact," Yamato informed the two that didn't know the story.

"Sorry hokage-sama, but that still doesn't tell us why you've called us here since we weren't on the mission and played no part in any of this," Orihime asked her respectfully, even though the revelation that Orochimaru was working with the village was disturbing.

"You two are here because this incident has given me a good idea, regardless of weather they are Neo Akatsuki or Akatsuki, you're the current strongest in the village as of this moment, beating Sasuke the way you did proved that much. So, on any mission where any members have been spotted or possibly spotted, you are going, and you are going to kill or bring back the member alive," Tsunade ordered and they both nodded, "good you are free to go for now," they then turned and left her office.

They didn't go anywhere new, mainly back to their apartment for a talk about what they just learned, the walk was short with the use of their speed techniques, Orihime was the first to speak, "what's going on, I never thought that he'd be back in the village, under any circumstances."

"I find this troubling as well, and now that I've gotten a good look at his reiatsu, it feels similar to what is inside of Tsunade's stomach," Ulquiorra stated as they walked to the kitchen so that Orihime could get something to eat, maybe he'd join her this time.

"Then that means that Orochimaru has been an ally of the village for a while now, even going so far as to become the father of Tsunade's child, I don't like him in the village, or that he's even anywhere near us," she said with a small shudder at some of what he would do.

"You need not worry, I will never allow him or anyone else to attack you, or use you for their own purposes, if anyone ever does, I'll use my full power on them and make them know true despair," he stated dangerously close to a spark of emotion for just a moment.

Orihime giggled a little bit before speaking, "careful, that almost sounded like actual emotion for a moment there, and I've gotten so use to that emotionless face of yours that I'd hate for you to break that so soon," she leaned against him with her breasts on his chest.

"Foolishness, I would never degrade myself to show emotion like the rest of the human trash in this village, I am far beyond such simple mentalities and foolishness onna," Ulquiorra couldn't say that he felt no emotion when it came to her, but he could about not show it.

"Then if I were to move my hands like this," Orihime started before roaming her hands under his shirt and roaming his torso with them, "you wouldn't show anything you might be feeling," he shook his head no with no emotion, "what if I did this to you?" She asked before leaning up and giving him a nice and passionate kiss on his mouth, he still held out with the emotionless face, "then I guess I need to do something a little extra to get you to show some emotion," she grabbed his arms and led him to the bedroom with a sway to her hips.

A few days later

Ulquiorra and Orihime could be seen in the forest of death, they decided to use this as a training ground so that they could continue to grow stronger while in the elemental nations, Ulquiorra decided to teach her some combat techniques beyond that of just Hyuga taijutsu. "Relying on your shield for defense is a poor choice, when it was just you being medical, that would have been fine in regard to a defense, but now that you might be going on the front lines, I believe you should learn a few techniques that can be taught to non-Arrancars." Ulquiorra said as he stood in front of her while in his full Espada uniform, he refused to wear anything else, but he did add on the Uzumaki crest to the back of the attire, "I will be teaching you the hierro and pesquisa, which is far superior to how you are sensing reiatsu now. I may see what other techniques I can teach you as well, such as bala, or maybe even cero, these may be variations of course, but they may be similar in nature to the originals, are you ready," he asked and watched as she nodded yes. "Very well, we will start with the easiest, the pesquisa, this allows you to sense, not only the location of a person, but gauge how powerful they actually are, Grimmjow has to meditate for him to pull this off, I can tell at a glance, to do this, you need to send out a pulse that reacts to reiatsu."

"That doesn't sound too hard, let me try it," Orihime closed her eyes and focused on what he was saying, it sounded like a radar, no, like a sonar, the sonar of a bat that uses echolocation, but how to apply that to her, she wasn't an Arrancar, but she should be able to do something similar. She sent out a small pulse, the only thing she found was a bug underneath her, she did so again with a stronger pulse and found more bugs, she kept repeating the pattern until she finally got to Ulquiorra, and his power was huge, stronger than anything she'd felt from Ichigo. In her surprise she opened her eyes and let loose her concentration, so the pesquisa dispelled, and the backlash gave her brain, for lack of a better word, some fuzz that she needed to shake to get rid of, and only a slight headache for her trouble.

"I see you've found my power, but you need to keep concentration on the pesquisa at all times, until it becomes a part of you're very being, I've trained with this all my Arrancar life, but you only have to do so as much as you can, now for the next concept, the hierro," Ulquiorra stated. "For the hierro, you need to bring your reiatsu outward and coat your body in it, you applied reiatsu to your feet to perform the shunpo of the Shinigami, whish is the exact same as the sonido for the Arrancar, this will be similar to that, except, you do not force yourself to move. You must coat your body in it to not only provide a coating to protect yourself, but you must use it to turn your skin as hard as steel, this is can physically show you," Ulquiorra took out a kunai and proceeded to cut his left palm with it, before moving and destroying the kunai when he tried with his right. "As you can see, my hierro is able to stop a kunai with ease, and you saw the way it was able to stop the tanto from Sai, and even was able to grab Sasuke-teme's chidori hand with ease, as you grow stronger in reiatsu, you can add more power and become able to do as I've done, try it now."

Orihime closed kept her eyes open to focus this time and focused on bringing the reiatsu out and doing what was said, it was easier than one would think, for her arms at least, any further than that wasn't working, "the only thing that's hardening is my arms, I can't get anything past that."

"Do not worry, it is impressive you can do that much, especially since you are a mere human, Arrancar are able to use such things instinctively, for a human to be able to do so is a great feet, we will work until you have mastered the pesquisa and hierro for now," Ulquiorra ordered. That is what they did every day they did not have a mission, which they didn't have any for a while, they worked on Orihime's pesquisa and hierro, and after a week and a half, she was able to apply the hierro to everywhere except her head. She also made quite the amount of progress with her pesquisa, able to sense all the way to the edge of the forest of death, the amount of power Ulquiorra had still scared her a bit though, it felt like an endless void of emptiness, she knew he wasn't empty inside, it's just what she sensed. After another half week, she finally applied the hierro to her whole body, and her pesquisa was able to reach all the way to the Inuzuka compound a little way past the forest of death, the power that the people in Konoha had was a letdown so far, barely a low-level hollow.

It wasn't until three days later that they were given a summons to the hokage tower and to stand in line with many other shinobi, directly behind Shikamaru and Asuma, and Tsunade had just finished relaying her orders, find those responsible for attacking the fire temple, the Neo Akatsuki. "Those are my orders," Tsunade ordered while trying to stand tall in front of them, hard to do with a pregnant belly, she made sure everyone understood by giving a quick scan of the forces, "are there any question," she asked and Asuma raised his hand, "what is it?"

"I believe that Chiriku, a former member of the 12 Ninja Guardians, was supposed to be there, what happened to him," Asuma asked as he took note of his missing friend, the looks that were sent to the ground told him it was not good, not good at all.

"Chiriku was killed by the two Neo Akatsuki members, for the sake of Konoha's prestige, and above all else, the safety of the Fire Country, we can't allow the people to move freely, I also want to know what they are after, but these are dangerous opponents. Don't let them leave the country, find them, no matter what, and if you can't capture them, kill them, go, dismissed," Tsunade ordered before the shinobi all umped from the roof of the hokage tower and made their way out from there to search.

"You two are with us," Asuma's voice called over to them as they were about to jump off as well, they turned to look at said jonin and Shikamaru walk over to them, "my name is Asuma, pleasure to meet you, Ulquiorra-san, Orihime-san, we're a squad for this mission, let's go."

He didn't even give them time to respond before jumping on ahead as if nothing was needed to be said, thankfully, somewhat at least, Shikamaru decided to speak, "been treating me like the others ever since your execution, won't even play shogi with me anymore," he jumped off as well.

"Whose fault is that," Orihime asked rhetorically as she and Ulquiorra jumped after him, "as I seem to recall, you also decided to stand against us instead of doing the right thing, it's no wonder he treats you just like the other sensei's treat their students."

"Like I was going to ostracize myself for standing with you when everyone else was already against you, the life of a shinobi is already tough, and I didn't need any more trouble added on to that by sticking with you and everyone hating me," Shikamaru stated plainly and quietly.

"Quit the chatting back there you three, and pick up the pace, we're starting our search at the fire temple," Asuma ordered, and so they picked up the pace and made it to fire temple before beginning the search, and when they made it there, it was destroyed completely. The monks that were there were from nearby temples and have been helping to dig up the bodies from the rubble, it was a terrible sight, but the only one that was not found was Chiriku, a friend of Asuma's from their 12 Ninja Guardian days.

"Maybe his corps has a high bounty placed on it on the black market, we should check the exchange points closest to this location, we should notify the other platoons to check those locations as well," Ulquiorra offered, it was only logical that may be the case.

"That seems like our best bet," Asuma said before he prepared messages for the other platoons and sent birds to message them, "alright, let's head to the closest exchange point to us," they were about to leave before the old monk stopped them to say a prayer for their group's safety.

They allowed it out of respect before heading out and begin heading to the closest exchange point, it wasn't too far away, in fact, it barely took any time for them to get there going at a ninja's standard pace, and that is when they saw the building, it was a roadside rest point. It had a man sitting on some steps, the man had on a black cloak with a red cloud design on it, complaining about the smell inside that got on his clothes, they planned to take advantage of him being alone and planned a team-based maneuver. Asuma approached from behind the man and when the man noticed, Asuma threw shuriken at him, the man blocked with a black rope attached to his scythe before it was launched at impaled the ground where Asuma had formerly been standing, which was all part of Shikamaru's plan. Shikamaru at that moment used his shadow possession jutsu to stop the man before Ulquiorra came in and struck a hole through the man's throat, his own little signature move that almost replicated where Sasuke had stabbed him at the moment of his death. The only one left was this man's partner now, "that freakin' hurt," the man commented with an almost board expression, "what the hell's your problem," he asked without turning to look at who poked the hole through his throat, he also spoke without any problem, as if he was fine. "Who the hell are you people," he asked before taking a look at Asuma, specifically, he was looking at his sash that hung from his waist, "that sash belongs to those ninja guardians, dammit, I'm gonna have to go back inside that shithole of an exchange point again."

"We're shinobi from Konoha, we've been ordered to either capture or exterminate either Akatsuki or Neo-Akatsuki, and since you work in two-man teams, we'd planned on capturing one of you after eliminating the other, but you've got some serious powers," Asuma said before taking out his chakra blades.

"Well, you guys fucked up on the order," the man said with a smirk before his partner showed up and aimed for Shikamaru, thankfully was able to dodge and get away from the man, but also released his shadow possession jutsu while being chased and forced Asuma to block the other's path.

Ulquiorra ripped his hand from the first man and fell back to beside of Asuma and Shikamaru, in that time, the other man mentioned something about money to his partner, Hidan, who told the other man, Kakuzu, to stay out of the fight while drawing a diagram on the ground in blood. "I'll take the lead, as soon as you see an opening, immobilize the immortal guy with the shadow sewing, Shikamaru, it you can just give me a couple seconds, I'll cut his head off and hopefully keep him from interfering," Asuma suggested quietly to the others.

"That will not work, you are much to slow, and the shadow sewing is also to slow and lacks the turning speed control needed to take the midrange fighter on, and I suspect that the trash over there will not interfere with the fight, I shall go," Ulquiorra stated before beginning to walk.

"Hey," Shikamaru called as he got halfway between the other two and Hidan, "you might want to use your Zanpakuto, it might be the only thing that can damage him permanently, being able to cut souls and all," he advised, not really caring if Asuma or the other two heard him.

"I see your point, but his soul has been so distorted, I doubt that a Zanpakuto can purify it," he said back as emotionlessly as always, yet he still drew said blade from its sheath, and prepared for the fight, which might not be much of a fight, or it could draw out longer than expected.

"You know, getting punched through the throat like that hurt, God will smite assholes like you who don't understand the pain of others," Hidan stated, there was a tense silence in the air for what seemed like an eternity, then in a flash, Ulquiorra disappeared from the view of everyone. When he reappeared again, he was behind Hidan with his sword about to strike down the man, but the immortal brought forth his three-pronged scythe and blocked the strike with the flat of the blades, "nice speed, but you still won't beat me," then came a volley of wild strikes. To anyone else, they would have been too erratic to dodge or block, but to someone who could travel the speed of sound with his Sonido, they were like a snail's pace to him, therefore he was able to block and parry the strikes without any trouble at all.

Normally, Ulquiorra would just use his hierro to block, but he saw the change in reiatsu in the scythe, it would be able to cut through his hierro sooner or later, and it's better not to take the chances on how many strikes that would take, so he blocked and parried with his sword. When Hidan fell back to catch his breath, Ulquiorra fell back as well and quickly shot a bala for Hidan's arm, with a red flash the arm was severed and didn't look to be going back on the body anytime soon. When Hidan was distracted with losing an arm, Ulquiorra made another move, this time severing the leg off of Hidan and grabbing it before destroying it with a bala as well, he slowly walked to the struggling body of Hidan as the Akatsuki member tried to get up. When Ulquiorra finally reached him, he swiftly severed the head of Hidan and kicked it to the side uncaringly, "that takes care of the loud-mouthed trash," he commented before turning to look at Kakuzu with the same expression, "now to deal with you."

"I think not, despite what I think of the ingrate, I know he's strong, and you were able to disable him in quite the small timeframe, I think it would be best if I took my bounty and left," Kakuzu was about to do the smart thing and leave, but that wasn't part of the plan at the moment. As he was about to take a step and go past them, he felt a sting to one of his hearts, then another sting to another one, then a multitude of stings that could only have come from the attacking of his chakra points, but he couldn't sense anyone near him, nor did anyone approach. It wasn't until he began to feel the sting that came with the sixty-four palms technique did his attacker finally reveal themselves, it was a female Hyuga that had been striking him and didn't come out of hiding until her attack was finished, "how," was all he could ask as he coughed blood.

"I concealed her with something I haven't used in years, called Bakudo number twenty-six: Kyokko, then she hid until the correct time to strike at the opponent we weren't going up against, and she did by disabling all your chakra points and paralyzing you as well," Shikamaru informed.

"Now for the next part," Ulquiorra stated before nodding to Orihime, she channeled her reiatsu in her hands and slammed them against the prone form of Kakuzu and sent him flying into the air and in direct line of Ulquiorra's finger, "Cero," he said softly, almost a whisper on the wind. A huge red energy beam shot from his finger and into the sky where Kakuzu was, and in a split second, it seemed he was atomized, in a single second, the only thing left of him was the dust that fell to the ground in a light drizzle.

"You fucking bastards, I'll kill you all, I'll gut you like fish and then eat your insides as I sacrifice you to Jashin," Hidan ranted before Ulquiorra kicked his head to where he was knocked out with his face facing down to muffle any other sounds that came from him in case he woke up.

"That wasn't much of a fight, but I guess we should be thankful for Shikamaru's nice little trick and Ulquiorra's power for that, what was that power you used Shikamaru," Asuma asked the kid, he might not like them as much, but they still shared a good past until recently.

"In short, Ulquiorra-san is the soul of Naruto while Orihime-san is the reincarnation of Hinata, they've come back for their vengeance, me and Temari are the reincarnations of souls that are from another world, that world is dependent on the power of one's soul. Since chakra is part spiritual energy, me and her are able to use it to some degree, not like we could in our original bodies of course, but at least enough for her to form a bow and me to use Kido, which is the technique I used to mask Orihime-san," Shikamaru explained in a board way.

Asuma was understandably shocked at that, going by his now bug eyes and the cigarette he was about to put in his mouth dropping to the ground, "the only reason we are telling you is because you and the other jonin senseis are on the list of people we can trust," Ulquiorra stated.

"He's right, we need you to gather everyone that's on our side and make ready for any preparations that you might need to make, it won't be long before we decide to act and when we do, we will move fast and hard, so be ready," Orihime advised as she and Ulquiorra started walking.

Shikamaru came up to stand beside a still gaping Asuma, "by the way, I'm the only one out of my generation in Konoha that is with them, all the others meant what they said on the day of their execution, I just chose not to be ostracized," he said as he too began walking, followed by Asuma.