Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ or Naruto
The Golden Angel
Ino had heard many absurd rumours throughout her 15 years of life and being a lover of gossip she had started quite a few herself, still this one was a bit to absurd to be taken serious… so why again was two of Konoha's team being send on an A class mission to confirm it?
She had wondered that for quite a wile as she walked down the road outside the village alongside her team and the reformed team Kakashi, now only being Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi but still considered one of the top teams of the village.
The rumour that had started this little mission had first been heard off roughly 2 months ago, a man stating he had been attacked by wandering criminals when a girl with golden hair and a golden aura surrounding her had stepped in betting the criminals 'faster then the blink of the eye' or so the official statement sounded.
After that people had moved to the area trying to find the girl and many had seen her, or at least claimed to have seen her and after each claim the power of the girl seemingly increased, being so fast that she could knock 10 Jounins out in a second and strong enough to lift a cart along with the animals pulling it with one hand. Well that was what the rumours said at any rate.
But there was good money in those rumours apparently because just days ago a man had approached the Hokage with a mission, prove the existent of the Golden Angel, the mission was not considered more then C at best but the man had demanded that it was taken as serious as an A ranked, the money had been in order which lead to the here and now where Ino was travelling along with the rest of the group to a small mountain area located in the southeast of Fire Country.
"Kakashi-sensei, do you believe there is anything to the rumours?" Sakura asked being the first to break the silence, well if you didn't count Naruto screaming a goodbye to the village or his attempt to work the rest up to start a race.
"Who knows" Kakashi answered not sounding to interested and not looking it either as his nose was buried in a book, Ino had once asked Sakura what it was Kakashi always was reading but had only gotten the answer "you don't want to know." After which Sakura had changed the conversation to some medical related topic which effectively had caught Ino's attention trough she would never admit to Sakura that she had learned something from it, even if Sakura without a doubt was the best medic of the two Ino would never give her rival/friend the satisfaction of admitting that superiority.
"We'll know when the mission is over" Asuma told "but personally I think some Genin to Chunin ninja under a genjutsu is the most we will find."
It took the two teams about a day to reach the site. They had not travelled fast as their time limit was a month and neither Kakashi nor Asuma expected it to take more then a week to having searched every part of the small mountain area.
"We'll camp here for the night" Kakashi informed "tomorrow we'll split in three groups, more information will follow tomorrow, now let's get a camp ready."
The group was soon in full swing setting camp none of them, not even the Jounins noticing the pair of eyes following their movements.
The next day the teams were ready to start the search the 3 groups being, Kakashi and Asuma in one, Naruto and Sakura in another and Ino, Shikamaru and Choji being the last team.
"We'll meet back here in a week" Kakashi informed "there is no report of dangers in this area so you shouldn't run in to any troubles you can't get out of. Now off you go."
The groups nodded and then they were gone, all three taking the rout trough the trees instead of the paths made for hiking.
"So how are we going to do this?" Ino asked as the group had moved in the same direction for about 10 minutes.
"Find a place to camp and then stay there until this troublesome week is over instead of wasting time looking for someone that dose not exist?" Shikamaru asked hopeful.
"I don't think that would be a good idea Shikamaru" Choji said, "We're being paid A ranked payment after all."
"Troublesome" Shikamaru answered not to the surprise of either of his teammates.
The three continued for the rest of the day before setting up camp at a small clearing, not having seen any trace of any person not counting each other let alone a golden glowing girl.
"I'll go scout the area" Ino said, there was really no reason for doing such a thing but she didn't feel like settling down for the night just yet so the excuse worked even if it was unlikely that her two teammates hadn't already translated it to 'I'm talking a walk' the three knowing each other to well to not read between such lines.
Ino walked towards a small stream the group had passed earlier; the water had looked clean so she figured she could fill a bottle or two, it most likely wouldn't be necessary but she felt like doing it anyway.
As she reached the stream she got the first sign of life as a black haired girl was filling a bottle from the stream seemingly not having noticed Ino at all.
Or so Ino thought until the girl spoke "are you another one of those people seeking the 'Angel'?"
Ino laughed a little, not because of the question because of the sarcasm that had been behind the word Angel, this girl clearly did not believe the rumours, but that left Ino with a question, what could she be doing here if not looking for the Angel?
"Well not by choice but my team and I have been ordered to find out the truth about the rumour so here I am" Ino answered walking closer to the girl.
The girl turned around and looked at Ino giving a small smile "must suck getting stuck with such a mission" she told "but personally I believe if the person have been here then she's long gone, I can't count the number of people being here looking for a girl glowing golden."
"So true, but this place is still the best lead, but forgive me if I'm prying what are you doing here if not looking for the legend?" Ino asked the area did not look like the best place for tourism and the girl looked to at home for that anyway.
"I live here" the girl answered with a small shrug of her shoulders "beat living in a big city any day."
"You live in the mountains?" Ino asked and the girl nodded in confirmation before bending down and picking up a good deal of water bottles that she had to have field before Ino arrived.
"Do you need any help with those?" Ino asked, the girl seemed to consider for a moment before nodding again.
"If it's not a bother," the girl told to which Ino simply walked over and took three of the bottles from the girl.
"No bother at all, my name is Ino by the way" she added the last figuring that a name would be nice to have, referring to the girl as 'girl' was starting to get annoying.
"Thanks, and my name is Pan" she told then she started walking and Ino followed the two of them not following a path like Ino had expected but walked through the wild until they finally reached a clearance where a small house stood quite obvious having been build by someone that wasn't a professional but also quite obvious solid enough to withstand quite a bit.
"Do you live here by yourself?" Ino asked, she had expected there to be a small family but it did not seem like there was anyone but Pan anywhere close by and the house did not look big enough to hold much more then just Pan.
"Yup" Pan answered "my family and friends are at a place where I can't reach them I'm afraid."
Ino's first thought was that Pan's family was dead but the wording Pan had used made her reconsider and a danger alert went off in her head along with the word: missing-nin.
Ino slowly reached for a kunai while Pan's back was turned she had no prove yet but she still rather have a weapon ready then be caught unprepared.
"There's no reason to ready weapons." If Pan had hoped her words would calm Ino they had the exact opposite effect as Ino in an instant had the knife in her hand not even trying to hide it.
"So mind telling me where the sudden hostility come from?" Pan asked she was still not facing Ino and was still completely calm which only let Ino with one thought.
"I'm screwed" Ino knew one thing and that was that Pan was powerful, that was the only explanation for her calmness, the smaller girl knew that if Ino attacked she could handle it.
Which left Ino with only one option, she threw the kunai at her target and then ran as fast as she could she didn't even dare look back to see if Pan was following, which was kind of good because in the blink of an eye Pan seemed to appear out of the air in front of Ino.
Pan held the kunai up, the same on that Ino had thrown and Ino closed her eyes even if she did not want to. She had to admit she was scared, terrified actually of the girl in front of her.
"You dropped this." And just like that the terror was gone she opened her eyes finding Pan holding the kunai out in a clearly none threatening way as the sharp end was pointing towards Pan and not Ino, it would be so easy to just push and end the girl's life.
Following through with the thought Ino used all her force to push Pan's arm, only to find the arm not bugging in the slightest, she was using her full strength and Pan looked like she hadn't even noticed that her arm was being pulled.
"Ino?" Pan asked "I know something I said freaked you out but I'm really not sure what or why, so could we perhaps talk about this without you" she seemed to consider what the right word was "…holding my hand?"
"I'm not holding your hand!" Ino yelled which only made Pan raze an eyebrow her eyes clearly focusing on Ino's two hands that was locked around Pan's outstretched one, obvious Pan wasn't even feeling that Ino was trying to force the knife to make contact.
"I'm trying to kill you!" Ino somehow expected that to be the end of the game or whatever it was, it however didn't, at least not like she had expected.
Pan used her free hand to gentle remove Ino's hands from her own and then she placed the knife in Ino's hand before placing herself completely open "go ahead."
Ino froze, what kind of trick was this? She looked at Pan that still looked completely calm despise having given Ino permission to kill her, Ino took a step forward in a treating manner just to see what Pan would do but there was no movement at all from Pan, she still simply stood waiting for Ino to make a move.
"What kind of trick is this?" Ino asked looking at Pan who actually was smiling, not a mocking smile or superior but simply smiling like you would smile at a friend to give some kind of silent comfort.
"You obvious think me dangerous" Pan told "so I figured like this you'd have the upper hand so could you might tell me why you want me dead, just 10 or so minutes ago you were offering to help."
"That was before I knew you were a missing-nin!" Ino yelled expecting a lot of reactions to the outburst, everything from outright denial to mocking laughter. A blank look was however not among the things she had expected.
"Sorry but I'm not all that up to date with words and such, what is a missing-nin?" Ino stared at Pan trying to see if she was playing stupid but slowly had to face the truth, Pan really had no clue what a missing-nin was, well either that or else she simply was the best damn actor she had ever seen.
"A ninja who betrayed his or her village" Ino answered first now noticing that she had lowered the hand with the kunai that moments before had been just inches from Pan's heart.
"Well there's two things wrong with your statement about me being such a thing then" Pan said "one, I have never betrayed anyone" she looked at Ino "and two I am most defiantly not a ninja."
Ino felt rather stupid after Pan's words she had jumped to conclusions but there was just some unsettling feeling about Pan, determining her to be an enemy had seen like the logical choice.
Pan looked at the sky for a moment and then back down at Ino "it's getting late" she told "and unless you still want to kill me I really want to get to bed, so am I free to leave?"
"Yeah" Ino answered, "I should get back to my team also" Ino had hardly said the words before Ino found herself alone, she looked around for a moment before sighing "I'm not sure if I want to hope she's just insanely fast or that I have been talking with an illusion."
…
Ino did not see Pan again over the week, she had even been looking for her but no luck and when she went to the place where the house had been there was nothing, the clearance she had been in was there but there was not any trace at all that the place had been used for a camping ground and there most defiantly stood no house.
So with some bitterness she accepted that she had been caught in someone genjutsu, possible the real Pan possible someone else but it didn't really matter, as she doubted that she would ever met the person again.
As the two teams left none of them having seen any Golden Angel and none of them even mention having met other humans a pair of eyes watched them.
Pan was floating high in the air above them watching them leave, after meeting Ino she had capsuled the house and used her ki to get the area to look like it had grown undisturbed for months figuring it best that none of the girl's friends decided to seek her out.
She had followed the ninjas for most of the week learning whatever she could and it had not all been pleasant information.
Shaking her head Pan sighed, saving that man as a super sayain had been a great mistake but one she would have done over every time, she was a Son after all, the only one in the world she had found herself in by accident.
The quarter sayain sighed again, more people would no doubt seek her out, the fact that those ninjas had been send was enough prove of that. She was just glad that Ino had not gone through with her attempt of killing her, after all she didn't know how it would have ended had Ino found out that she did not have the strength to even scratch her skin.
"Well one thing is defiantly sure" Pan spoke to herself "this people are not ready to witness my kind of power" she sighed "to bad I found that out to late."
With that Pan slowly flew back to her new camping spot wondering just what the future would bring with all those people seeking their 'Golden Angel'.