"What do you mean they are sending us a genin team? " glared Ino at shikamaru.
They were sent on an information gathering mission in Ame to investigate a crime syndicate growing too big,too fast. Things went downhill faster than they predicted and ... Oh la! they are behind bars.
Apparently, leader of this private army is wanted by Amegagkure as well, judging by number of rain ninjas sharing prison cells with them.
Ino saw a flash of recognition on fairly large number of prisoners when team asuma entered. She has a nagging suspicion most of those prisoners had a slashed headband.
She knew it's safer for team ten to stay in prison than getting involved in a prison break. Most ninjas here could kill for far less than bounty placed on team ten's heads.
In a situation like this, Konoha is sending out a genin team as back-up. She specifically requested two jounin squads. A genin team will be minced meat faster than they can say 'rescue'.
Shikamaru lazily opened one eye, glanced side wards at Ino.
Choji's stomach rumbled - Again.
"They are sending us The genin team, not a genin team. " He corrected her.
She looked at him as if he has grown a new head. In this situation, when they can lose their heads any time, Is shikamaru correcting her semantics?
Shikamaru closed that one eye, went back to sleep promptly.
As she stared at his peaceful visage of faux sleep, realization dawned on her. Ah.. The Genin
team.
Mean while, A day from there, a group of Iwa Jounin discussed their plan of action.
"It's just three genins. Don't you think three teams are overkill? " said Toshi as he looked at the assembled people.
"Better be safe than sorry." answered Ju as he snuffed his cigarette with a wooden leg.
"Plus, one of us is a bumbling idiot. " he added as he looked at the last jounin in the team, a petite girl with two ponytails braided in to pigtails. the girl in question looked at him and smiled. Ju waved back in response. Toshi rolled his eyes at the spectacle.
"Let's go " he said spurring everyone into action.
They continued in silence till they reached vertical cliff surrounding Island. umehana Island, as the natives call it, is formed by a volcano eruption. magma froze in form of a basin, causing the waves to sediment against the walls, forming a narrow beach.
Rain water formed a lake in the middle of island, as the only ungoverned supply of drinking water, it naturally became a pit-stop for pirate ships, eventually, became fort of a warlord, whose Empire is built on smuggling.
How ever, when too many missing ninja started to crowd around umehana, elemental nations started paying attention, a team was sent out from each nation, far more from rain than from any other nation. None of them ever returned.
"Are we taking prisoners? " one of the ninjas asked as he fell in step with Ju.
"Nope. What's the fun in taking prisoners? " Ju retorted.
"Nitwits" he scoffed under breath as he sped off to the front of the group.
Ju is by far oldest shinobi among them. He lived through two shinobi wars, seen all that's out there to see, known all that needs to be known. He did not believe in his young comrades, rightfully so.
Right now, they received information saying one of the teams in prison has sent out SOS, and a genin team is coming for their rescue.
"Fools" Ju muttered to himself.
"They wouldn't know what hit them." offered Toshio with a smirk.
Ju smirked in response.
One on one, a team from Umehana might lose to one from hidden villages, but they have got three. Those fools from hidden villages will indeed not know what hit them.
they spotted their quarry soon enough.
It's a pink haired girl, who looked like she spent too much time on her skin. a Blonde guy, who looked too sunny to be ninja, and a dark haired one, who looked too pretty to be ninja.
They did not see a jounin sensei any where in sight.
Ju beckoned to their sensor over. His own senses told him those ninjas are nothing but average genins. Something about them made his ninja senses tingle. He couldn't place finger on what for the life of him.
their sensor, walked over to Ju from her position in rear. She closed her eyes and extended her hands towards those ninja.
"They are genin". She confirmed.
"Lets finish them already!" the girl with pigtails whispered.
"Wait" Ju said authoritatively, scrutinizing their quarry. He started biting his lower lip in a worry, while fiddling with kunai in his pocket.
In a flash, he threw kunai at their sensor. Next second, Ju was on her holding her hand roughly.
Many things happened immediately.
Their sensor vanished with a loud poof.
multiple chakra signatures came up alive in a circle around them.
Girl with pigtails rushed towards konoha genin.
a powerful chakra revealed at their rear guard, knocking down two genin at the same time.
Ju jumped on to nearest tree branch, realizing with a sinking feeling exactly what was wrong with the genin team from konoha.
They are from gold standard rogue-ninja bingo book. He did not own one, but he remembered looking through one owned by a passing bounty hunter.
he recognized dark haired man - Uchiha Sasuke - his profile came with a footnote.
"No rewards.", underneath that, a list of people who placed bounty on him and how they died. which is - inventive.
with growing dread, he realized why their targets felt familiar. It's Naruto Uzumaki, who's a legend in his own right, Sakura haruno, known for her brute strength and godly medical skills.
He has a decision to make and he had to make it quick.
"RUN" He bellowed that message at top of his lungs, while following through it with increased urgency.
He dived into a bush immediately to his right, and jumped on to nearest tree.
Sasuke flash stepped to the running ninja swinging his electric charged katana more to hit him rather than slice at him.
The sword resounded with a loud clang, reducing the ninja in to nothing but stone rubble.
He smiled at the sight.
He grabbed wrist of the person coming from left and using momentum from their punch, sent them into the tree on right. He blocked the two kunais coming from behind and right at the same time.
The genin who hit the tree lost consciousness.
"One to three o'clock. Stone ninja, Jounin level. Adept at stone clones. his objective is to escape and be a messenger. Stop him." He relayed to Naruto.
"Aye Aye boss" Naruto answered with flair. Sasuke could hear twenty narutos shout and run in the direction of escaped ninja.
He jumped high, landing behind the ninja who attacked from behind, in a quick chop to neck, put him out of commission.
Naruto shadow clones spotted the ninja soon, just as they are about to jump at him, the earth beneath them felt squishy.
Soon, clone army started sinking in to quagmire. they could see the stone ninja frantically pouring oil in what looked like a ant hill. the one of the clones nodded at others and popped.
Sakura was engaged in a taijutsu battle with a with another of the rogue ninjas. this one seemed to be holding his fort against her destructive punches. Naruto shouted at her while punching the guy in front of him at the same time.
"Sakura chan, any idea why a guy will be pouring oil in an ant hill? "
Sakura answered while sending a left kick at nin fighting her.
"Stop him." she ordered without even thinking.
"Easy for you to say" Naruto groused back at her.
He created another clone army and sent them towards his other clones.
Sakura noticed the smile of the ninja in front of her after that and arrived at the conclusion a moment later. it's the orange flag theory these guys talked about. these lizards that live under trees have a connected tunnels that open at the beach. at the slightest hint of fire, all of these lizards come out on to beach, thus painting beach with orange color. Sakura wondered the irony of the signal, for naruto could have done the same with his clone army. it is at that point she remembered another quality of these underground nitpicky lizards. They react faster to chakra near by than fire.
She swore to herself.
"Naruto, Don't use rasengan." she screamed at him, increasing the pace of her blows. She has to take down this annoying pest of a ninja fast if they are to have any kind of chance at saving team ten.
one of the naruto clones, the 'clone' that usually ordered around other clones, figured what ever the ninja might be doing, they can't let him do it even if they don't know what it is.
As such, he ordered three clones preparing rasengan to strike early. they just have to displace this mud, an unfinished rasengan is best for that kind of shallow spread everything craters.
The clone holding rasengan pushed rasengan into mire, just as 'the' clone leaped for lighted match reaching ant hill. He grabbed it in nick of time and exploded. The dying match fell safely away from oil soaked ant hill.
Naruto swore.
Naruto's clones which reached quagmire just as mud wave collapsed swore.
Sasuke who reached the clearing at that moment swore.
Stone ninja in front of clones and Sasuke smirked.
Ninja whom sakura just tied up, laughed.
"you will never never be able to take in umehana. the pole is up. " he said between chortles.
Sakura wanted to think the innuendo is not intensional. it is then Naruto pointed to the island in distance, where a penis like structure is raising on the beach, in orange color too.
Sakura wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. The don't have any more time to waste now.
"forget him. lets go get team lazy" Naruto tried soothing her raising fury.
he bit his finger, summoned GamaBunta.
"LET ME DO MY BUSINESS IN PEACE, GAKI" frog boss grumpily at Naruto.
Naruto just wrinkled his nose in disgust. It's sakura who answered frog boss.
"We need to get to the island in other side Bunta san. Our friends are in danger. They could be killed any moment now."
"What she said" Added Naruto.
Frog boss just glared at naruto while lazily puffing his pipe.
"We have to save the day boss." Naruto pumped his hand in to the air, just as they heard a loud pop sound. The area is immediately covered in most awful smell that Sakura or Naruto ever smelt.
did he just fart? they sweat dropped looking at the frog boss.
"What are you guys waiting for? Hop on" Gamabunta said with a very lively expression.
he is not going to wipe? Inner sakura asked while sweat dropping again. Naruto seemed to have no qualms, as he jumped on the frog boss's back. Both of them resisted all their ninja instincts to look back.
They found the island a beehive of activity, where just everyone is running around packing and leaving.
Naruto wasted no time in creating thousand shadow clones, running in every which direction. He just hoped they can reach team ten before any harm came to them.
Silence prevailed jail cells.
"Something is wrong" Ino said in low voice.
Shikamaru woke up alert, ready for action.
Chouji adjusted his position to attack on moments notice even with the cumbersome chains and all.
Ino slid behind her two teammates.
There are no foot steps anywhere. The could hear murmurs among the prison cells unease filtered through bars.
"They are going to blow us up." muttered Shikamaru horrified as realization dawned on him.
His two teammates looked at him with the same horrified expressions.
"Chouji, Try to break the bars if you can. Ino, try to see if you can find anything through window." Shikamaru ordered Ino, just as he reached along with Chouji to bang on doors.
Sasuke examined the landscape in front of him from the sky. He spotted it really fast if he could say so.
While the entire Island is like beehive disturbed, this particular building sat unperturbed in a corner. he focused his eyes on the building, searching for anything he can glean from it, while guiding his hawk to there.
He soon spotted two armed guards running around, flipping on switches in places, looking doors as they come out of each one.
He can only think one scenario where they will do that.
'Cleanup' as orochimaru put for his labs. Evacuate and set fire to a building, Yes, with people in it.
He urged his his hawk to land and ran towards the guard who's trying to pull a red lever.
Within a minute, every guard is dead.
He grabbed keys and headed in side.
He spotted team ten easily enough.
Thats when he heard first explosion.
They all looked at each other's faces. He threw bunch of keys at next room, formed a chidori, stuck through back wall of team ten's prison. They opened into what could only be a cliff. they jumped down together, holding each other's hands.
Before he could touch base and meet his end in a pathetic "smeared against rocks" death, his hawk swooped in, holding him in his claws. thus, they grabbed on to each other's legs, while the giant bird flew away from falling rubbish.
Naruto turned around just as he heard first explosion.
His eyes turned red, chakra cloak started forming around him. He tore through the masses, towards the direction where he heard the explosion.
a stampede started, as all naruto clones ran in the direction of explosion. Save for 'the' clone, which headed in opposite direction, following a certain pink haired medic, who ran towards the highest place in Island.
She spotted the hawk soon enough, it was travelling towards them with unbelievable speed. she turned to 'the' clone and ordered him to create twenty clones, making them stand in a circle. Soon a helipad was ready, all they needed to do is catch team ten when they fall.
she made 'the' clone pop, alerting naruto.
Soon enough, team ten is falling in to the helipad in very unattractive flapping of limbs. Yes, even Sasuke.
Helipad Naruto's scrambled towards each member of the group as they caught them, while a red eyed and cloaked naruto arrived in all his 'kyubi' glory just in time to provide sasuke with an adequately cool landing.
"Never again" Ino swore, as she dry heaved to get rid of motion sick ness.
Shikamaru looked ill at ease.
Chouji laid flat on ground,Sakura could see his eyes are rolled back.
"Clean up. All of it. Code zero." shikamaru said as soon as he can catch his breath.
"Really?" Asked Naruto with a smirk.
Sasuke brightened up.
Sakura smiled beatifically.
"let's get these guys out of island. " she said turning to Sasuke.
"I call the first shot dobe, don't you dare do it while we are gone." ordered Sasuke, before calling up his hawk.
"Do we have to? " Chouji said blanching at the sight of hawk.
Sasuke nodded at him, patting his shoulder. Sakura raised her eyebrows at that.
Soon, team ten is off again clutched in the claws of a hawk, Chouji on one side, Ino and Shikamaru on other. They were dropped on to ready made boat waiting for them some ways off in the sea.
"Let's start guys." Sasuke said looking at Naruto kyubi mode Naruto, and Sakura, who has two cherry blossom seals glowing on her hands.
Three of them looked down at Island beneath them from their position on Sasuke's hawk.
They all folded their legs indian style, put their hands together.
"Divine fury" They shouted together.
The sky rumbled.
Wind picked up speed.
soon, the score lines appeared in a round shape, circling entire island.
A fire dragon roared to life, going through those score lines burning everything in it's path, soon, forest became a roaring inferno.
The sky rumbled again. unlike before, lightning shot out of sky, cutting a path through the lines scored by wind.
for a moment, a deafening silence ruled. Team seven looked at the round patch they made expectantly.
with a deafening pop, the round patch flew in to the sky. lava erupted from hole in the shape of patch, while rain started pelting away like there's no tomorrow.
Sakura closed her eyes and concentrated. Soon, the rain around them stopped,became five twin headed dragons.
She started shaping the lava that's flowing out, an occasional tornado or fire dragon helped her.
Team ten stared at the outcome in awe.
"Remind me never to go against those guys." Ino dead paned.
Her two teammates nodded in the same deadpan tone.
In front of their eyes is the umehana Island, which looked like a bud till yesterday, which looked like a bloomed flower now.
"Report" grumbled Tsunade at Team seven.
"We watered the plant and made umehana bud bloom." said a happy Naruto thrusting a potted plant into the hands of shizune.
Team ten sweat dropped collectively behind team seven.