I do not own Naruto.

CHAPTER 1

"What happened?" shouted a blond teenager as he, along with a girl and a dark-haired boy, burst into the hospital room.

"What happened?" he asked again. "Who did this? Who attacked him?"

A man clad in green held a finger to his lips and hushed him, a stern look on his face.

"Don't tell me to shhh!" exclaimed the blond boy.

"Be quiet," said another man, who had what looked like an unlighted cigarette between his lips, in a calm but rather stern voice. The long-haired woman beside him grasped the table behind her for support, her fingers trembling.

The boy gritted his teeth. The girl clad in red had her hands clasped close to her mouth. The other boy simply stood there, his dark eyes fixed on the bed on which a silver-haired man lay, seemingly asleep. More of unconscious.

A blond woman held both her hands over his chest, pale green energy emerging from them, her eyes narrowed in concentration, gritting her teeth. After a while that felt like eternity, the unconscious man's breathing seemed to ease, and the woman relaxed. She lowered her hands and sighed.

"Obaa-chan?" said the boy gently. The blond woman pushed some stray hair behind her ear before looking at him. She did not seem to mind the nickname the boy had given her. She knew it was more affectionate than it was teasing or insulting.

"He'll be fine, Naruto. He just needs to rest for a few days. He won't be able to do anything too strenuous for the next week, though."

"What happened, Obaa-chan?"

"I was supposed to meet up with him by the hot springs," said the man in green. "We were going to get a drink. I waited almost a whole hour for him. Even Jiraiya had come along, doing more of his 'research'. When he didn't turn up, I went to his house. I knocked but there was no answer. So I let myself in. It was then that I noticed the open window. Sure, Kakashi likes his windows open, but that one had been pried open. I found nothing in the house out of place, except for Kakashi."

"What do you mean?" asked the young girl.

"He was under the dining table. I immediately pulled him out from under there. Then I noticed he wasn't breathing properly. It was then that I saw the small puncture wound in his neck under his right ear. He was pretty beat up, looked like he had a few broken ribs. But I wasn't prepared to see him stop breathing and not to feel a pulse a minute later. I brought him here at once and fetched the Fifth. I was afraid he might die. She got the poison out of him before it managed to kill him but it had already spread to over half his body, slowing down the actions of his muscles. She was working on getting his heart to start beating again when you three came in."

They all stood silent for a few moments. Suddenly, the blonde woman cursed so loud Naruto thought Kakashi might actually wake up despite his flirt with death.

"What is it, Tsunade-sama?" asked Shizune as she almost flew in the room at the sound of the Fifth Hokage shouting.

"Gai, was there anyone else in the house when you found him?" she asked the green clad gentleman who now had a puzzled look on his face.

"No, Hokage-sama. No one."

"Hokage-sama, you don't mean…?"

All eyes fell on Kurenai, who had not let go of the chair. Asuma and Gai met each other's gaze, comprehension dawning on them.

"You don't think…?" stuttered Gai.

"No. I don't think there were any witnesses to this attack. However, this attack was very recent. The attacker can't have gotten far yet."

"Someone has to go after them," said Asuma urgently.

"Yes, but you jounins have missions to go on this afternoon and tomorrow. The other jounins have their own missions and some have to remain within Konoha. Our only problem is, we don't know who we're looking for."

"I think we do, Tsunade-sama." Gai held out a scroll with symbols on it and the characters "The Six Winds" written inside.

"What would they want with Kakashi?" asked Asuma, after they had studied the scroll.

"They have to be working under someone's command. I cannot say who, but this is not good."

"They haven't taken anything from Kakashi. They hurt him, nearly killed him. What could they want? Clearly, this incident was only a warning of some sort. Perhaps — "

Asuma was interrupted by a nurse bursting into the room shouting, "Hokage-sama! Come quick! Hokage-sama!"

"Nani!?" exclaimed Tsunade.

"The Hyuuga boy, Hokage-sama, he's just been brought in by Hiashi-sama. He says he's been poisoned!" blurted the nurse, sweat running down her forehead.

"ACK!" came the sound from Gai-sensei who was wide eyed.

"Dammit!" said Tsunade.

Tsunade rushed out of the room after the nurse, followed by Gai-sensei. Asuma, Kurenai, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke waited in silence around Kakasi's bed, neither of them speaking. The silence was deafening. Naruto watched Kakashi-sensei's chest rise and fall gently. He clenched his fists as he wondered who could have done this to Kakashi. They had almost lost their sensei.

Tsunade returned twenty minutes later, having extracted the poison from Neji's body with the same medical techniques she had used on Kakashi.

"He's going to be fine," she said, in response to the anxious faces looking up at her.

"Who did it?" asked Naruto.

"We don't know," said Tsunade. "Although I can say he can't have been poisoned more than five minutes before he got here. Hiashi said he heard a disturbance in the house and went to investigate each room. Hanabi ran to him telling him they found Neji in the garden. He followed her there and saw Hinata with him. It was only then that Neji lost consciousness. But he wasn't exactly poisoned to kill him. Just incapacitated. Unlike Kakashi's case, his injury and death were not the intention."