"Mirror image."

Chapter 1

"The three genin."

The sound of panting and swishing of a thrown shuriken echoed through the dark forest, breaking the silence of the night.

A team of three, young genin jumped from tree branch to tree branch, trying desperately to get away from their persuaders.

The one in the lead had to pick up his speed to avoid a series of kunai and shuriken from hitting his ankles, he also had a scroll holder strapped to his back, which gave away why he was targeted so harshly by the opposing team.

The boy made a jump but had to twist his body around to block the weapons flying in his direction, with his kunai.

He growled.

The offending team was getting more and more aggressive, every second their chance of getting away without a scratch, was going down to zero. And they still needed to get the scroll back to their village.

"'Inu'-kun!" A female voice panted, making the first boy's heart stop. "I…can't…keep…up!"

"'Himawari'!" He yelled, looking over his shoulder. When she didn't answer, he cursed "Damn it!" and ran back to where he was sure the young medic-in-training, fell. He scanned the area around him with his eyes but the darkness was too deep, preventing him from locating his teammate.

A "swish!" next to him, disrupted his search and he turned around, making the necessary hand-signs for a weak, wind style jutsu. He couldn't afford preforming higher techniques than D-rank ones, he needed all the chakra he can get to make sure he and his friends return safely to the village.

"Relax, Baka-'Inu'." Another boy's voice said from the darkness and the one called 'Inu', after recognizing the user of the voice, stopped his jutsu. "It's me, 'Pansa'."

'Inu' nodded, relaxing his stance. "And 'Himawari'-chan?"

"I've got her." 'Pansa' answered, pointing to the limp figure he was supporting. "She's out-cold though. Won't be much help if we get hurt along the way."

"Good." That answer was only regarding the first part of his friend's answer, the two other parts were disastrous.

"We better get going." 'Pansa' said looking over his shoulder. "They're going to catch up to us soon. My genjutsu isn't going to hold them for long."

"Right." 'Inu' then grabbed the girl's other hand and placed it over his head, making it rest on his back. After they were all comfortable, the two boy's began jumping from branch to branch in a steady, practiced pace.

This mission was beginning to get to dangerous for a simple C-rank.

A minute of silence passed between the teammates, before 'Inu' asked:

"How long to our destination?"

"Too long. We're won't make it."

"Shut up, teme!" 'Inu' shouted. "We won't fail! We're going to get the scroll back to the Hebikage, no matter what!"

"Quiet, baka!" 'Pansa', growled. "It's already a miracle we survived this long, with your loud mouth on the team, those S-rank criminals on our tail and without sensei here to lead us."

"I'm not a loud mouth!"

"Then, shut up!"

Reluctantly, the boy did what he was told.

After a minute of silence it was 'Pansa' who broke the silence.

"Something's not right."

"What do you mean?"

"They should have caught up to us by now. Why is the forest so sile-"

He didn't have the chance to finish for a loud explosion beneath their feet threw both boys off the ground, they ran right into a trap.

One of the rogues that prepared the trap, smiled under his breath.

The explosion wasn't strong enough to kill the three brats, but it was enough to knock them out.

He then walked up to the boy with the scroll holder and pulled the paper out.

Satisfied with how the mission went, he gave his men the signal to retreat. The konoha bastards will soon stumble upon the crater and he didn't want to be here when they do.

Meanwhile in Konoha :

Kakashi's single eye shot open and he sat up.

He had no idea what woke him up and that confused him. Usually it was either the sun itself or just an annoyed sixteen-year-old Naruto banging on his door.

This time it was neither, the sun is still on the other side of the planet and the blonde, knucklehead ninja was still sound asleep in his apartment.

The Copy ninja sighted and looked at the clock that rested on his night stand.

2:30 a.m.

Groaning he decided to let in some fresh air, he hasn't been at home much, mostly being busy on missions, and the place was getting very suffocating.

The Hatake hair walked up to the window and pulled it up, letting the cold, night air hit his naked arms. He closed his eyes and breathed it in with his mask covered nose, enjoying how refreshing it felt in his lungs.

Suddenly he froze.

There was something different in the air, something that wasn't the trees, the grass and the dust of the nearby training grounds.

It was smoke.

The last Hatake cursed under his breath and hurriedly dressed himself in his shinobi uniform, then ran out his apartment following the scent of burned grass and trees with his better-than-a-average-Inuzuka's nose.

It lead him deep into the forest, where a lot of fresh chakra signatures could be spotted with his sharingan eye.

When he finally got to the center of the explosion, all he could do was raise an eyebrow at the three pre-teens lieing in the middle of it.

They had weapon pouches on their tights and their chakra was suppressed on a genin level. But none of them had a headband to tell him what country they were from.

This kids are genin from a village that is very strict on hiding its name. Kakashi mused seeing that all the children had that could resemble headbands were colorful ribbons tied around their heads, necks and arms.

He checked the first one for a pulse, satisfied when he felt it beating against his fingers he moved to the next kid.

The kids didn't seem life-threateningly injured, but it wouldn't hurt to take them to the hospital just to make sure.

"What have you little whippersnappers got yourselves into?" He asked, cloning himself with the 'shadow clone jutsu'. "And where is your, sensei?" The Hatake looked around with his sharingan but found no one.

Shaking his head he picked the brat closest to him and headed towards the Konoha hospital, his clones hot on his tail.

Tomorrow morning he'll get his answers, right now he has to make sure those kids survive through the night.

JA107: Hi guys! Welcome to my new story! Just to clarify, the names 'Inu', 'Pansa' and 'Himawari' are not their real names, they are nicknames they use on missions. The real names will be in the next chapter. Read and review folks! It will be worth it!