Chapter 1 of Return
*This story is written by both me and elflover15.
Anyways enjoy the first chapter!
The blue sky was bright that morning, making the very mood of the town more cheerful then it would usually be.
Naruto walked cheerfully down the street, happy that today was a day that he could train with his teacher. Today he might complete the technique that he had been working on for the last couple of days.
"Lady Tsunade calls you," a familiar voice traveled to his ear.
"Kiba!" Naruto said, turning to see his friend's face, as canine like as ever, "I haven't seen you in a while! Where have you been?"
"It's not where I have been," Kiba said, a canine grin spreading on his face, "You have been training constantly for over a week."
"You are to go on a B-rank mission," The Hokage said, "It will be investigating some strange occurrences in the land of rice."
"Boo ya!" Naruto shouted, obviously ecstatic of the higher up mission.
"What do we have to do?" Sakura asked, almost punching out the idiocy that came pouring out of Naruto's mouth almost every second of the day.
"I have heard some information that a certain person has been traced down," Tsunade said to them, "The price on this person's head is much more then what this building itself costs to build."
Sai merely nodded, not saying anything knowing that the Hokage didn't think well of him.
"Well that's," Sakura said, stammering at the rather large amount, "How could anyone be able to get that large of an amount on their head in the first place?"
"You will no doubt find out on the way," She muttered under her breath, "Now go, you shouldn't be wasting time by standing around here."
The four nodded and were on their way.
"What a drag."
"Shikamaru, it's not our fault that you were assigned to this mission as well," Sakura said, trying to keep the peace, "You might as well just stay silent."
The male shook his head, walking at a slower pace than the rest of the group.
"I can take this person out all by myself!" Naruto bragged, hands resting behind his head, "It will be one of the easiest things I've done in my life!"
"Oh shut up Naruto," Ino yelled at the blond, "I bet you couldn't even get within four feet of this person."
"You guys can argue after we get into the village," Yamato-sensei said, "We are almost there anyway. If you guys aren't able to get along well, then I will have to control you with fear!" He showed a flashlight in his face and glared at Naruto. The blond screamed and backed away from the sensei, he had always fallen for that trick.
"Which village are we going to anyway?" Sakura asked Yamato.
"It is Lykira," Yamato said, continuing to walk.
"The city in which most criminals live in," Choji said, stuffing some chips in his mouth, "I hear that they have amazing food."
"I bet that their ramen is worse than Ichiraku's though," Naruto said, "Ichiraku's is the best ramen that there could ever be."
Choji nodded in agreement.
"How many days does it take to get here?" Naruto complained out loud, "We could have gotten there faster if we were in the trees, not down here on the road."
"Naruto have you forgotten how much that jumping drains us of energy?" Sakura asked, "If we were to get there and encounter the person that we are after then we wouldn't be able to fight and might die."
The blond shook his head, "Then we should keep walking so we can get there earlier!"
"You're not even listening to me are you?" Sakura wondered, "Thanks again Yamato-sensei for giving us shelter from the elements."
The rest of the group nodded, agreeing with Sakura in thanks.
Yamato-sensei smiled, but didn't say anything, leaving the room where the rest of the group was staying, giving himself a different room in the mansion that he created from wood.
"Well then good night," Sakura said, closing the thinner wood curtain thing that separated her and Ino from the males.
"You seem closer to Naruto than before he went away to train with Jiraiya for three years," Ino said to Sakura, lying down by her stuff on the side of the wall.
"Of course not," Sakura said, "I just understand him more than I did before in my life time."
"You like him," Ino gasped, "You really do! I bet you like him more than you do Sasuke!"
"That's not true, Ino-pig!" She snapped at her childhood friend.
"Bill-board brow!" she yelled back, standing up, "I have become stronger you know, I could easily beat your butt!"
On the other side of the wooden curtain Naruto and the rest of the males on the other side of the door paused what their conversation was momentarily and mentally shuddered.
"I hope Sakura doesn't get mad," the blond prayed, unconsciously rubbing his cheek where she had last hit him.
"Ino is asking for it," Choji said, shaking his head.
"One member down," Shikamaru mentally noted, obviously thinking out how it could change the results of the mission.
Ino came bursting through the door, "Don't you guys think that I'm as strong as Sakura? And I thought that I could trust you after all of these years!"
"You didn't have to hit us so hard!" Naruto complained, walking slowly down the street along with the rest of the group, "Apologizing couldn't even stop the horrible pain that has come in this day!"
"Just proves that women are troublesome."
"Not all women are overly strong though," Choji said, shoving chips in his mouth once more, "Only certain women can become people like Sakura and Ino are."
Naruto agreed, knowing that it couldn't be any closer to the truth.
"Bonds," Sai said to himself, "Strange things." He took out a book from his backpack and started reading about the regular relationships between males and females of the human race.
"There is the village," Yamato said, pointing to the smoke rising in the distance, "That is where our target is, even at this moment."
"Are we going to be told what the target even looks like?" Ino asked, "We should be able to recognize this person on the spot if we approach them."
"Of course," Yamato-sensei said, "But you see, I already gave the groups of two pictures of the person that we are going for."
"What were the pairings again?" Ino said, smiling slightly, "I forgot."
"The pairings are Naruto and Shikamaru, Ino and Choji, and Sakura and Sai," He said, "You should have remembered it, it was less than ten hours ago."
She smiled and rubbed the back of her head, "S-sorry."
"Shikamaru!" Naruto said, walking into the village at a faster pace than the intelligent ninja did, "Let's go get some ramen!"
Shikamaru shook his head, and followed the blond, "You know that it won't help at all with the mission, correct?"
"But we have been searching for a whole hour and I'm hungry!" he complained, "Just for a little bit, come on!"
"You're paying for it," he sighed, ducking into a ramen bar that the blond had already sat at.
"Two bowls of ramen please!" Naruto said, sitting at the bar.
"Coming right up," the bar tender said, quickly going back into his store.
"So where do you think the person that we are looking for will be, Shikamaru?" the blond asked, happy that he was able to convince the ninja to let them get ramen.
"Well considering that she-" he was cut off by the blond.
"It's a female?" the blond asked, "Do you think that she is just like Sakura and Ino?"
"No," He said, "She would be more of the type to kill with a weapon instead of a fist."
"Has she done before?"
"She's in the bingo book," he sighed, "Why else would she be in it?"
"I don't know," Naruto said, "Well Sasuke was in Sai's bingo book, and he was only a threat to the village instead of killing anyone that we know of."
"Bingo books are made differently by different people," said Shikamaru, "Bingo books are usually made with just facts and prices that people put on their heads."
"Well what did she do to get into one?"
"It's much more than one."
"Then why?"
"She killed off her village."
Naruto looked at Shikamaru, his eyes almost fearful, "How?"
"She became a monster," he sighed, "but not like you, more of a mental monster, one that could become whatever it liked to become."
Naruto sat there shocked there for a while until the ramen came.
"Here you go!" the waiter said, handing them the food.
"Thanks," the males replied.
They ate in silence for a little bit, Naruto for once eating his ramen slowly.
"Why would she do that?"
"Probably some kind of stressor was pulled," said Shikamaru, "That or she's just completely insane."
"How would we recognize this person?"
Shikamaru shook his head, "Don't you listen at all to what Yamato-sensei said?" He sighed, "We have a picture." The male took out a small piece of paper and handed it to Naruto.
"What's her name?" Naruto asked.
"The Grim Reaper," Shikamaru said, "Killing is her expertise."
Naruto shook his head and set down the empty ramen bowl. "Thanks," he said under his breath to the waiter, giving him money to pay for both his and Shikamaru's ramen.
The two walked out of the ramen bar and down the street slowly, every once and a while stopping and looking around.
The gang met up again at the end of the day outside of the one of the three hotels in the area.
"Well I see we had no luck," Yamato-sensei said, looking around at the letdown faces, "oh well, we have the time to find her tomorrow, no rush for the moment any way."
The team nodded their heads and headed inside to beds that they could sleep in for the night.
Yamato stayed up after the kids went to sleep, he walked outside of the inn. A few hand signs later he had a wooden bird ready to take the message back to the Hokage that nothing was found today.
He attached a small note to this bird so that when it got to the Hokage that they would be able to actually get a note instead of a strange wooden bird flying towards them.
The note called re-enforcements from the Leaf Village. Although it was highly unlikely that anyone would come anyway, for being all on missions recently and so forth.
Birds twittered outside of the windows when the search team woke up in the morning.
"Good morning one and all!" Naruto called out to the room of males, "and what a beautiful day it is! The sun is shining, and we are going to be able to find our prize and to finish the mission so I can do some more training!"
Shikamaru shook his head, being up for at least an hour before Naruto showed the signs of coming back to consciousness.
Yamato-sensei popped his head in the room for a few seconds, "Same two man groups, do your best!"
Naruto groaned and pointed at Shikamaru, "But he's so BORING!"
Shikamaru shook his head and walked out of the room, fully dressed and everything. He had time to do all of those things.
"W-wait for me!" Naruto said, hurriedly he put his clothing and rushed out the door following Shikamaru.
They walked outside of the hotel and breathed in for a moment, taking in the sights and sounds of the busy town.
"If you know what the situation that the person is in," said Shikamaru to himself, "Then you can guess what the person would be doing."
"Makes sense," the blond nodded, "But how do we know how she lives?"
"We ask around," Shikamaru said simply, and started walk towards some gang members. "Have you seen this person?" he asked, holding up the picture of the target.
"Oh her," the obvious leader of the group grunted, "We ain't had nothing to do with the likes of her."
"What do you mean 'likes of her'?" Naruto asked, not liking the tone of voice that the gang members used, "Wouldn't she be at the top of your 'dudes' list or something like that?"
The gangsters laughed for a small amount of time, "Kid, you are probably a ninja looking for her, so I will tell you were she is if you don't ask any more questions."
Naruto grumbled to himself for a couple of seconds while Shikamaru nodded his head for the gangsters to continue their information giving.
"She usually hangs out around restaurants, the kind where there are always fights in the back alleys behind them," the leader said, "She picks fights with other people, just to show off her abilities with her Scythe."
Shikamaru nodded, mentally making a note not to get in a close battle with this person.
"But recently she hasn't been able to get anyone to fight, people around here now know that she is dangerous," he said, "Although she only came here a couple of days ago. Usually the title of dangerous takes years to earn in this town. And another thing, She what she says it what starts the fight, and she really does think the whole thing is worthless."
The males thanked the gangster and went on their way, stopping at a couple restaurants on the way to see if she was there.
"Shikamaru," Naruto said, "Let's get some ramen."
"She probably won't be there though," he sighed.
"But if she couldn't pick any fights at the places that we have already visited then she might have gone to some other place to get a different bunch of people to actually pick a fight with."
Shikamaru sighed and walked into the closest ramen bar, "You are paying."
"I paid last time!"
"You wanted the ramen last time," he sighed sitting down at the bar.
Only one other person was at the bar, a female sitting at the other end of it.
"Two bowls please!" Naruto asked the waiter.
"Coming right up!"
When the food was ready, the two males dug in. Shikamaru eating slower then Naruto.
"Who is that female?" Shikamaru asked the waiter.
"She?" the waiter asked, "Has only been around these parts for a couple days, I wouldn't know."