Sakura

I had just finished my shift at the hospital and was heading home. The sun had just finished setting so the night was clear and warm, actually a nice night to be walking around so I took the long route home. Usually I would have walked part way home with Ino but she had finished her shift earlier in the day and had gone home to sleep after pulling an all nighter.

I found the village to be a lot quieter than it use to be these days. Sasuke had left years ago, but now Naruto had too. He had been deported, or that's what Tsunade says anyway, but she's not telling me everything. I can tell and she won't answer any of my questions about it and Naruto hadn't even sent word to any of us so no one other than Tsunade knew where he was. Naruto had been gone two years already. It frustrated me not knowing where he was. He was my closest friend other than Ino and my team mate, not that there was much of a team left. I didn't even know if he is still alive but I'm sure Tsunade would break her silence if something did happen to him, or that's what I want to believe anyway.

Kakashi is always busy with missions, never home for more than a day or two at a time and Sai would have missions of his own as a member of the Black Ops again. From what I have heard, he's one of their best now and leads a team of his own. I see Sai from time to time and when we do we catch up for lunch and I must say he's so much better at the emotions thing now which is a relief. But other than that, we're not much of a team anymore.

I spend most of my time working at the hospital, either caring for patients or training the class of medical ninjas which is a shared responsibility of all the medical ninjas so the students have more than just the one teacher, not that they mind it. Although my life isn't that boring all the time. I do still go on missions though my job is to back them up and heal the wounded.

Anyway, back on track, I had finished work and was walking home during the pleasant night. It was summer and cicadas could still be heard in the nearby trees, an annoying sound if you weren't in the mood to be listening to them. A child with a happy puppy and a peaceful looking mum passed by which made me smile. I turned a corner into a not so wide street. I was about half way home now.

A heard a sound behind me. A thud, like something had fallen off the roofs above. I turned around to see what it was and was just a bit surprised at what I saw.

A naked man standing behind me. He was a full grown man, probably in his late twenties to early thirties. His hair was short and a dark brown in colour with matching eyes and he had a tattoo, or at least I think it was a tattoo. They were more like a series of lines starting from his wrist up. They were past his elbow now. Maybe they weren't tattoos, they resembled scars, as though he had been cutting his wrists but been working his way up his arm.

The man didn't look ashamed about his nakedness and I swear he was looking through me, as though I wasn't there.

"Excuse me, are you alright?" I asked calmly. He could have been mentally ill for all I knew.
His eyes snapped into focus and it was like he saw me for the first time. In a second he grabbed my throat with one hand and held me off the ground at arms length. I wasn't usually so slow to react but I was tired from my shift.

The man's eyes, his pupils to be exact. They glowed red and then he glowed blue and formed almost like an outline around his entire body.
This was freaking me out. Even ninjas doing special jutsu don't glow. My throat started to burn from his hand like it was on fire and very quickly my entire body began to burn. I wanted to scream from it all but found I couldn't. The man looked totally indifferent to my pain. Smoke rose from where his hand was I could see it coming up in front of my face and it stunk. It was the worst smell I had ever smelt and I could only guess that it was my skin burning away.

I desperately focused my chakra to my throat where the burning was the most intense. I needed to protect myself as best I could even if I couldn't fight back.

A second naked man came around the same corner I had just come from moments ago. I didn't care if he was naked. I gaped at him as he approached the man grasping my throat from behind. I wanted him to help, but he just looked at me like I was nothing and turned to the first naked man.

"We gotta go, they're coming" he said. This man had lighter brown hair and blue eyes. He was leaner than the first naked man and he had cigarette burns scattered over his body.

If I wasn't in severe pain I may have stopped to think why two naked men, one of which had a strange power, had a habit of self harm, or maybe they harmed each other. Either way I didn't care. I just wanted to escape the burning.

Footsteps were coming closer. Three cloaked figures rounded the same corner, hesitated for a moment when they saw me before pulling weapons and charging at the two naked men.

The second naked man looked panicked and glowed blue before he disappeared in a blink of a second. He was just gone. The first naked man was slow to look around and looked a little panicked himself when he saw, what I took to be his partner, gone. When he saw the cloaked figures coming for him he released me and I dropped to the ground in a heap, clenching my throat to concentrate my healing. As soon as the naked man had released me the burning stopped and I felt instantly better, the only burning sensation that was left was where he had been grasping me. But even that pain soon subsided due to my medical ninjutsu.

The naked man turned and ran further down the street. Two of the cloaked figures ran after him while the third figure stopped before me. I looked up to see the cloaked figure looking down at me, but the person's face was hidden in darkness from the hood. The cloaks were pure black, went down to just above their ankles and were long sleeved and done up at the torso so that the legs were free to move, though their pants and boots underneath were black too. Whoever was under the hood looked at me for a moment before holding out a black gloved hand for me to take.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice sore and husky from the attack as I took the gloved hand and was pulled to my feet, but the hooded figure didn't answer.

Instead the person kept a hold of my hand and walked out of the street into a wider one that was vacant. There the person let go of my hand and raised a finger to point to the Hokage's building that wasn't to far away. One of the other hooded figures ran to us from down the street and stopped at attention before the cloaked person before me.

"Commander" stated the clear female voice, "we have eliminated the target. We tried to apprehend him sir but he would not cooperate"

Sir?

So the person who had helped me was male.

He inclined his head to her and she did like wise to him before leaving in the direction she had come, using the roof tops to get around.

The hooded figure before me turned back to look at me before starting after his comrade. I stayed where I was, thinking that was the last I would see of naked men and mysterious hooded people when he stopped further up the street and looked back at me. I wasn't entirely sure of what he wanted till he made a hand gesture to follow him. So I did and he stayed where he was till I had caught up.

Following him I took in what I could from him. He was taller than me, which most boys were. He was fit and I could only guess that he had a lean body. He ran like a ninja rather than an ordinary person so that meant he was a trained ninja and he never made a wrong turn through the streets till he reached the Hokage's building, which made me think he was a local.

If he was a local ninja I would know him, but I hadn't heard him speak yet so I couldn't tell and it was so tempting to pull off his hood. But then I thought of the girl who had reported to him. She ran like a trained ninja too, but her voice was not familiar to me which meant she wasn't a Leaf ninja.

The hooded man slowed to a walk when we entered the building. The man knew his way around the building too. He walked confidently all the way to the Hokage's office doors where he just walked in without knocking. I stopped at the door way seeing that the other two cloaked figures were already in the room before an angry looking Tsunade. She gave me a look that warned me to stay where I was.

The two cloaked people stood apart to allow their commander to stand directly before Tsunade's desk.

The hooded man nodded his head to the Hokage and she let out a tired sigh.

"Isn't this a bit far from home for you lot?" she asked but received no reply.

"Only doing our job ma'am" stated the unknown cloaked figure, to which turned out to be a man form his voice, after along pause.

"Yes well next time I would like to know about it before you lot run amok in my village" replied Tsunade folding her hands under her chin and glaring at each of them.

"Sorry ma'am" responded the cloaked female.

Tsunade sighed again.
"Good. Then the lot of you can go and I hope," she laced the word hope with the tone that promised trouble for them, "this doesn't happen again".

The three cloaked figures nodded to her. And they turned to leave.

"Second," said Tsunade just as the three of them were about to pass me as they left. The man in the middle, their commander, stopped and turned back to face the Hokage, "a word in private please" The man nodded to his two comrades and they left the room and I did likewise after a stern glare from Tsunade. The man closed the doors after we had left. The two other cloaked figures stood before the door, preventing anyone form entering or eavesdropping. So I stood with my back against the far wall and rubbed my neck, testing for areas of soreness, but it seemed well healed.

After several minutes the man appeared from the Hokage's office and left with his two comrades, looking back briefly to look to me, but then he was gone.