Future
The blonde haired ninja put his hood up and walked around the corner of the town of new hidden lava. He passed the former ichiraku ramen shop, it had memory's but he could not afford to linger, he was late already. He turned right next and then a left then, making sure no one was looking he entered a dark alley. Whispering a few words in Japanese and forming the appropriate hand signs, he released the energy from his body, the middle of his body and his arms glowed, and the wall turned into a portal with which he entered. It was a clever illusion formed by the pink haired shinobi who ran up to him and hugged him, he put his hood down and walked farther into the hallway, closely followed by the talking pink haired ninja. He walked into a room at the end of the hallway and saw the rest of the group around the table.
There were approximately 7 of them, the first one's name was kiba, he had brown hair and a long vertical scar across his face, his enormous arms were folded across his chest as if he were upset, his dog, akamaru was next to him on the floor, the enormous six foot tall dog had his head on his front paws and was laying on the ground. Next to kiba was the brains of the group, he had a long black ponytail and wore a chunin vest, he also had many scars on his face his name was shikamaru, he nodded at the blonde haired ninja in a greeting and the blonde haired ninja took a seat at the table. The other two were both kunoichis, they went by the names of tenten and ino, tenten, was a weapons master, she wore a scroll on her back and one strand of brunette hair hung over her face, ino however was almost the opposite, she had long blonde hair and was a mind controller, she smiled at the now blushing blonde haired ninja and was glared at by sakura, the pink haired kunoichi. The next 3 people were all boys, the first had a nasty face that had seen many tragedies, he wore a grey helmet with a scarf on and long brown hair sprouting out of the top, he was easily 6 feet tall and was grinning at the blonde haired ninja. The next ninja was known as rock lee, he was tall and lean, with a black bowl cut haircut and a green jumpsuit on, like most of the others, he had been injured in battle, but his wounds were probably the most severe in the room and he now had taped arms, legs and his midsection was taped, he could not remove the tape or he would probably bleed to death internally as the bandages were laced with chakara that was keeping him together. The last shinobi was much older than the rest of the ninja and he looked around silently, shrouded by his cloak, his red eyes were all that were visible. "sorry I'm late" said the blonde haired ninja, " no problem naruto, your actually just in time, the meeting just started and we are now discussing our next mission dealing with the akatsuki" said shikamaru, across the table, the red eyed ninja flinched when he heard this word. Naruto glanced at him then said "so, what did I miss?" "kisame is the new leader and we were just talking about the proper method to use to destroy him" said kiba from across the room. " I already told you that wont work said the blonde haired kunoichi, you know that as soon as kisame is killed, assuming we can even beat him, all the akatsuki will do is replace the leader again. " how many members do the akatsuki even have left?" asked rock lee, "hopefully not more, but you know that we aren't strong enough to take them on head on" said shikamaru. " how much more power can they hope to gain? They've already taken over konoha and killed all of its shinobi, and itachi sama hasn't been much help when it comes to infiltrating them she glared at itachi as she said this(ino). Itachi looked at her then looked away. "listen" said naruto, " I know things look bleak, this is the worst weve been through so far, what with only seven of us and limited soldiers, we don't have the strength right now to take back konoha so for now we simply sit back and wait, let the "lava" village take care of itself until we are stronger. I know you don't like it but it is all we can do, kakashi, sasuke, choji, neji, hinata, asuma, shino, kurenai, iruka, tsunade, jaraiya, do you think they would want us to throw our lives away? They were all killed because they thought at a meeting very like this one at this very table that they could take the akatsuki by themselves, and you know what happened? They died!!' everyone looked away from naruto and for a moment all was quiet. "so what do we do?" asked rock lee solemnly talking for all the people at the table. Rock lee. " rocklee, I want you, shikamaru, konohamaru, and kiba to go to the land of sand, Garra has been having some political trouble there and he could use some support, he may even be willing to lend us some troops, what with sunakagure being the most powerful region right now, meanwhile, sakura, you, ino, and tenten, take 10 of our troops and go to the capital of the hidden leaf village, scout some things out, then, go to the old training grounds, there is supposedly a spy there waiting with some info, leave the troops behind you so they can intervene if something happens. "that sounds good but what are you gonna do naruto?" asked konohamaru. "I have some personal business to take care of, shikamaru, you and itachi stay here with the rest of our troops and hold the fort. Execute the missions tomorrow morning and meet back here in a week tops. And remember, the night is always darkest before the morning.