Hey there! This is the rewrited version of "Demons and half-demons". Somehow I just couldn't let this story go, I thought about the story at least one time every day... It's my nemesis! But I couldn't continue the old story because I think I got lost somewhere in my plot... Seriously, I have no idea what happened. Well, I hope this enjoys you at least a little. ^^

Hidden Within

Chaper 1

Demons

"Tsunade-sama!" Shizune rushed into the hokage office with a horrified expression. Tsunade calmly looked up from her smoking cup of tea.

"What's the matter, Shizune? I'm busy." Tsunade nodded towards a dark man in front of her that hold a cup of tea in his hands as well.

"Gomenasai Tsunade-sama, but it's important." Shizune bowed in respect before she continued. "Another neighbor village has burned down! Tsunade-sama, this is the fourth in two weeks!" Tsunade cursed under her breath.

"Any survivors?" Tsunade absentmindedly asked. Herself she was far away in her thoughts. She could feel the dark man's eyes on her. She didn't want to meet them.

"Very few, I'm afraid." Shizune answered in a sad voice. "According to the survivors everything happened very fast. The village didn't even suffer from drought. It's all very strange." The dark man was watching Shizune intensely as she spoke. It made her very uncomfortable. The man had a kind of scary appearance. With his long black hair tied back, his sharp and vigilant grey-green eyes and his rough skin full of scars he reminded Shizune of an animal; A dangerous animal.
The eye-contact broke immediately as the noise of chair legs scratching against the wood floor was heard. Tsunade walked up to the window behind her and her desk and looked out over the lively Konoha.

"Send some allies to help them restore the most important things like the fields and farms. Send also some provisions with them." Tsunade ordered after a while of silence. Shizune nodded, bowed and rushed out.

When the door was properly shut the dark man spoke up,

"You know what this all is, don't you?" His voice was deep and gruff his face on the other hand stayed emotionless. Tsunade threw the man a look over her shoulder and sighed.

"I should have known this visit wasn't just for 'catching up'. Tsunade said in a grim voice. "You knew about all this, didn't you Torau? The man smirked and chuckled.

"About the village? Nah! I-"

"Don't play games with me Torau!" Tsunade interrupted in a dangerous tone. "You know very well what I mean. Now, let me rephrase the question, how long have you known about this?" Torau watched Tsunade with an amusement written in his odd colored eyes.

"Does it really matter?" Torau lifted an eyebrow in question. Tsunade watched him intensely a while before she sighed and answered.

"I guess not. But why now, Torau? They haven't been active in many years." Torau snorted and pointed at his scarred face. Tsunade grinned. "Okay, not very active then."

"Do they need reasons? They're heartless creatures, Tsunade. They kill for fun." Torau said in disgust. Tsunade stayed silent and watched her precious village.

"I can't do this again, Torau. I really can't" Tsunade finally spoke. "I'm not that person anymore." Torau narrowed his eyes at her words.

"Let me get this straight, you're going to sit down and abandon the people out there…" Torau paused and pointed to the window where Tsunade stood. "Only because 'you're not that person anymore'?" Torau imitated in a mockery voice. He snorted.

"Then, I guess you really aren't that person anymore." With that he stood up and leaved. Leaving Tsunade out of words and completely lost.

"Hurry up my fellow teammates! Our youthful hokage is waiting for us!" Lee's loud voice was heard at least five quarters away. His 'fellow' teammates sighed. They were already practically running up the stairs in the hokage building but with a look at each other, they speeded up anyway. Neither Neji nor Tenten were in the mood to argue with Lee right now.
The three of them had recently come back from a mission in the Hidden Mist Village and had immediately been informed that the hokage wanted to see them. Tenten thought that had been very unnecessary, they'd eventually end up there to report their success anyway.

"Gomenasai, Hokage-sama!" Lee shouted –or said it's hard to notice the difference- as he slammed the door open to the hokage office. Tenten could feel the irritation vibrate from the prodigy beside her, he didn't like Lee's absentminded and -not intended but still- respect less behavior.

They weren't the only one being called Tenten realized surprised. It was true, the actually quite small office was filled with their friends from team 7, 8 and 10 which all had their shoulders up to their ears after almost being startled to death by Lee's sudden entrance.

"Bushy-brows! Tenten! Neji! Hey!" Naruto was the first to recover of course, him and his easy-going nature.

"Naruto! My youthful friend! It's been awhile!" Lee beamed. Tenten simply smiled and Neji gave the Uzumaki a short nod.
Lee eagerly turned to the only female in team 7, Sakura Haruno.

"How have you been my beautiful Sakura-chan?" Tenten rolled her eyes to the uncomfortable pink haired kunochi and mouthed at her to ignore the spandex-wearing moron. Not that Lee's obsession over Sakura was any secret but it was obviously uncalled for in front of the hokage and sensei.
Tenten still felt a sting of jealousy for not being picked as her idol's student. When she first heard that Tsunade had picked Sakura instead of her it had been like a punch in the stomach. She wasn't worthy, she wasn't strong enough… it hurt as hell to know.
She tried her best to not be rude to Sakura though, she liked the temperamental and pretty girl.

"Well, you three look fresh." Kiba commented and grinned from the corner where he stood with his teammates Hinata Hyuuga and Shino Aburame.
Look fresh? Tenten bet they did. They probably smelled nice too but it wasn't their fault they hadn't been able to shower before they came.

"We just came back from a mission in the Hidden Mist." Neji answered with no tone whatsoever in his voice.

"An A-ranked!" Lee filled in proudly, earning an annoyed look from Neji.

"Aww! That's sooo not fair!" Naruto whined. "I've been stuck in this village for ages!" Neji smirked. He got a kick out of being chosen for a mission over Naruto. Ever since Naruto defeated Neji in the chuunin exams Neji have tried his best to beat and surpass Naruto in any kind of way… Tenten was sensible enough to not point out that it was kind of Lee-style…
Anyway, Neji's ego would live long on this.

"We had a mission last week." The newest member of team 7, Sai, pointed out. Naruto waved his hand dismissingly.

"It was C-ranked Sai! Even a genin would have made it!" Naruto turned so everyone could hear and see him before he started his story. "It was an old man that had got his potatoes stolen, seriously stolen potatoes?" Neji's smirk grew. Oh, he was sooo enjoying this.
"You wanna know how it turned out?" Naruto asked sullenly. "It turned out that they didn't get stolen his wife had only placed them somewhere else and forgot to tell him." Everyone laughed, well except for Neji and Shikamaru then, they were content with smirking.

"Hey! At least they were nice and treated us dinner!" Sakura defended the old couple. Naruto rolled his eyes to Sai.

"Yeah! Smashed potatoes!" Everybody laughed harder, well except for… ah, you get the picture. Sakura blushed but stuck loyally to what she started.

"I didn't see you complaining when you took a second portion!" Naruto opened his mouth to defend his pride but found he didn't have anything to say. Sakura smirked, satisfied over her win.

"Whatever!" Naruto said with a hint of pink on his cheeks and turns for the first time to the hokage. "I still think you should stop sending us out on suck lousy missions Tsunade-baa…" Naruto stopped in the middle of the sentence when he saw the look the hokage gave him.

"Are you done?" Tsunade asked icily. Naruto just nodded. "Good!" Tsunade folded her hands and looked at all of the gathered in turn. Tenten swore she could cut the seriousness in the air with a knife.

"Demons. What do you know about them?" Tenten – along with all the others – stare at the hokage disbelievingly. Kiba make words out of what everyone's thinking,

"You can't be serious." Tsunade's hard gaze fastens on the Inuzuka.

"Does it look like I'm kidding?" Tsunade's voice is a threat that tells everybody not to answer that. "People disappear without a trace, small villages nearby burns down and no one knows how it started, animals are suddenly turning against their owners… This is all a demons work!" Kiba flinch at Tsunade's words.

"What kind of demons are we talking about here?" Shikamaru asks calmly, opening his mouth for the first time. Tsunade throws him an appreciated look.

"Good question, Shikamaru." Tsunade compliments. "We're not talking about the kind of demon you've got inside of you now, Naruto. We're talking about a human that's entirely demon." Tsunade informed almost solemnly.

"How can he be entirely demon and still be human?" Ino asks confused. Tsunade sighs in annoyance.

"It's a demon in a human form, Ino!" Tsunade answers between gritted teeth. Ino mutters something like 'well excuse me for asking!" under her breath. Luckily Tsunade didn't catch it.

"Look, these demons look like every other human on this earth except for one thing: Their eyes are purple." It seemed like Tsunade was about to continue but she stopped when she saw the clear doubt in her audience's faces. She sank deeper into her chair with a sigh. "You don't really believe me, now do you?" Her voice was tired, tired and feeble.

"G-gomenasai Tsunade-sama, i-it's not that we question your belief or anything… b-but we've never heard of such a thing…" Hinata – who clearly had noticed Tsunade's tone too – explained quickly but softly too. It was something only Hinata could do. Naruto nodded eagerly.

"Yeah! What Hinata-chan said!" Hinata blushed at the backing-up from her secret crush, well secret to Naruto that is.

"Yes, Tsunade-sama." Sakura smiled. "Calm down and tell us everything from the beginning." A small smile light up Tsunade's tired face.

"Alright then…" Tsunade took a deep breath before she started. "Demons aren't really something new; they've existed since time immemorial but it was early decided that demons and shinobi shouldn't mix."

"Why is that?" Neji asked.

"Well, you see… The demons' black magic is somehow related to the chakra we use in our jutsus. It's an odd tension between them and that leads to that we can never be quite sure what's going to happen." Tsunade explained, using her hands to demonstrate the tension between a demon's black magic and a shinobi's chakra.

"So jutsus won't…" Kiba began but got interrupted by Tsunade.

"They may. But it's a big risk they'll fail too… it's fifty fifty." Kiba gulped. Everyone else in the room felt a little uneasy too, what would happen to them if a jutsu failed leaved unsaid.

"So if jutsus wo- may not work, what will?" Tenten wondered.

"There is this flower, Lilium medeoloides… Do you know about it, Ino?" Tsunade looked at the girl she earlier hissed at. Luckily Ino wasn't one to remember things long past.

"Wheel Lily" Ino translated with a smile. This was her element. Tsunade grinned.

"Exactly! Well, this flower is very rare and grows only in the Hidden Waterfall Village as I know. Anyway, the poison from this flower is harmless to us humans but for a demon it's deadly." A few grins were forming in Tsunade's audience, maybe there was something they could do after all.

"But as I said, the flower is rare and the elders in the Hidden Waterfall Village aren't really generous with it." Tsunade said annoyed. She hated those stuck up pensioners. "With the right amount everything can be fixed of course but we can't afford the prize they want… Which means…" Tsunade grinned and winked. Everyone else grinned with her; they knew exactly what it meant.

"Oh Yeah! Finally some action!" Naruto shouted and threw his fist in the air. Choji and Ino high-fived and Shino nodded to Neji.

"I feel that Ino should absolutely go because she knows how the flower looks… and Hinata's byakugan could definitely be at use too." Tsunade pondered loudly. "Ino, Hinata and Naruto! Are you up for some illegal business?" Tsunade's eyes twinkled. This was absolutely the fun part with being hokage, the paperwork to be damned.

"Oh, yes!" Naruto cheered. "I promise you Tsunade-baa-chan! We'll come back with all the flowers that grows in that village!" Naruto gave the hokage thumbs up.

"No!" Tsunade and Ino shouted at the same time. Sakura punched the moron in the head.

"One flower Naruto! One flower! Do you get that?" Naruto stared I disbelief at his hokage.

"No way! How big is this flower? There's no way we can get enough poison from one of those things!" Everyone in the room stared at Naruto, taken aback by his stupidity.

"What?" Naruto clearly didn't get why everyone was staring at him. Sometimes Tenten wondered if he was just playing with them, there was no way he could actually be this dumb.

"Umm… N-naruto-kun…" Hinata began, uncertain how she should put this to get it as nice as possible. "Y-you know that f-flowers g-gr-grow from seeds, r-right?" Naruto nodded impatiently. "Well, f-from one flower we c-can get enough seeds to g-grow as m-many we need on o-our own…" An 'Oh!'- expression light up Naruto's face.

"Now you get it?" Tsunade raised an eyebrow at the blonde.

"Yes ma'am!" It was obvious that Tsunade tried her hardest not to kick his ass. Tenten didn't know if it was Naruto's intention to test Tsunade's nerves. The guy's head was one big mystery.

"The mission is simple, get inside the borders preferable undiscovered, get the flower and come home. Try to avoid violence. " Tsunade said and ignored Naruto's pout. Ino and Hinata nodded.

"For the rest of you…" Tsunade turned to the others that wasn't a part of the mission to the Hidden Waterfall Village. "Some demon-killing training is up starting tomorrow morning. We must be prepared if some demon decides to try and attack our village." Tsunade informed us in her business voice. Tenten and the others nodded.

"Well, I guess this is all I have for now…" Tsunade said and everyone in the room started to straighten themselves up and prepare to leave. "Wait! Team Gai stays, the rest of you are dismissed." Tsunade said in the last minute and Tenten groaned inwardly. She really wanted to shower.

"How did your mission in the Hidden Mist go?" Tsunade asked them when the door behind their friends was closed.

"It was successful. We got the scroll." Neji answered and gave Tsunade the scroll he had been keeping in his pocket.

"Excellent!" Tsunade praised. "Was there any need for violence?" Tsunade asked as she put the scroll in one of her drawers.

"Some lousy chuunin attacked us once on our way back but that was all." Neji answered and smirked. Tsunade grinned and shook her head.

"We won!" Lee obviously needed to point out. Tenten giggled, Lee was so clueless. Neji rolled his eyes at his male teammate. Sometimes he wondered what he really did in his team. Tsunade chuckled.

"Well, I guess you're dismissed then." Tsunade grinned. But then she remembered something. "Oh and Tenten?" Although Tsunade only called for the female of the team the two males turned around too clearly curious – one of them showed it more than the other - .

"Happy 16th Birthday!" Tenten smiled and nodded. Glad that her idol remembered after all.

This was surprisingly fun to write... Quite relaxing actually. ^^ Hope you liked it!