There are two important things that I need to say before I start this story. The first is, I don't won the Naruto series, and this is the only place that you'll see a disclaimer. The second is, is that if you don't like this story, because I'm trying to make it different then my other stories, you can blame my friend for introducing me to "The Zombie Survival Guide."
With that said, enjoy.
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Temari stood in front of the Hokage, waiting to be acknowledged by the fearsome woman. Tsunade-sama was frowning over a report that was handed to her by her assistant Shizune-san. Finally she looked up.
"Tell me in your own words what happened," she ordered, still glaring.
Ever the professional, Temari started her report. "Gaara, Kankuro, and I left on a C-rank mission to escort Fujita-sensei to Konoha. The three day journey was going smoothly, with no interruptions, until we were about three hours away from out destination…"
FLASH BACK
Kankuro and Fujita-sensei were in a heated conversation, well more like bitching session, about the youth of today and their lack of respect for their elders. Even though Temari was a year older then her brother, she knew he was grouping her into the "kids today" category, along with Gaara. The main hint that this was happening was that whenever Gaara or she looked back at them, Kankuro would immediately shut up and try to look innocent, which is a scary look on his face. Gaara didn't even have to look back, all he had to do was turn his head slightly, and the noise would stop.
Temari would watch Gaara from the corner of her eye whenever he did this. Every time he finished scaring Kankuro speechless, he would look back in front of him and grin. Not the psychotic grin that almost always adorned his face before his confrontation with Naruto, but a happy grin, one that she hadn't seen on his face since she was 5.
It got too much for her though, and the last time that he did this, she started chuckling. He just looked so cute, like a panda. Gaara immediately glared at her, but she was in too good a mood to be scared. To try and mollify him though, she tried to stop laughing while affecting a "who me?" pose. This was probably too much for both of them, because soon they were both giggling like school children, much to the disgust of Kankuro and Fujita-sensei.
There was no sound in the woods except for their laughter, which is what tipped Temari and Gaara off to the eminent attack. Within seconds their laughter stopped and they were on the alert. They barely moved as kunai were thrown onto the ground in front of them, and their attackers appeared.
Three men in their early twenties appeared before them. They wore no forehead protectors, but were obviously familiar with the use of chackra, because one of them started using hand seals to start off their attack. 'Must be academy wash outs,' she thought as she recognized the clone jutsu he just used.
In one smooth motion she unfurled her fan, and sent a gust of chackra laced wind at them, clones and all. It neatly rounded them up and knocked them to the ground. Then Gaara's sand covered them up and squished them.
Temari watched her brother's reaction, fearing to see the psychotic grin on his face, but she needn't have worried. He didn't even look smug about his victory, instead he looked entirely neutral. Not pleased about an easy victory or satiated because his sand got the blood it craved. They both relaxed when there weren't any more attackers.
They turned around to check on their client when they saw a man walking towards them, moaning. Kankuro put himself between Fujita- sensei and the man before he walked over to him to see if he needed help.
The man seemed to focus on Kankuro and walk towards him. He didn't respond to Kankuro when he asked him questions, just continued getting closer and closer. When Kankuro reached an arm our to either offer help or keep him away, the stranger grabbed his arm and pulled in towards his face. Before Kankuro could respond, the stranger bit his arm, then lifted his head and threw it away.
Continuing to moan, the stranger approached Fujita-sensei. Because Fujita-sensei was between her and the stranger, she couldn't use her fan. "Get down," she shouted, pulling some kunai out of her pouch. When Fujita-sensei responded, Temari threw her kunai at the newest attacker.
He didn't even bother dodging, and Temari watched in horror as the kunai embedded themselves deeply into the chest of the attacker and the attacker kept coming. Not even reacting to the fatal blows that she had just given him. Finally he reached the cowering figure of Fujita-sensei, and reached down to pull him off the ground. His head moved down to Fujita-sensei's shoulder and his teeth sank into the fleshy part.
Quickly Temari grabbed another kunai and threw it at the attacker, this time aiming for the head, the only clear target on the attackers body. Again, he didn't dodge the kunai; instead he ignored it to start chewing on Fujita-sensei's shoulder. The kunai embedded itself into the attackers eye. He fell backward due to the impact of this kunai, and lay on the ground unmoving.
Temari approached Fujita-sensei, already pulling bandages out of her pouch. "I'm so sorry about that Fujita-sensei. I should have been faster," she kept saying as she bandaged his bite wounds.
Gaara walked up to the newest body and kicked it. It didn't react, so he prepared to destroy the body. Temari noticed that his face changed from impassive to confused in moments.
"Hurry up Gaara, and destroy the body," Kankuro demanded, cursing at the chipped paint around his own "wound."
"…The sand… doesn't like it," Gaara stated hesitantly, "It doesn't want to touch the body."
"Well use fire," barked Kankuro, obviously irritated.
'That's weird. Gaara's sand has never turned down a body,' Temari thought as she tied off Fujita-sensei's bandage.
END FLASH BACK
"…We made our way here as quickly as possible. About half way here Fujita-sensei began to get weak and dizzy so we carried him. We checked Fujita-sensei into the hospital then came here, to the Hokage's Tower, to make our presence known to you," Temari finished.
"And that's everything that happened?" Tsunade-sama demanded.
"Yes, Tsunade-sama," Temari answered.
"You're dismissed. The main pass between Suna and Konoha has been cut off. It will take at least 48 hours before it's cleared. I would request that you stay in Konoha, so that if we need your assistance you will be easy to find."
"Understood Hokage sama," Temari answered before bowing and exiting the room. She found her brothers in the hall outside of the door. When they had arrived to make their report, she had requested that they do so individually. Gaara and Kankuro had already given her report, so they were waiting for Temari to finish.
"The pass is closed. We'll be staying in town until they clear it," Temari said, before heading off to the closest inn.
"That's good news for you," Kankuro sneered, "Now you get to spend time with your boyfriend, Shikammaru-kun," he finished in a high falsetto.
Even though it was sorely tempting, Temari refrained from giving her brother a well-deserved concussion.
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Hinata sat in the hallway, waiting for Tsunade-sama to finish interviewing Shino-kun. She had already given her individual report, but instead of going home, she waited. When Kiba-kun and Akamaru finished, they left for home.
Hinata understood that different people react differently to stressful situations. Kiba-kun probably wanted to be left alone after what they had seen today. On the other hand, being alone was the last thing that Hinata wanted.
FLASH BACK
"Man," Kiba-kun groaned, they had been assigned a D-rank mission, finding a lost puppy, "We are so much better then this!"
"We are the best team for this mission," Shino-kun stated, neither denying or encouraging Kiba-kun's statement.
"Of course! Team Kiba's the best!" Kiba-kun declared.
"We are not Team Kiba," Shino-kun stated in his soothing monotonous voice.
"Of course we are! I'm the leader!"
"No."
It was an argument Hinata and Akamaru were used to. At first it had been upsetting, now it was just background noise.
"Oi, Hinata!" Kiba-kun shouted, "I'm the leader right?"
"K-keep me out of th-this," Hinata ordered while activating her bloodline limit. The byakugan showed her nothing in the immediate vicinity. To stretch it further would have been useless in the search for the puppy, because it was very small.
"Do you smell anything Akamaru?" she asked politely. Long ago she learned that Kiba-kun wasn't the only person Akamaru understood, so she started asking him questions directly, instead of using Kiba-kun as a translator.
Akamaru just shook his head. They started at the last known location of the puppy, and circled the area. It was a long and arduous process, which only ended when Akamaru picked up the puppies trail. They followed him as he trotted up to where the puppy was sniffing at the ground.
"Inu-chan," Hinata called softly as she knelt down. The puppy came over to investigate and yipped softly as it licked her fingers. She giggled as she scooped the puppy into her arms, snuggling her cheek into its fur. "Don't worry Inu-chan, we'll get you to your family soon."
They were making their way back to town when both Inu-chan and Akamaru began to growl menacingly. Even if there wasn't a trained ninja dog warning her about it, she would have still felt the evil in the forest.
"Byakugan," she whispered softly. At first she didn't see anything, but she knew she was going to have to look harder. After a few seconds, she saw something unusual. It was the outline of a human, kneeling over something or someone. It was too far away for her to see clearly.
"There's something that way," she pointed. As they got closer, Hinata was able to make out the chackra systems of their target. There was one intact one, which was the one laying on the ground, and one that was missing, which was the one kneeling. At first she thought that the kneeling one might be a puppet and the one on the ground might be the puppeteer, but there weren't any chackra strings. In fact the only chackra in the kneeling figure was centered around the brain.
The only sound in the woods now was a constant moaning interrupted by a whimpering. For a while now, Kiba-kun had been covering his nose, a clear indication that they were going to run across something that smelled bad. Finally the smell hit Hinata and Shino-kun, who also covered their nose. The smell reminded Hinata of a battlefield, all blood, excrement, and death.
The first thing that Hinata saw was the kneeling figure putting something in its mouth and chewing. It kept moaning though, so bits of whatever his was chewing was hanging from the corner of his mouth. When they approached, he turned his head, staring at them with blank eyes.
Slowly he stood up and shambled towards them. Shino-kun and Kiba-kun leapt away from her, to offer multiple targets. Hinata started running to the person on the ground, giving him a lot of room.
Hinata was knelt down next to the person on the ground. The person was a girl about Hinata's age with orange hair that was spread out around her face. The girl was whimpering and pleading with Hinata to help her. A thorough examination of the girl showed that she was missing giant chunks from her thighs. It looked as though something had been eating her.
She was so absorbed in making sure that the girl was okay that she didn't notice the approach of the man who had been chewing on the girl. The only warning she had was the sound of a kunai thudding into flesh. Hinata scrambled to her feet and backed away from the man.
She nearly gagged as she caught sight of what she now recognized as human skin hanging from the corner of her attackers mouth. There was a kunai sticking out of her ribs, and several more were on the way to joining it. One of them even lodged into her attackers throat, but nothing seemed to stop him.
Hinata backed up, until she ran into a tree. When she could go no further, she gathered chackra into her palm, and aimed for the only place that she saw chackra in her attackers body, the brain. She hit him hard in the forehead, shooting chackra through the skull and into the squishy grey matter inside. Inu-chan was still clutched in her other hand.
The second her palm made contact, her attacker stopped. It took several seconds of sustained chackra going strait into the brain, before he dropped to the ground twitching. Soon he stopped moving all together.
Once it hit the ground, Hinata sagged forward, feeling horribly drained. Any killing blow using the gentle fist took a lot of energy, but she never thought that a headshot would drain her so much. She felt as though she had gone 10 rounds with Neji-niisan.
Shino-kun approached her while Kiba-kun checked on the girl on the ground. Gently he picked her up and placed her on his back. Kiba-kun did the same for the girl on the ground after he had bandaged her leg wounds, and they ran back to town.
END FLASHBACK
After they had dropped the girl off at the hospital, Hinata and her team went to make their report. When Kiba-kun finished his, he volunteered to take Inu-chan back to his family, but Hinata declined.
She cuddled him closer as she waited for Shino-kun to finish his interview. It wasn't much, but she wasn't alone. That's how Shino-kun found her, snuggling up to a puppy for comfort.
"I'll walk you home," he said, not even raising an eyebrow. They dropped Inu-chan off on their way, accepting the praise for a job well done from his family. Hinata tried to smile at the touching reunion, but knew that she failed miserably.
He walked her to the apartment that she and Ten Ten-chan shared. Ten Ten-chan wasn't home yet though.
"Sh-Shino-kun," Hinata started timidly, "W-would you like to come in for tea?" She knew that Shino-kun doesn't like tea, but she was desperate.
Shino-kun nodded. When Ten Ten-chan returned, Shino-kun made his leave.
"I'll check up on you tomorrow," he promised before he went home.
That night Hinata had an uneasy sleep. Each dream that she had was filled with visions of herself and her loved ones being eaten alive.
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Tsunade frowned at the reports turned in by the orderly monitoring Fujita-sensei. It had been 21 hours since he had been checked in to the hospital. Since then he has developed a low-grade fever, which spiked to 105 degrees and had gone into full-blown dementia. He had lost control of his muscles and complained of feeling weak. The brown spots around his wound still hadn't faded, and now he was in a comma. It was not looking good for this patient.
Tsunade heard a knock on her door, "Enter!" she barked. Shizune-chan stuck her head in.
"Tsunade-sama, the patient that Team 8 brought in has gotten worse," she stated showing Tsunade the medical report for the girl. She was displaying the same symptoms that Fujita-sensei had before he fell into a coma.
"What's going on?" Tsunade asked herself, "these are fairly common symptoms and yet they are both getting worse. Nothing we do is working!"
"Maybe it's a jutsu," Shizune-chan suggested.
"I've never seen one like this though. It's acting like a virus, attacking cells. But unlike a normal virus, instead of just destroying the cells, it's mutating them, like a cancer."
"Do you want me to check to medical records?" Shizune-chan volunteered. Absentmindedly Tsunade nodded, "While I'm doing that, you need to catch up on your paper work."
"Don't I deserve a break," whined Tsunade as she reached for the nearest folder. "I've been working all day."
"Well, if you hadn't taken yesterday off, you would be finished with the work and could relax now," Shizune-chan admonished as she left the room.
Tsunade sighed as she opened the report. 'You know what would make the time go faster?' she thought to herself, opening her bottom drawer, ''Sake.'
"And don't drink any sake until you're done," Shizune-chan's voice floated through door. Tsunade closed the drawer, cursing under her breath.