Chapter 2

Enter the Kitsune, Hikari and Yami

"I can't believe it's only been a month since they left," Kiba sighed.

"I know what you mean, Kiba. I'm starting to miss the way Naruto would practically beg me to go out with him," Sakura agreed.

"Kiba, Sakura, at least try to keep your minds on the mission, would you?" Kakashi gently commanded.

Tazuna, getting tired of being out of the loop, asked the question that had been plaguing him since they met at the gate, "Just who are you talking about?" The reactions that one question caused almost made him regret asking. Almost.

Sasuke's face got even darker than when he thought about Itachi. Kiba looked tired. Sakura had a face that seemed to compete with Sasuke's for "darkest look ever." Kakashi's eye closed in contemplation, or perhaps sadness, it was hard to tell with the mask. Kurenai seemed close to tears. Even Shino suddenly had a cloud of uncomfortable silence about him.

Finally, Kakashi broke the silence, "They are Uzumaki Naruto, most likely Konoha's most powerful genin, and Hyuga Hinata, possibly the most talented."

'I may not like it, but he's right. I mean, who else can pull pranks AND escape, wearing "Here I Am, Kill Me!" orange. In a village full of ninja no less,' both Sasuke and Kiba thought, 'but I'd still kick his ass.'

Oblivious to the thoughts of her teammates, Sakura continued where the silver haired jounin left off, "Naruto could easily have been the very heart of Konoha's liveliness. Hinata was the fire of hope in the village, always hoping Naruto would finally realize her feelings for him, or that she would finally gather the courage to tell him herself. Without them, the village seems to have died, darkened, and frozen over. Even the ones that hated them, for whatever reason, are wishing they never became missing-nin."

As the teams continued their tales of "Konoha's heart and soul," as they called them, the jounin noticed a puddle that had no business being there. However, no one noticed the two pairs of eyes watching them, apparently protectively, from the forest on either side of the path they traveled.

When the last of the group passed the puddle, two figures slowly rose from within and charged with a battle cry of "One down." However, before they reached the ninja, a pair of blurs, one gold, the other, a blueish-black, shot from the the shadows and slammed into the the attackers.

When the dust cleared, two kitsune could be seen pinning the attacking nin to the ground.

"How dare you attack Konoha nin in our forest!" roared the golden fox as it's 3 tails thrashed in fury.

"What are two missing-nin from Kirigakure doing here in the first place?" questioned the darker fox as it's 2 tails twitched in annoyance.

"Who said..." began the idiot shinobi under the gold fox.

"We were..." continued the second.

"After the..." the first added.

"Ninja?" finished the baka-ninja under the dark fox.

The kitsune glanced at each other as they kicked the twin missing-nin in the head, knocking them out, before they were engulfed in flames.

Two masked figures, one male and the other female, stepped out of the fireballs. "Perhaps we should introduce ourselves before we do anything else," said the blond figure with the grinning black fox mask. "I am Yami no Kitsune, but don't let the name fool you, I'm not all that dark. Just call me Yami."

Giggling at her companions introduction, the girl with the snarling white fox mask gave her own, "And I'm Hikari no Kitsune. Hikari is fine with me."

As the transformed foxes tied up the unconscious ninja, teams 7 and 8 gave them the once over. Yami wore gray pants, a black shirt, and a white jacket with the kanji for light in black on the back above a gold Konoha leaf. Hikari wore a white shirt, gray pants, and a black jacket with the kanji for darkness in white on the back over a silver Konoha leaf.

Kiba was the first to question the kitsune that had helped them, "Did you get your jackets mixed up?" Not exactly the brightest of questions, but the one they all had.

"No," the two answered in unison, "It's just proof we're already taken."

"Oh..." said Kiba dejectedly, thinking more along the lines of 'There goes any chance I had with Hikari.'

Kakashi spoke next, "Tazuna-san, why did you lie about the mission?"

"Well..." thus, the bridge builder began his tale of Gatou's hold on wave country.

Kurenai sighed, "We're going to need reenforcements."

"We would be more than happy to help," Yami stated.

"Sorry, but we cannot accept help from non-ninja," Kakashi replied.

"Who said we weren't ninja?" inquired Hikari.

"After all, we weren't always Kitsune," added Yami.

"I guess demons trained-"

Kakashi never finished voicing his thoughts as he found himself pinned to the ground by a fireball that faded to a growling blond kitsune, tails lashing about in rage.

"NEVER confuse us for that filth again!" bellowed a very pissed Yami, "WE DO NOT attack without a reason."

"Sorry, won't happen again," squeaked the one-eyed jounin, uncomfortably aware of the claws that were threatening something near and dear to every man.

"Sorry about that, his childhood was... less than perfect. He has too many bad memories tied to the 'D' word," Hikari explained as Yami stomped off muttering something about a "damned late-for-everything one-eyed sensei" under his breath.

Kurenai decided to at least try to correct the problem. "I believe what he meant to say was, we would be honored if you would help us."

"The honor is ours, Kurenai-san," the golden fox said. "Beside, we got to get out of the woods sometime."

To Be Continued...

A/N: sorry for the delay, my computer went dead for a few weeks.