Chapter 2: Team Work
The Clones
The crew had all gone their separate ways, but due to their uncanny ability to find Naruto, they would often merge paths. "Oh smart plan, leader" Kiba yelled to Neji sarcastically. "Follow me and you'll find the smelly one in no time, and then beat me down to capture him yourself." Way up ahead, Rock could be heard saying, "Wrong! Dog boy, he followed me" Neji cut into their squabble to say, "You two are idiots. We are excellent trackers following the same stupid idiots." "You think I'm a good tracker" Rock said, tearing up. "Well, I just mean from the average standpoint."
The three once again split, following different signals, to the knuckle head ninja, they've been tracking. "You two are going the wrong way, Naruto's foot prints are all over these branches, you can't disguise that, no matter how hard you try." Neji called out. "Yeah but a stench this strong could only lead to the original source" replied Kiba. "You two are both wrong, I just saw the very unskilled one up ahead."
Lee followed ahead on his path until he eventually caught up to his target, "I got you Naruto, now come easy or this is going to get ugly." "Oh yeah, well, Shadow Clone Jutsu" Naruto shouted the words as a barrage of Naruto duplicates bombarded the quickest Ninja and began attacking him from the trees. Punches and kicks were landed and clone after clone would disappear in a puff of smoke. Finally he defeated the last of the clones and reached out very swiftly for the orange haired boy. Just as he grabbed at him the boy also disappeared in a whiff of smoke. Rock sat there befuddled as to how a clone could create clones, but in the trees he found his answer. Loads of broken branches and trampled leaves sat in the nest of the Naruto clones. "Crap! How was I sent into a trap?
Meanwhile Neji followed his trail of damaged branches and foot prints to his target. Finally he came upon his prize. "Ahh, Naruto. You should have known you couldn't lose a genius such a s myself. So hand yourself over to me, or face my 64 palms" Neji boasted. "Make me" Naruto taunted, as he ran off. "Get back here, you goofball." Neji yelled from beyond the trees. Just as he did, he could see a kunai barreling at him from his peripheral vision. He dodged it but only to be caught off guard by three shuriken. Neji quickly pulled out his own kunai to counter the shuriken, now to find more kunai, and shuriken coming at him from all sides. Neji went in to hyper byakugan mode to start countering the weapons left and right. Just out of the corner of his left eye, he spotted an orange jumpsuit, and began darting toward it. "I've got you now!" He yelled as he flung a kunai towards the orange blur. The kunai landed with a poof, as the once orange figure erupted into a cloud of white smoke. 'How could I have been fooled?' Neji thought to himself, but was shaken from his thoughts by another barrage of projectiles. "Enough!" he shouted. To each spot where he saw a weapon come from he threw a kunai of his own and to his satisfaction, the trees he was surrounded by seemed to explode in smoke, and the flying weapons ceased.
Then lastly there is Kiba's encounter. "You may have them fooled with phony copies but I know a clone or an original when I smell it." Naruto stopped dead to say, "Yeah, fooling you always was harder than the others." "So what's it gonna be, the easy way, or the hard way?" Kiba asked. Naruto teased, "I knew your I.Q. was no higher than a dog's, but I never expected you to ask such a stupid question" Kiba growled as he lunged at Naruto. Naruto stood perfectly still while his attacker was a mere three feet away, still airborne, still looking to kill. Then just as his attack would have landed a wire, nearly invisible was tripped sending Kiba to the ground in a cloud of black smoke. Naruto jumped from the tree towards his attacker, ready to finish the job, but was intercepted by his foe's faithful companion. "Way to go Akumaru," Kiba yelled from on the ground. The ninja dogged latched onto Naruto wrist, sending him also to the ground. Naruto kicked off the ferocious beast, now aware of latest attacker. He began fighting with the wolf, and wolf man. Kiba would claw at him followed by Akumaru being launched off his back directly into Naruto, whom was thrown off guard by the previous attack. Dog and owner relentlessly attacked at Naruto weakening him, tearing his clothes, but never a blood shot. Naruto would occasionally get a blow in that would disorient the dangerous duo, but at long last Kiba and Akumaru land the finishing blow. The defeated Naruto fell to the ground and, on cue, fell into a cloud of clone smoke. "How can this be, we smelled him-"but the skilled wolf ninja's words were cut off when he saw the log garbed in Naruto's orange jumpsuit. "Crap! He fooled me so hard" a saddened Akumaru whined lightly to his master. "Don't worry boy, next time we'll destroy him."
The three defeated ninja began back on new routes to Naruto, now more cautious of his tricks.