Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Naruto.

On with the show!

The patrol squad had been waiting for a response for quite some time. The sounds of battle could still be heard off in the distance, the sounds of high-destruction type jutsu no doubt. The entire squad had been standing on egg shells watching for signs of the battle approaching them. They had taken position just outside of the forest on the border of Suna. The sun was bearing down on them, that day it was easily over 110°.

The sounds of battle abruptly stopped. It seemed as if the battle had been decided. Just as the squad shifted glances amongst themselves a small group of silhouettes appeared but they were coming from the direction of the Sand village.

Temari and her squad spotted the small shining signal of the patrol squad at the edge of the tree line. As her squad approached the tree line, the group noticed the absence of the sounds of battle. The squad stopped next to the patrol squad. The squad saluted their reinforcements and proceeded to hastily explain the situation to Temari.

"The battle lasted for about 3 hrs and we were able to hear it until about 2 minutes ago, it seems it's over." The squad captain appeared uneasy about the sudden stop of the sounds. Temari bit her thumb, quickly deciding that she should still check the region and figure out what happened.

"Your orders are to resume your patrol; we are going to search the area. Where was the battle?" Temari asked as she pulled on her fan's harness checking it one more time.

The captain pointed off into the distance. "The battle was approximately three kilometers away, east of this spot." Just as the captain stopped talking, Temari and her squad took off to investigate.

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As the squad continued along the branches, making short time of the distance, Kankuro matched himself to be at Temari's side.

"I don't like this, we could be walking straight into a trap and we don't even know who the enemy is...." Kankuro voiced his concerns.

"It doesn't matter we know that the Anbu were involved. If indeed they lost, there is not even a chance that the foe is unscathed." Temari cut Kankuro off. Seconds later the squad arrived at what had to have been the battle scene. The squad spread out along the tree line of a newly created clearing. The clearing had been at least one hundred meters across and another hundred meters going off out of sight to the right. Fires were still ablaze in various places, in other spots the grass was still untouched, and there were at least 50 downed trees throughout the clearing.

As Temari scanned the area she spotted a lone standing figure clad in a black cloak, an Anbu. She motioned for the squad to stay put and she drew her war fan then jumped from her tree. As she neared it became apparent that the figure wasn't standing, it was propped up against what used to be a tree trunk but now it was as black as the Anbu's cloak, scorched by flames no doubt. The Anbu didn't move or respond to her approach at all. Temari was now only 20 meters away when she noticed something in her peripheral vision. The clearing had been much larger than she first anticipated. She had not been able to see because the tree line blocked her field of vision, but now she could see the entire clearing. The farthest point where she could still see battle damage must have been at least a quarter mile away.

A cough from the Anbu startled here and she had to restrain herself from bringing her fan to bear on the seemingly unconscious Anbu. She noticed that the Anbu's cloak was torn in several places and appeared to be soaked through with what looked like blood. Even the mask had been nearly destroyed, no longer able to protect the identity of its bearer. Temari knew this man, it was Naruto Uzumaki....

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Down in an underground ceremonial chamber, a cloaked figure was praying. He had been offering his thanks to his god for the blessing he had received.

"High Priest, we have finished the preparations." The figure was kneeling just in front of him. He stood from his seat and approached the kneeling man.

"My child, Jashin would be very pleased with your efforts, although next time you would do well to remember not to interrupt a priest while he is communing with the almighty." He said as an evil grin spread across his face. The servant's eyes widened with terror, the priest brought a knife from his cloak and slashed open his throat. The priest did not even seem to be bothered by the cascade of blood which flow over him. He stared in amusement at the body of the servant, watching the blood drain from the wound. Things were progressing nicely, even with the unfortunate setback that cost him almost fifty of his faithful.

"Those who do not have the strength to fulfill the will of our lord do not deserve to exist." He muttered to himself before returning to his supplication.

Hanabi stared out the window of her room watching the sun set while she was lost in thought. She had been the only one from her squad to return alive. After her return, she gave a full report to the Hokage. At the insistence of Tsunade she visited the infirmary before returning to the Hyuga estate. Her injuries were very minor, especially considering the sacrifice that her squad had suffered.

She wondered how her captain was. She heard he was found by reinforcements from Suna and that he was in critical condition in Suna. She also knew Naruto had been pushing himself too much as of late. It seemed that he never slept, he was over using his shadow clones to scout and guard for the squad, and the various other little things she noticed. She figured it had something to do with the fact that he and her sister stopped seeing each other.

They had dated for almost half a year, but after he returned from a particular mission. Her sister said that he wasn't the same. He lost something important. She often wondered what her sister had meant or what could have happened on that mission. About a month ago when he was promoted to Anbu captain, Hinata and Naruto both came to the decision to end their relationship. Shortly afterward Hanabi had applied to Anbu and was assigned to Naruto's squad.

Hanabi was reminded of the battle when she notices that the sun was now the same shade of red as Naruto's blood. She felt guilty for not being able to do more.

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"We have company, boys and girls." Naruto's voice came across her headset.

She had taken position in a tree behind Naruto. Within a few seconds, several figures emerged from the darkness. A barrage of fire balls erupted from a hiding spot of one of the Anbu. The battle quickly escalated as at least five times their number engaged the squad.

Not having the experience the rest of the squad did, she did as she was trained to do and managed to silence the first of her attackers within a few minutes. She fought as fiercely as anyone else in the squad but she was slowly becoming overwhelmed. She had seen one of her teammates being hit with dozens of shuriken at once. The chaos was mounting and despite all the training the squad had gone through. It seemed that soon the entire squad would be overwhelmed.

Each of the offending shinobi was clad in white robes. For whatever reason, they seemed to be determined that no one should leave this place alive. They all wore masks but there was no way to distinguish between any one of them, for they wore a white mask as well.

Every few minutes she would hear on her headset that one of her comrades announce that they were unleashing a high powered jutsu. Each time she fell back to see a large blast decimate the surrounding forest. The blasts came in all flavors from immense fire balls, to violent blasts of lightning, and even Naruto's own wind style techniques.

The battle had raged for hours but for each enemy they felled, more seemed to join the attack. Hanabi had used everything at her disposal several times. Her mastery of her family's kekkai genkai was substantial but she had her limits to just how long she could keep fighting at this level of combat.

Now fatigue was beginning to set in on her, she had begun making mistakes. Luckily for her, one of Naruto's clones would manage to jump in and defend her or pull her out of the way just before an attack could connect. The battle still raged on. Two more members of the squad fell to a hail of projectiles and she heard Naruto announce that the squad was to withdraw from the battlefield.

As the squad fell back, Hanabi noticed that there was not a fox masked figure amongst the squad retreating. When she looked back, she seen there were at least twenty fox masked shinobi moving around the battle field. There was no way to determine where the real Naruto had actually been, but there was a black clad figure standing in the middle of the fight with several kunai in his back, the figure had been looking at Hanabi at the exact moment she looked back. Naruto was staying behind to buy time for the squad to retreat. She turned back around so she could speed up to keep up with the remaining squad members.

Before the squad could make any good distance a new group of shinobi attacked the retreating squad. It seemed Naruto hadn't been able to hold back all of the attackers. The squad wasn't as badly outnumbered this time though. The battle wounds and weariness though had built reduced their combat strength.

Soon Hanabi was the only remaining one standing. Hanabi used her clan's rotation to repel and damage the three remaining attackers which had also gathered just close enough to her to be in range. Two of the attackers had gone flying into a nearby tree and from the way they hit and bounced off the trees, she guessed that their spines had been shattered. The last remaining attacker had stood again and was not about to hit with that cheap trick again. It started to form hand seals, but she wouldn't give her opponent the chance. She lunged towards her attacker and just before his attack was prepared, she buried her kunai into his throat. Hanabi didn't hesitate and before the last attacker had hit the ground she took off. She ran and ran, she ran until her legs felt like they were made of lead, then she ran harder. She made it almost the entire way back to Konoha before she collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

The image of Naruto surrounded by enemies haunting her every step.

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It had been three days since Temari found Naruto out in the burning field, she had been to the infirmary every day, and today was no different as she sits in his room watching his chest rise and fall in the morning sunlight. She wanted to find out what just what happened before she arrived. They had not found an evidence of the enemy even after a full search had been conducted. Naruto though, still has not woken up, the doctors said he lost a lot of blood and were shocked he even survived with these kinds of injuries. He had been cut, burnt, and blasted by immense force.

Temari however knew better than to underestimate him. She allowed her mind to wander for a moment. She thought back on the time she had been standing on a rooftop with Gaara listening to him talk about how he wanted to be strong and have purpose, just like Naruto.

She continued to reflect, thinking about how hard it must have been to have grown up in the way Gaara had to, but Naruto had become so completely different than Gaara had been. As she stared off into oblivion, the door to the room swung open and Gaara stepped inside. 'Speak of the devil' she thought as she shook herself, bringing her attention back to the infirmary's intensive care unit.

"Temari. What are you doing here again?" Gaara asked as he walked over to Naruto's side.

"Same thing you are doing here, I imagine." Temari shrugged after she replied. Gaara had been told that Temari has been at Naruto's side every day so far. He still was not sure what to think of this. His first instinct was that she wanted to find out what had happened, but something inside him said that there was something else.

Being as Naruto was still covered in bandages a few feet away, Temari's curiosity got the better of her so she asked "I thought Naruto healed incredibly fast because he is a Jinchuuriki, but the doctors have told me that he isn't even recovering as quickly as a normal shinobi should. Do you think something is wrong?" Gaara pondered her question for a few moments.

"I wouldn't know. There aren't many similarities between the powers we have, so I am not in a position to say for sure that something is wrong." Gaara replied calmly. "By the way I received word from Konoha this morning. I received a report from a member of Naruto's squad." Temari's attention was fully on Gaara now.

"Naruto's squad came under attack from an unknown number of shinobi in the twilight hours. Naruto had been in the area searching for the source of disappearances from nearby villages. After half of his squad was wiped out, Naruto ordered the surviving members of his squad to retreat while he stayed behind. Only one managed to get away and return to the village. From what is in her report the adversary was an unconfirmed number of jounin-level shinobi........" Gaara furrowed his brow, being a little bit agitated that there was so little information.

"That leaves a lot of questions. Our search of the area didn't turn up anything. The only way we will get any solid answers is to wait for Naruto to wake." Temari assessed. Gaara nodded having already concluded this.

"They are preparing an army for invasion." A third voice in the room stated. Gaara and Temari both spun to stare at the blond on the bed......

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That is Chapter 3.

Tell me what you think about the story :P

(p.s. How many of you knew that the detection specialist was Hanabi Hyuga?)