Nothing to say this time except that finals week sucks balls...

Chapter 3

Two timing touch…

"Achoo!"

"Bless you," Konohamaru said to Udon while trying to stifle the sniffle that was building in his own nose.

"Thanks," the bespectacled ninja replied. He removed a small blue cloth from one of his pockets and used it to wipe the raindrops off of his glasses.

The three Leaf ninja had been on the move, off and on, for a night and a day; after discovering the fresh corpse of a Kusagakure ninja and taking the object that he had secreted inside of his body, the trio of chunin had unanimously decided to step up the pace of their journey out of the Land of Rain. After dropping their civilian guises, the group had managed to cover a considerable amount of ground. They had cleared the Great Salt Swamp around an hour before and had entered the hilly landscape of the southeastern regions of the Land of Rain.

Small, dreary farms dotted the tops of the many low hills- most were abandoned, their crops overgrown and untended. In the valleys that lay between the hills, acres of rice paddies sat idle and abandoned; in better times they would have been filled with farmers. Whole families should have been hard at work harvesting a bountiful harvest. The vacant landscape stood as a testament to the damage that the constant warfare raging across the country had done to the common people. The vacancy of the land worked in the trio's advantage as they found an abandoned farmhouse where they could rest for a few hours.

While traveling, the trio of chunin would occasionally pass a grim faced farmer still stubbornly trying to eke out a living in the unforgiving landscape or encounter a weary refugee traveling so someplace that offered a bit more safety. All of the natives viewed them with a mixture of fear, anger and outright hatred. That wasn't surprising; it was well known that ninja in general, but especially foreign ones, were less than popular.

"I don't get why you don't just get some contacts," Moegi said from her seat on the kitchen table.

Freed from their usual braids, her long auburn hair hung dankly over her shoulders as she used both of her hands to wring the excess water from it. Udon rolled his eyes and scoffed at her suggestion.

"Are you kidding? These things are part of my iconic look; not to mention a key element to my sexy," he quipped before placing his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.

"Your... sexy," Moegi asked, not quite beleiving that he actually said that out loud.

"Oh yeah, go ahead. Encourage him," Konohamaru said sarcastically.

Udon smirked slyly and waggled his eyebrows suggestively at the kunoichi; she had to stop herself for laughing out loud at him.

"I dare you to say that these things aren't doing it for you! They frame my face perfectly, highlight my superb bone structure and add a certain…class to my overall appearance."

Moegi broke into a fit a giggles. "Y-yeah; I bet you're beating off the women with a stick."

"Oh what, you don't know this guy's motto," Konohamaru asked, interjecting himself into the conversation.

"Apparently he's got, and I quote, 'bitches beyond bitches'. I mean, I thought that I was the man because I had bitches upon bitches, but Udon just puts me to shame. I bet he could even give Kiba-san a run for his money, in the bitches department that is."

Udon looked at Konohamaru with annoyance. "You're a jerk, you know that."

By this time Moegi was almost doubled over laughing at the two of them; before long, all three of them were laughing. Calming down, the kunoichi turned to Konohamaru.

"So, exactly how far away from the border are we," she asked while rapidly retying her still damp hair into the two long braids which usually hung down her back.

Shooing the girl off of the table top, Konohamaru pulled his map out of a pocket in his chunin vest and spread it out. He began tracing their path through the Land of Rain with his fingers.

"Okay, we were over here in E-9, and then we crossed out of the swamp and ended up…here in E-3. So, we're not that far from the border with Fire. We keep up this pace and provided the weather doesn't turn evil on us, we should be in the clear by tomorrow morning."

The simian shinobi allowed Moegi and Udon a minute to look at the map and familiarize themselves with their route; though they all carried maps of their own each one took the time to imprint their destination in their minds. You could lose a map, but as long as you were alive- and didn't fall prey to any memory jutsu- you wouldn't lose what was in your head.

After a few more minutes of rest Konohamaru hopped up onto his feet and signaled that it was time for them to begin moving out. With identical groans and curses on the monkey ninja's resilience, Udon and Moegi hobbled onto their own feet. Though they were in the prime of their lives and at the peak of physical condition, nearly 24 hours of continuous travel had still taken a lot out of them.

Thank the gods for solider pills.

The trio made their way down the hill on the footpath from the farmhouse towards the main road. Reaching the road, the trio spread themselves out in a standard triangle formation with Moegi taking the point position. The kunoichi casually scanned their surrounding; the driving rain of the previous day had mellowed into a light drizzle and she could see much farther than she had been able to the day before. She didn't spy anything threatening- not that she was expecting to. The only people she could spy anywhere in the area were what looked like a pair of farmers off in the distance.

"Man, I can't wait to get back to a place where the sun actually shines," the kunoichi said, tightening her parka over her head as she spoke.

"It's not as if the sun doesn't shine here," Udon replied.

"Really," Moegi replied, her voice absolutely sodden with playful sarcasm. She pointed an index finger towards the sky.

"Because, y'know, I don't believe that I've seen the sun come from behind those clouds since we've been in this crapsack country."

The bespectacled ninja rolled his eyes.

"Be that as it may, it's not possible for it to rain all of the time- otherwise we'd all be underwater right now. It's, like, a law of nature or something."

"Whoa buddy, not so fast there," Konohamaru said, deciding to add his two cents to the discussion.

"Now, I don't claim to know much about your so-called laws of nature, but I know that you can't really believe anything until you see it for yourself."

"…..you can't be serious."

"Oh, I think he is," Moegi quipped over her shoulder.

"Alright, allow me to list the various ways in which that theory of yours is retarded…"

Moegi smiled as she listened in to the exchange between the two boys; they were providing the sole source of entertainment for her at the moment. To be frank, the Land of Rain was a dull, ugly place. From the landscape to the people, everything was listless and grey and dull and depressing and…blegh!

At the very edge of her vision the young kunoichi spied someone approaching them. She immediately went on her guard until she was able to better discern the person who was approaching them. It was a frail old woman pulling along a cart filled with what was most likely all of her remaining worldly possessions. Moegi relaxed; noting in the old woman's appearance gave away the hint that she was anything other than what she looked like. This looked to be one of the times that the shinobi's inborn paranoia was baseless.

The kunoichi was about to jump back into her teammate's heated conversation about nothing when she took a second look at the old woman's face. The old timer wore the same hate-filled expression that most residents of the Land of Rain gave to foreigners but the intensity of that expression made the hairs on the back of Moegi's neck stand on end. Now that the old woman was close enough for her to give a proper once-over, the kunoichi found herself becoming increasingly uneasy.

She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but there was just something off about the old hag. Her body language was just…

'Oh, shit!'

"SCATTER!"

KA-THOOM!!!

Konohamaru felt the heat and concussion from the explosion pass over his back as he lay face down in the muddy road. The telltale whizzing sound of flying metal coming from over his head told the young chunin that the maker of that booby trap had taken the time to add a little something extra to the blast. Though the world in front of his eyes was a blurry soup of disjointed colors and nebulous shapes, Konohamaru's mind immediately began processing information, the shot of adrenaline from his near death experience pushing his thought processes into overdrive.

Though not completely back in his right senses, the simian shinobi quickly hopped up to his feet; a quick scan of the area revealed that while Udon was up on his feet Moegi, the one who had alerted them to the danger, had been thrown by the explosion as lay bleeding and motionless near the crater made by the explosion. In the space of a second the two sprang into action. Udon- the only one of the three who had any kind of medical knowledge- rushed over to their fallen teammate while Konohamaru forced his scrambled senses to settle themselves and clapped his hands into the Rooster seal.

"Udon, mark me!"

At best they had a few seconds before the bastards who set the bomb sprang the second part of their ambush. And since they were in a rice paddy…

'Raiton: Lightning Clone'

The Sandaime's grandson felt every hair on his body stand on end as electrical energy coated the outside of his body before splitting away to form three Konohamaru shaped lightning copies. The young chunin had just finished forming his clones when, as expected, the tranquil waters of the rice paddies on each side of the road erupted as enemy shinobi emerged from their hiding places in the water. Halfway through her ascent one of the enemy ninja found herself nose to nose with the Leaf ninja's crackling doppelganger.

She had just enough time to blurt out a surprised 'wha?' before 50,000 volts of electricity ripped through her body in a blinding flash of light, turning the kunoichi into a flying, smoking corpse. Using the cover of the flash Konohamaru sent his two remaining clones to cover Udon and Moegi before slipping on his trench knives. The simian shinobi ran straight at the enemies that were in front of him, intending to force open a path out of this trap before its jaws could close all the way. The only way they were getting out of this ambush was if they took advantage of this slim moment of opportunity.

Pumping more of his elemental chakra into his weapons, Konohamaru was able to catch one of his mysterious enemies flat-footed. Whether the man was still disoriented by the flash from Konohamaru's clone or just unprepared for an immediate counterattack, he was completely unprepared when the young chunin suddenly appeared inside of his guard in a burst of speed. Rearing back his right hand Konohamaru sent an electrically charged strike towards his enemy's torso.

Reacting quickly, the Rain shinobi tried to spin out of the way but was still caught by the simian ninja's strike in his side. As the black blade of the trench knife cut into the Rain ninja's side, Konohamaru released a controlled burst of elemental chakra through the weapon sending a surge of electricity through the man's body and violently ripping his body almost in half in an explosion of blood and gore. The young chunin briefly paused in his rush to turn on the other enemy shinobi and tried not to think about the greasy film that covered half of his body.

He bared his teeth in an unhinged smile; they visibly flinched.

His last killing had been unnecessarily powerful and needlessly sadistic, which was the whole point. It was one of the first lessons that Ebisu-sensei had taught them; when you were faced with a superior force and have no means of retreating quietly, attack with as much fanfare and brutality as possible. No matter how hardened the enemy, a single, sudden moment of extreme violence would give anyone pause. That hesitation was what Konohamaru had been counting on.

"BREAK," he yelled, though he really needn't have bothered as Udon- with Moegi slung over his shoulder- had been watching and was already through the hole that his friend had punched through the ambusher's perimeter.

"AFTER THEM," an irate Rain ninja- presumably the leader of this little group- called out behind them.

Konohamaru followed behind him, trailing his two teammates by a few feet. He could hear the telltale splashes of the pursuing ninja as their feet made contact with the watery surfaces of the rice paddies. The young chunin chanced a look over his shoulder and cursed; the six remaining enemy shinobi were right on their tails, fanning out. They were probably going to try to encircle them.

He had to do something quick.

"You two keep going, I'll buy you a few seconds!"

"We'll meet you at E-5," the bespectacled ninja barked over his shoulder.

Moving his hands through the appropriate seals despite the obstruction provided by his trench knives, Konohamaru fell back onto one of his oldest standby techniques.

'Shadow Clone Jutsu'

In identical puffs of smoke, two identical copies of the simian ninja came into existence beside the running Leaf ninja. Coming to a skidding stop, atop one of the many raised paths that criss-crossed the valley of rice paddies, the three Konohamaru's came together back to back. Forming the Ox seal, the three inhaled a deep breath of air before expelling dragon shaped blasts of fire from their mouths into the surrounding rice paddies.

The flames, upon making contact with the water, immediately converted the pools into voluminous clouds of steam, covering a sizable area in a burning white mist. The pursuing Rain ninja were thrown into confusion as their view was suddenly obscured by the billowing clouds of steam. By the time someone had the idea to dispel the steam using a wind jutsu, none of their prey was anywhere in sight.

"What the hell happened here?!"

Keisuke rubbed his temples in frustration as he watched the scene unfolding in front of him. The teams that they had sent out to eliminate the trio of foreign ninja had failed miserably in their task; Chiaki had been chewing them out for the last twenty minutes. While he shared her anger, Keisuke didn't see how berating their subordinates for more than five minutes would help the situation. Besides, two of their comrades were dead; they were demoralized enough already without her heaping abuse on them.

"One simple task! We gave you one simple task and you screw it up!"

Tuning his raging partner out- there really was no stopping the raven haired kunoichi when she was on a roll- the Loyalist ninja instead concentrated on what they had learned from the situation. The three foreign ninja were confirmed to be from Konoha; that was a definite problem. The Leaf village, despite the non-militant stance of their Kage, was not an enemy that he looked forward to facing. Plus, they were not the type of village to abandon a team just for the sake of saving political face with the other nations.

It didn't matter if the Land of Rain was a no-go-zone; if one of their units didn't come back, there would be a recovery and rescue mission launched.

Then, of course, there was the more immediate issue of the three escapees. He and Chiaki had brought reinforcements and had laid a pretty heavy dragnet over the entire area. The Leaf ninja were still carrying the goods that they had taken from the Grass ninja; and though they didn't have the means to actually view what was on the microfilm, they might have the means to send it back to their village; and that would open up a whole new host of problems.

But it wasn't as if their Loyalist forces could operate in this area with impunity; this region was still being contested between them and the RGA. The Redeemers would know something was up once they saw such in upsurge in Loyalist presence in this area and would undoubtedly start sniffing around. The gods only knew what would happen if they got to the Konoha ninja first.

"Chiaki," he called, interrupting her in the middle of her latest harangue.

"We're done here. Select a few teams to keep up the search in this area; their primary objective is to locate and eliminate the Leaf ninja but they should keep a lookout for RGA. Any Redeemers show up, you go to ground. We don't need any unneeded attention."

Keisuke sighed; this situation had to be handled delicately.

Udon looked down at the still unconscious Moegi; she was pale and her breathing was shallow. He wasn't much of a medic, but the bespectacled ninja knew enough to know that she wasn't going to be back at 100% for a while.

After Konohamaru's distraction he had managed to get himself and Moegi to the relative safety of one of the many abandoned hamlets that dotted this part of the Land of Rain. Konohamaru had yet to turn up as well. Fishing the goods out of his pocket, Udon bit into his thumb until he drew blood. Smearing it onto his palm, the young chunin performed a summoning jutsu.

Emerging from a puff of smoke, a rabbit dressed in shinobi garb and sporting a Konoha headband looked up at him.

"You've looked better Udon," the furry creature remarked.

"I've felt better," Udon replied. He handed the goods to the rabbit who stashed the small capsule in a pack slung across his hip.

"I need you to get this back to Konoha as fast as you can; me and Moegi will try to stay in this sector, but no guarantees that we'll still be here in E-5 by the time the rescue mission gets here."

"I hear ya," the rabbit replied curtly before heading to the door.

Udon watched him go before turning around and sitting down next to his wounded teammate.

Outside, the rain picked up.

Five Days Later, Konoha…

A contented sigh slipped through the lips of the young man who lay basking in the sun on the concrete rooftop of a nondescript apartment building on the west side of the village. Nara Shikamaru stretched and cracked his back, enjoying the feeling of the warm rays of the sun beaming down on his face. The only thing that could make this moment more relaxing was if Temari and her breasts were here for him to nuzzle between.

Turning his thoughts away from the Sand kunoichi- it would only make him frustrated and he was here to relax- refocused on contemplating the cloud formations drifting overhead. Shikamaru relished these precious few moments that he got to take some down time away from his duties. A Jonin of more than modest prominence amongst the shinobi forces of the Leaf village, Shikamaru had had many responsibilities foisted upon him that occupied much of the time that, in years past, he had spent idly laying on his back and watching the clouds go by. Unfortunately his relaxation time was being spoiled by the presence of somebody standing at the edge of the roof.

That was all they were doing; standing there and watching him. The Jonin didn't sense a hint of killing intent coming from the person so he was pretty sure that he wasn't in any immediate danger. They seemed to be waiting for Shikamaru to get up on his own; they obviously didn't know him very well. Still, the presence of an unseen onlooker was seriously disrupting the serenity of the cloud watching experience.

Reluctantly, the Jonin sat up and looked grumpily at the interloper.

"What is it," he asked; annoyance plain in his voice.

The mousy kunoichi that was standing at the edge of the roof squeaked and shrank away slightly. Shikamaru felt a twinge of guilt mixed into his annoyance; he hadn't meant to sound harsh.

"Um, you have an urgent message from the Hokage; you have orders to report to his office as soon as possible."

The shadow user huffed. "You know that I'm supposed to be on leave now, right?"

"I know, but Hokage-sama asked for you specifically."

Shikamaru quirked an eyebrow at that information; he wasn't exactly the Hokage's favorite person so for that fool to ask for him specifically must mean that the situation was pretty serious.

"I guess I've got no choice then…"