A New Beginning Chapter 2
Authors Note: Eh… Sorry it's a bit late… I've been working on Hide and Seek along with this story. I've decided to work on a two week schedule. I know, it should be one week, but I have tons of homework. Damn eighth grade honors teachers. So here's the new chapter of A New Beginning!
I felt the shadow before I saw it. I jumped up in the nick of time and avoided it. I was trying to lure him. I landed on another tree branch. I made a kage bushin and instructed it to hide until I signaled. The bushin nodded and leaped away. I quickly formed a few more hand signs and let a small water jutsu loose on the Nara. He dodged, as I predicted, but he fell right into my trap. The hidden wire was stepped on and a barrage of kunai was thrown at him, but that wasn't the trap. The Nara jumped away into the second phase of my trap. I threw a kunai at him, and he dodged. But I smirked. He didn't notice the exploding note till the last second.
The boom went off and I felt his chakra signature a ways away. He dodged. I smirked and held up my right hand. My kage bushin leaped out and started for the Nara. I jumped over to observe the fighting. He was very good in strategizing. But his chakra was below average. He must be smart if he was in the Nara clan. My kage bushin was using to forward of an attack. Easy to block and find a hole in my defense. I would have to work on that. But my kage bushin was wearing him down a bit. I smirked. This would be easy. My kage bushin poofed out of existence and I analyzed the data given to me. I smirked again.
I jumped down to the ground where the Nara was.
"Congratulations on defeating my shadow clone," I said. "But I won't be as easy," I started to form some hand signs and unleashed a lightning jutsu on him. He dodged, but fell into another of my traps. Then he did something I didn't expect. He smirked. I felt something flare behind me and I jumped away as fast as I could. But not fast enough. The explosion caught the bottom of my left leg. I clenched my teeth and tried to heal it using the meager healing jutsu I knew. Damn… Maybe I should have studied medical ninjutsu. In the end, my healing did nothing much and I landed on a tree branch, cringing in pain. I glared at the Nara.
I flew through some more hand signs and constructed another water jutsu. My chakra and water source was running low. I almost ran the nearby stream dry. I threw a few kunai and shuriken at him, thinking about what to do next. He was getting close to using all his chakra. I was so busy thinking, I almost didn't notice the shadow coming towards me. I leaped away in the nick of time but forgot to watch my landing. And I landed right on the shadow. I silently cursed, trying to fend off the shadow. I still had a bit of chakra left. Not much more than him though. I felt something slide up to my neck and I saw a shadow hand.
"Oh no you don't!" I muttered, trying to force the shadow back down. It worked a little. I continued to force it down, but it felt like I was pushing a really heavy boulder. And I was getting tired fast. I could feel he was getting tired too, so I pushed on. Damn… I was going to faint after all of this at this pace. The shadow was creeping up to my neck. No. I couldn't let it win. Suddenly I had memories flow into my mind. My first kage bushin. I sweat dropped at the way it poofed. Falling out of a tree. I sighed but realized they got pretty far away. That was good. I had to end this battle soon. As in now. I opened my eyes and forced the shadow away. I was running out of energy. Really quickly. I gave one last effort to rid myself of the shadow hand when I became aware of another presence. It wasn't Deidara. It was… Hidan? I didn't think anymore after that, for the shadow link broke and I jumped away.
"Looks like you need some help eh?" Hidan asked. I glared at him.
"I do not need any help. I was about to finish him off," I said. But then I noticed something.
"Hey… Where'd he go?" Hidan asked. I did a quick search of the area around us for chakra or a heart beat. Nothing.
"He disappeared…" I muttered.
"Just fucking great. I wanted to at least kill one person today… The damn Uchiha fled a moment ago. Deidara stopped blowing up things a while ago and went to observe the other part of the team, I don't know what happen to his fucking fan girl," Hidan muttered. I sighed.
"Let's go. We need to relocate. Preferably out of Fire Country," I said. Hidan nodded. We started to leap through the trees.
We met up with Deidara at the border of the Fire Country.
"Where should we go? Iwa's out because they would recognize Deidara, and we caused a stir in Fire Country. Grass is way too hot for my comfort, and Wave is too far away," I said. Deidara shrugged. We were jumping through the trees again.
"What about Amegakure?" Hidan asked. I froze. Deidara slapped his forehead. They both stopped and Hidan turned to me. I once looked in the mirror when I thought of him once. It looked like I was a completely different person. My eyes were hallow, the shield protecting them broken, my face was at least a shade paler, and my mind just turned blank. Hidan looked confused, until Deidara whispered to him.
"We are never going to Amegakure," I said, my voice cold and heartless.
"What about the sea? I haven't been to the damn sea in forever," Hidan suggested. I turned to him again. This time my stare was even more hallow and cold.
"We are never going to the sea," I spat, my voice like ice. I had to admit that Hidan looked a little freaked. If I wasn't still in pain from him, I would laugh at the expression on his face. But it morphed to a smirk.
"You afraid of the water huh?" Hidan teased. I narrowed my eyes. A moment later I was holding a kunai to his neck. My eyes met his.
"If you know what's good for you, you would shut up," I growled. Hidan nodded. I put the kunai away and jumped off.
"We're going to Wind Country, I found us a mission there that will pay well," I said to Deidara. He nodded, knowing not to say anything else.
"Hey! Wait up!" I heard Hidan yell. I didn't slow. We had to move fast if we wanted to out run the back up of the Konoha ANBU.
Unfortunately, I really hated the heat. Fire Country was nice, not to hot, not to cold, but Wind Country and Grass Country was just horrible. But we needed money, and right now the only country offering a good paying mission to lone ninja groups was Wind. But that meant not flying on Deidara's clay bird. That would also mean that we would have to change their appearances. A henge would be detected by shinobi anywhere. But then again, we weren't actually going into Suna. We were going to a town close to Suna, which held a reputation of giving missions to lone ninja groups or pairs. It would be too risky to go just like we were now. Deidara's hair would be a dead give away, my hair and eyes would be too. If they knew about Hidan, his white hair and crazed personality would be a give away too. I sighed.
"We'll have to henge," I said. Deidara nodded, bringing his hands together and performing the jutsu. He was about the same height, but with black spiky hair and green eyes. I did the hand sign and performed the jutsu. I had brown hair with light brown eyes. Hidan grumbled, but did what I said anyway. He was the complete opposite of what he normally looked like. He had long black hair in a ponytail and jade green eyes. He also took a few inches off his height. I nodded and we were off. We were about a few minutes away, at top speed, from the town. Slight chakra flares could signal the near by Suna to send ANBU out. That's why we henged so far away.
We entered the town as normal citizens, but most knew we were shinobi. I did a quick chakra signature search to see if there were any Suna nins around. I detected the heartbeats of a few hidden ANBU at the edge of the town, but they were fleeting, probably on a tracking mission or something. They seemed to be heading away. Good. I gazed at the merchant stands. Mostly exotic foods from Iwa or Konoha and the occasional traveling ninja selling weapons. I made a mental note to come back and buy some after out mission. We arrived at a building that didn't really hold anything to gaze at. I knocked on the door three times and waited a moment till it opened. I entered and paused for a moment, Deidara mimicking my movements. Hidan, however, wasn't so lucky. He stepped in front of us and had to dodge the barrage of kunai thrown from the hidden traps.
"What the fuck?!" Hidan cursed, jumping back just in time.
"Baka…" Deidara muttered. I sighed, but moved on. We winded around in the confusing corridor and I noticed that we were slowly going underground. The temperature was dropping too. Suddenly I felt a flare of chakra up ahead.
"Drop the henges," I heard the voice say. I nodded to Deidara and Hidan, who both dropped their henges. I dropped mine too but kept one hand near the hidden kunai in my sleeve. I didn't have a good feeling about this person. They had too much chakra for their own good. I didn't know this person too well, but I knew that I had never felt his chakra before. I had been to this building before for another mission to get me through the early months of my missing nin days. I had returned many times, but I had never felt, seen, or even heard of this guy.
"That's better. I suppose you're the ninjas for the mission right?" the figure said. He was in the shadows.
"Yes. What is the mission?" I asked, trying to hold my suspicion in. I saw a gleam of a smile from the shadows.
"An assassination mission. You have quite a while to find the target. Six months to be exact. Here is the target," the figure said, holding out a paper. I glanced at it and froze.
"He is already dead," I pointed out, giving the paper back. The figure shook his head.
"No, according to my own eyes, he is not. I saw him but a week ago while I was traveling. It seems you are mistaken. Not even the bingo books know he is still alive," the figure said. I looked him in the eye.
"You're lying," I said.
"Nope. Telling everything that I saw. In fact, I brushed past him in a crowd. You can even search for the traces of his chakra, Kagami-san," the figure said. I narrowed my eyes. I haven't been called that in ages… This guy was defiantly behind in his time. Nevertheless, I closed my eyes and searched. My eyes snapped open when I detected the faintest trace on the figures cloak.
"Deal," I said. Deidara flared his chakra just enough so I could sense it. He knew I was lying. I never agreed to do a mission without every last detail or a person I needed to seek out to find extra information. Even Hidan looked at me weirdly. Deidara gave him a look that said that I was playing with the figure's trust. Hidan nodded and turned his attention back to the figure. We all henged again.
"Six months," the figure reminded us.
"Six months," I repeated, turning and leading the others out of the building. I glanced at the paper in my hands and crumpled it up. I dropped the paper in a waste basket and opened the door to the building. I didn't notice Hidan stop and retrieve the paper.
"Who's our target Aiko-chan, yeah?" Deidara asked.
"An already dead man," I said. Deidara nodded. He learned not to provoke me when I was mad. I walked on ahead to the weapon stand I saw when we first came through and decided to buy all of us some extra kunai and shuriken. I almost didn't hear what Hidan said to Deidara.
"Hey, Deidara, isn't that him?" Hidan asked.
"Him who? Yeah?" Deidara asked.
"That bastard of a…" but Hidan was cut off by Deidara punching him in the face once he noticed I froze.
"Shut up…" Deidara muttered. I moved on to the weapon stand. There was no way in hell that he was alive.
Or else I was going to kill someone for not telling me.
Authors Note: Yay! Sorry again that it's a few days late. I'm also updating Hide and Seek, the sequel to Missing, as well. As for the chapter title of this, Falling Back, it refers to Aiko falling back into her depression from when Pein died. And the previous chapter's title, Waking Up, refers to Aiko breaking out of her depression.