Thanks again for the reviews! I hope you enjoy the next chapters! I do not own any of Naruto.
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Neji sat quietly in a bed staring blindly out the window. Rain drop lets dripped just outside of the glass panel. Neji closed his eyes and thought of the outside, the trees, the grass, the….. water.
Suddenly a memory gripped his mind and pulled him back.
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Water, it was stronger than he had thought. It pulled him time and time again under into its depth. How long had he been drifting? How long had it been since the girl in his arms, tasted the air? Hidden roots, stones, and plants bit at his legs, tearing tender flesh. Neji was becoming weak; he needed to make it to the shore if he were to live.
He coughed up some water that had invaded his body, and his sight began to fade in and out. Pushing himself forward, he frantically looked for a way on to shore. Suddenly massive pain erupted in his head, and he lost consciousness.
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Neji's hand slowly reached to his head. His hair was massively shorter, it was a little shorter then shoulder length and dirt and mud pulled it back from his face making odd spikes. He laid down slowly and then shot back up quickly. "Tenten."
He ran quickly from the room and hit the wall outside. He pushed himself from the wall and continued to run down the hall. Eventually he came to the outside, and he looked from right to left. No one was in the town, it seemed deserted. Then without warning he was tackled to the ground by two strong men. They pushed his head into the dirt and yelled. "And where do you think you're going?"
Neji twisted his head to the side, and looked at the men. "Oh so your blind?" one of the spat at him.
They pulled him up by the hair, and pushed him back to the ground. Neji picked himself up from the ground and turned to the men and glared at them. His chakra was returning and veins slowly showed from the side of his eyes. Gradually his eyes looked cracked and menacing, the Byakugan.
His Kekkai Genkai had almost reached its full extent, when a girl stood in front of him, and said, "I take care of this."
She grabbed his hand and quickly tried to pull his away. Neji stood rooted there, waiting for his power to come back so you could kill the two men. The girl spoke in his ear, "Neji, stop."
The chakra drained from his face, and he looked to the girl. Her hair wasn't in the normal 'two bun' hair style he was so accustomed to. A glint of a smile came to his face, and quickly faded as fast as
it had come. This time he let her pulled him from the street and into a small closed in neighborhood near the edge of town. When they both entered the gate, Tenten turned and hugged him, "I thought you didn't make it. It's been so long since I had woken up."
Neji, looked around, for any passerby's and hugged the girl back. After he had held her for a moment he asked himself, whether he had done that by accustom in Konoha or if he truly didn't want anyone to know his second weakness. Tenten pulled away and looked at him shortly, and pulled at his now shortened hair. "You know, I hardly recognized you. If you hadn't almost activated your Byakugan I would have never known it was you."
"Where are we?" Neji now looked at his surroundings.
"Not sure… they took in a lot of refugees from Konoha though." She watched Neji's eyes quickly dart from side to side, "There are no other ninjas here though. Only the civilians, none of them know how to protect themselves."
Neji looked at the old houses, and the people walking from them. "All of them? They're all from Konoha?"
"Every single one of them, this village was kind enough to take in every one of them." Tenten smiled.
Neji glanced back the way they came, a gate had been closed and guards were standing in front of them. "That was very kind of them…" Neji said in a monotone voice, he knew they weren't free here.
He pulled Tenten away from the gate and walked into the belly of his prison.
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Naruto sat at his desk, looking intensely at a map. Shikamaru and Chougi looked at the map as well as Kakashi and many others. Little pins stuck out of possible areas where the attack could have originated. "Twelve, there are twelve villages that could have attacked us." Naruto whispered.
"All of which are not Ninja villages." Shikamaru added.
"The stone, grass, rain, and waterfall villages are in battle." Kakashi listed.
"Sand is our ally." Chougi continued on.
"Sound is fighting among themselves." Shino said.
"Mist and moon have sent help to us." Kiba spoke up.
"And the village hidden in the shadows and Wolf village has not left the boundaries of the demon nation for many generations." Iruka finished.
"There are three villages in the Earth Nation, with possible ties to the attack." Naruto stated.
"Two villages in the Wind Nation that have ill relationships with us." Kiba pointed at the map.
"There are four in the water nation." Iruka nodded to himself.
"There is one village in the Lightning Nation." Shino crossed his arms.
"And there are two more in the Void Nation." Kakashi finished the list.
"All of the villages we've targeted have had some possibilities of making themselves a ninja village." Naruto reminded.
"We need to send ninjas under cover to the villages to see what they are doing, and if they have any trained civilians." Kakashi suggested.
"Who though?" Iruka asked.
Naruto sighed and rubbed his head, "The people I can trust the most."
The group looked at Naruto suspiciously, and Naruto continued, "Shino you will go to Dzonda in the Earth nation."
"Dzonda… I will leave in the morning." Shino stood and left the room.
"Kiba, you will go to Jilah. It is found in the farthest north-western part of the earth Nation." Naruto wrote something on a piece of paper and handed the sheet to him.
Kiba nodded and left the room on cue.
"Chougi, your village is Cogu. It is also in the Earth nation, except it is in the south east part of the nation." Naruto looked at Chougi.
He ate a chip smiled and exited out the door.
"Shikamaru you will stay here, and I will call on the sand nation to send Temari to the village Hioti in the wind. I will also ask for Kankuro to go the village Llor also in the wind nation."Naruto handed a sheet of paper containing a letter to the sand to Shikamaru.
He took the letter and headed to the bird carriers.
"Ino will travel to the villages Dral and Igulara in the water nation." Naruto continued.
Ino nodded and disappeared behind the door.
"Lee will go to Igulara and Odru which are also in the water nation." Naruto became grimmer and grimmer as he assigned each ninja.
Lee smiled and put his thumb up, "I'll be back soon"
"Iruka will go to the village called Sahra in the Lightning nation. And Gai will go to the village Ytata in the Void nation." Naruto said.
There was a pause, and Naruto shuffled through his papers. "I'm one short…."
"You have plenty of other ninjas to send to the last village." Kakashi replied.
"No, I need everyone else here to help… Sakura and Hinata to heal, and the rest are needed to protect. I can't send all the strongest out or we will be open for another attack…" Naruto looked from paper to paper with ninja's names on them.
Kakashi smiled slightly, Naruto had grown so much from taking the position of hokage. Everyone watched as Naruto thought as hard as he could. The room was quiet and light thunder rolled from an approaching storm.
Suddenly a thud made every single one of the ninjas in the room jump slightly. In front of the window a sword stuck straight out of the floor. A man entered through the window and a deep familiar voice said, "I hear you're in need of some help Naruto."
Naruto turned and looked at the figure, he smiled brightly, "And you will go to Zilo."
Naruto reached forward and pounded his fist against the figure's for the first time in years.
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I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Another will come next week probably. This I must say was the most research I've done for a chapter. I mean I didn't even remember that there was a Shadow village let alone a Demon Nation! Thank you internet Please review!
Incara