The team were supposedly on the write trail, they had narrowly avoided many bobby traps and the firsts mans nose was following the trail of the scent left behind. They were now determined to fulfil their goal, to bring Sasuke back to the village, and now it seemed a lot easier then they thought at first. But they still did not encounter any of the enemy and thus do not know how strong they could be.

Day broke a couple of hours ago and the sun was nearly directly above the teams head. The six had not stopped since they began after packing up their camp to set of again, they were all tired. one person was the most warn out, Choji. The whole of his face was shining with sweat and he was huffing far at least the last hour or so, he never was up and running for so long in his life, and the experience was not a one that he would like to repeat. The other thing that could be heard was the rapid thinking of Shikamaru and the rapid breathing of the only girl in the group, Kazumi. And finally an unusual sound popped up, Kiba gasped.

"What happened Kiba?" Neji asked who was silent most of the way, busy looking around for any signs of the enemy.

"Here's what happened; the scent of the new comers converged on the center of Sasuke and four others, the two have stayed behind and while Sasuke's group moved on forward. So what now?" explained Kiba shortly and turned his head around to face the tem leader, Shikamaru, who sighed.

"Just as I thought, Sasuke got an escort," he responded and sighed again.

"We should catch up to them fast, if we don't then they might of already reached their hide out. We don't know where they want to go to," Kazumi suggested, forgetting about the fact that she was with a unfamiliar group. She got into the role of an teammate and tried to contribute to the succession of the mission as a team leader or Captain.

"There's no question about it, we just got to go after Sasuke!" and finally Naruto made his energetic contribution, which was no help to anyone.

Choji decided to ignore it and continued. "Well Shikamaru?"

"Since Akamaru smelled blood, my guess is that there was a battle between Sasuke' group and the two new comers. If we go to the spot where they fought, we might be able to gather some useful information," Shikamaru said and the team sped up, jumping from one tree branch to another without to big of an effort. "'course we can't just rush in, it might be a trap. So when we get closer, we will get into a full reconnaissance mode and go slowly."

"And while we're doing that, Sasuke will have crossed beyond the Land of Fire and out of our hands," Neji spoke up once again.

"Ok Shikamaru, so what's it gonna be?!" shouted Naruto beginning to get impatient.

There was a long moment of silence while the team expected their leaders command. "We follow Sasuke!"

After his response, Naruto's face brightened up as if the sun shone straight down on him."Way ta go, I knew you'd make the right choice."

"One thing," Shikamaru began, Naruto tilted his head. "These guys already been in a fight, they'll have to know that their will be more shinobi on their trail. There's a good chance that we will hit some booby traps, or even an ambush up ahead," he stopped to check if there was any sound of disapproval, the only noise that came was a grunt of approval from Choji. Shikamaru continued, "So from this point on, we proceed with caution, I want everybody, not just Akamaru, to put all your scenes on full alert. If you catch a trace of anything suspicious, sound the alarm. We ant to find these guys, before they find us.

"And when we find the, I'm gonna clobber them with this brand new Jutsu of mine!" Naruto exclaimed enthusiastically, but got a rather negative response from Kiba.

"Guys, the enemies scent is here, all around us!"

"Everyone, STOP!" on this command, the group halted on the next tree trunk. "Look up on that tree, see that?"

"A paper bomb? I'm sure there's five more of them, a primitive area, that's what it is," Neji said looking up at the red tag pinned to the tree.

"A primitive area?" asked Choji not understanding.

"It's an area where there are certain traps set around, waiting for the person to get to the center of it for the full effect," the highest ranked Shinobi explained and rubbed the back of his neck. "It's a tricky Jutsu, I learned about it in one of the books my dad used to make me read."

"Aww great, now we got around it..." Kiba said and looked down before jumping of the tree branch.

"Then that gives us more time to actually collect information about them then," Kazumi said and followed Kiba's lead, jumping of the branch and landing softly on the ground. She wasn't that confident with what she just said and decided to continue. "We could measure their intelligence based on if they put up any more traps, right?"

"Exactly, if they didn't put up any booby traps then they must be complete morons. Or think that we are complete idiots," Shikamaru added after landing next to Kazumi.

After a couple of minutes, the forest looked like it was a wire production line. There was silver threads spiraling and standing beneath the groups feet. The deeper they went in, the more traps they found. But all the traps were extremely careless and visible, like the enemy was not even thinking about making them affective.

"This forest is crawling with booby traps," Kiba growled after stepping over, what seemed like the one hundredth, booby trap.

"Yeah, but luckily they're easy to spot. The enemy is moving fast and getting sloppy," Shikamaru said his thoughts aloud an also stepped over the thin wire.

"Hmm, Naruto, do me a favor and watch where you going. I don't want you blowing us all up, there's trip wires everywhere" the first man said to Naruto which was not walking in a straight line.

"Humph, tell me something I don't know," he answered carefully leading his foot over one. Just as he was doing that, Shikamaru noticed another wire that was less visible after the first one.

"NARUTO HOLD IT!" Naruto froze in mid-step. One of his feet was just centimeters away from the invisible wire, whilst the other was barely on tiptoes. Shikamaru was found in the same position as he, just balancing by holding onto Choji's white scarf. " Phew, got him, but just in time with I just caught him with the shadow possession Jutsu."

"DIDN'T I TELL YOU TO WATCH YOUR STEP!? YOU MORRON!" All the shouting made a flock of birds flutter away from the surrounding trees. Neji helped Naruto and Shikamaru back into a normal standing position and Shikamaru let go of the Shadow possession Jutsu. " Jee, it's really hard work with you on the team."

"Hey! It's not my fault that I didn't see the other one!" Naruto responded crossing his arms.

"It's a good thing that Shikamaru stopped you just in time," added Choji who was fixing his scarf. Things could've ended up being messy."

"I guess the enemy isn't that sloppy after all. We need to be on our guard," Kazumi said, stroking Tsukiyama who was running by her side all the time, and kneeling down to look at the two wires.

"I get it, one wire catches the light while the other is camouflaged and harder to see. While you're busy avoiding the first, you trip the second," Shikamaru said looking closer at the trap.

"They've created a trap within a trap. They're clever, Whoever they are," Neji added looking down with his lavender eyes.

"All their over traps were quick and dirty as if they were moving fast, but not this one," said Shikamaru.

He looked over at Neji who clapped his hands together, folding his pinkie and ring finger. "Byakugan," He activated his visual Ninjutsu, scanning the road in front of them, leading his vision to the enemies group. "I see them!"

"Well lets Go! I'm dying to show these clowns what I got!" Naruto jumped up and grinned.

"Hate ta disappoint ya hot shot, but I got a new Jutsu I've been working on too," Kiba took Naruto's comment as some sort of battle call, his comment was backed up with Akamaru's bark.

"Yeah me too!" added Choji. The team was exited to finally be in range of the enemy.

"Alright, calm down, first we make a plan and get every thing ready, then we go in and take them out!"