Naruto found what he believed to be the apothecary just before dark, after turning around several times. He had nearly never found it, only with the help of forty shadow clones did he manage. He promised to meet Hinata at the hot spring, having obviously beat her there he decided to see about procuring the medicine on his own.
The little shop really was between nowhere and a hole in the ground. Though the apothecary was isolated and small, it was incredibly well maintained and the property was manicured to perfection. Naruto walked confidently into the shop, hands behind his head. The clerk was nowhere to be found so the blond shinobi strode between the isles. Touching and smelling everything he could reach. A particularly foul smelling herb caused the young man to recoil, twisting his face in a terrible grimace.
"Keep making that face. It'll stick like that." A tiny and wrinkled old woman mocked him from where she had appeared behind the counter.
"Oh, hey granny." Naruto played the fright she had given him off as coolly as possible.
"I'm not your granny. Can I help you with something?" The woman chose to over look his familiar tone.
"Right, sorry." Naruto called as he continued to molest the strange herbs and medicines.
"Can I help you with something?" Irritation began to show itself in her voice.
"Uh, yes? The Hokage sent me to collect some special medicine from you. He sent me a note, but I don't have it." Naruto answered, realizing that Hinata still had Kakashi's dossier.
"I have it ready but I'm afraid I can't let you have it without the Hokage's note. It's made from a very rare and expensive herb. I likely won't come into any more for a long while. What happened to the paperwork?" The woman's tone smoothed over as she realized she was talking to a representative of the Hokage.
"It's with my fiance, well she's a ninja of the Leaf as well. We had to split up, she should be on her way." Naruto explained.
"Right, well when the paperwork arrives I'll send you on your way with the medicine. I hope it works, it's the most potent I've ever made. You can wait here if you'd like."
"Well I don't have anywhere else to go." Naruto said as he walked back to the counter, looking expectantly for a place to sit. "Can you tell me anything about the hot spring that's close to here? Kakashi-Sensei suggested I visit them." Naruto said, the devious smile returning to his face.
"The hot spring? Well I suppose you could use a bath." The old lady laughed at her joke. "Sure thing, they're only about twenty minutes from here, less for a shinobi. Just head west and you'll find them. They're actually very nice this time of year."
The bell on the door rang as three new chakras entered the little shop. Hinata, Shikamaru, and Temari had traveled restlessly to the apothecary, though they had never been to the shop it was no trouble to find. With Hinata's Byakugan and Naruto's beacon of chakra it was as easy as finding the village itself.
"Is this your fiance?" The old woman asked as the sandy and haggard Temari walked into the shop, ahead of the other two.
"No!" Temari and Naruto exclaimed simultaneously.
Shikamaru and Hinata nearly burst with laughter as they filed into the shop.
"Excuse me, I brought this from the Hokage for you. We were sent to retrieve the medicine." Hinata clarified.
"Alright then," The woman chortled as she took the paperwork, causing Naruto to show her an ugly look as she looked at Hinata then back at him then back at Hinata. "that's all I need." The woman showed Naruto an ugly look in return as she ducked below the counter.
She raised with a small envelope in her hand and a vial of purple luminescent powder. "There's instructions in here. I would just tell you how to use it, but I don't think you'd remember all the steps." She told Naruto pointedly.
"You can tell me if you'd like." Shikamaru offered.
"No. The paper work says only to discuss it with the blond there or the girl. If that's all you need from me, you can go. If you want to actually buy anything though, I'm here."
"No that's all. Granny."
Naruto hit the door at a full sprint. Twice was apparently the limit of times the old woman would accept being called granny and she assaulted Naruto with a flurry of books and her broom. He ungracefully tripped over his own feet as he made it onto the shop's porch and spilled out into the yard.
Shikamaru snickered as he offered his hand to his defeated friends. "Some things don't change, do they?" The Nara pondered as he helped Naruto off the ground.
"What are you talking about?" Naruto pouted as Hinata dusted his clothes off.
"How are you buddy?" Shikamaru asked with bright eyes.
"I'm good. How's the job treating you?"
"It's a drag. Between you and me, I hand the Sand." Shikamaru confided after making sure that Temari was out of earshot and invested in her conversation with Temari.
"Sunagakure is a lot more fun now that Gaara has been Kazekage for a while. What don't you like about it?" Naruto asked.
"No, the village is fine. It's the literal sand, it chaps my skin and stays in my shorts. That and I haven't seen little Mirai and Kurenai in far too long. What about you? Been taking it easy I guess."
"Yeah. That's really all there is for me to do anymore. Hinata and Iruka-Sensei say I should enjoy it, and I do. It's just..."
"It's boring." Shikamaru acknowledged.
"Exactly! Don't you think?" Naruto exclaimed.
"No I don't think. Fighting and training is such a drag, I spend my time walking between the villages with Temari and playing Shogi. That's enough for me. But I can see you being bored. Peace is good though, you've got a wedding to tackle and I'm sure soon you'll be taking on students. One day, who knows, you may actually be the Hokage." Shikamaru used a tone he had once heard Asuma use.
"You're just too lazy to be bored Shikamaru. But hey listen, me and Hinata are going to go see a hot spring, so do you mind taking this medicine back to Kakashi-Sensei? We could be a while." Naruto finished sleazily.
"Now a hot spring? That's what peace time has to offer. Oi, Temari. Naruto knows where a hot spring is, do you want to go, wash the sand off?"
The girl showed her party a rare bout of enthusiasm in her answer. "Of course. Taking a bath is always the first thing you should do when you get out of the land of Wind, sand gets everywhere."
Naruto made a familiar high pitched moan as he realized he and Hinata would have company. The four of them followed the old lady's directions, the small vial now tucked neatly away in Naruto's jacket, until they reached a bath house. Naruto had not expected to find a full fledged bathhouse and was thoroughly disappointed to realize that it was not coed.
The bathhouse was old and chic, Naruto believed that Kakashi had been there in his childhood. The attendant was young and seemed eager to greet the four shinobi as they walked through the door. She was obviously the daughter of the owner. The place smelled of clean water and was dimly lit, Naruto began plotting as soon as they spoke to the attendant.
"Boys to the left, girls on the right. Take as long as you like." The attendant instructed.
Naruto and Shikamaru grumbled in unison as they made a left turn into the bath hall as the girls went right. Turning back was not an option now, the girls had decided they wanted to visit the hot spring and Naruto and Shikamaru would have to bear with it.
"I got to say Shikamaru, this wasn't how I pictured this trip." Naruto claimed, plopping down into the therapeutic water.
"This isn't my dream trip to a hot spring with Temari either. Just so you know."
Naruto couldn't stifle his laughter.
"So seriously though. What's this business with kids trying to kill you. It sounds like you've pissed off some sort of cult." Shikamaru addressed the elephant in the room freely, it was iffy to talk about people trying to kill Naruto in front of Hinata.
"Beats me. Once at home and once in the forest between the Leaf and the border with the Sand. They really are just kids, they didn't have a chance at killing me. I don't understand what it is they're after."
Shikamaru took a deep breath, making himself comfortable and knitting his hands in his usual way. "Who does stand a chance? At killing you? Sasuke. Anyone else?"
"It's not Sasuke, that's over."
"I know, I'm not accusing him. I'm asking you, who besides him could ever hope to get the job done?" Shikamaru couldn't help be irritated at Naruto for not seeing what he saw.
"No one." Naruto was trying to peak over to wall into the girl's side as he answered humbly.
"So that leaves us-" Shikamaru stopped himself as a shadow strolled across the wall of the men's bath hall. The chakra was unfamiliar but barely developed. "I think you have another fan wanting to pay his respects Naruto." Shikamaru said, motioning his eyes to behind him where the two had entered the room.
"This is such a hassle."
The young boy moved out into the open quickly and nervously. Before he could make a sound he was wrapped up by Shikamaru's shadow possession. Naruto lazily formed a shadow clone who walked over to the boy, preventing Naruto from having to get dressed.
"Come to kill me?" The second Naruto asked confidently.
"What!" The kid cried.
Upon hearing the child's voice, Naruto and Shikamaru both realized their error. Shikamaru released the boy and Naruto's clone disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"Hey sorry kid. Don't cry." Shikamaru pleaded as the boy was dangerously close to doing just that.
"Why would I want to kill you? I just wanted to meet you. You're the hero right? The one who saved the world?"
"Hey! That's me kid, I saved the world." Naruto reported indignantly.
"What? Oh I'm sorry. You're Uzumaki?" The boy asked.
"The one and only." The blond shinobi replied coolly, one fan at a time was a completely different from a horde back at the village. He would be glad to play the part of celebrity.
"Really? Can you help me become a great shinobi?" The scraggly kid asked unashamed. He stood straight as he asked, completely erasing the visage of the snot nosed kid on the verge of tears.
"Sorry kid, I'm not really doing the Sensei thing yet. I'm afraid I can't help you."
"No, that's not what I'm asking for. Can you let me kill you Uzumaki?" The child's eyes became riddled with blue specks as the young Sunagakure shinobi had described.
Naruto and Shikamaru had to pick there jaws off the ground when the kid droned the words off. Shikamaru recovered far quicker and resumed his possession jutsu. The kid had no hope of breaking free from the Shikamaru's technique, though he had no intentions to. Shikamaru's jutsu caused to boy's robe to flutter open, revealing a myriad of paper bombs. The boy sent a burst of chakra through them, igniting the fuse of the bombs.
"Naruto!" Shikamaru ordered.
Naruto sprang forward without a second thought, showing Shikamaru entirely too much of himself. The boy couldn't resist Naruto, still being under the possession jutsu, Naruto ripped the bomb covered wrap off of the boy and shrouded himself in Kurama's cloak.
Naruto burst through the wall of the hot spring, taking it back through the lobby was a non starter. He hit the cold earth on his shoulder and flung the bombs as far as he could. The meager explosion bounced inconsequentially off of Naruto's defensive chakra.
The boy fainted after the explosion. Shikamaru, wrapped in a towel, stepped through the hole in the wall Naruto had punched. Wide eyed and mortified, Shikamaru observed the crater the mass of paper bombs had made. He knew, that explosion would have killed him easily.
Shikamaru had only just found the words he was searching for when a great gust of wind exploded the wall coming from the girl's room. Shikamaru felt his hand travel instinctually to his temples, of course Temari would take her fan into the hot spring. He was glad she did however, as a four female assassins clad in their shinobi uniforms were cast out onto the ground, in a fashion similar to Naruto.
"Don't just stand there. Finish this." Temari was talking to Naruto, it irritated Shikamaru slightly that Temari would ask him to defeat the assassins rather than himself.
"This is getting out of hand." Naruto turned away from Temari, in order to be able to form the hand seal required without covering himself.
The assassins lunged for the blond man but it was futile. The four of them were met by four shadow clones, all wielding massive Rasengans. They were buried into the ground, face first, by the oversize jutsu. Having handily defeated the attackers, Naruto slunk back into the bathhouse and covered himself with a barely big enough robe. Shikamaru had put the kid under with some genjutsu or perhaps a blow to the head and Naruto had to step over him. He was preparing to interrogate the attackers but his heart lurched as Temari carried Hinata out of the bathhouse. Her clean and vibrant eyes were riddled with unnatural blue specks and her breathing was labored.
Shikamaru braced himself as Temari explained.
"She got hit by some strange kunai. I don't know what kind of-"
"Where are her things? Sakura sent a scroll with us, it has antidotes and medicines."
"I don't think it's poison Naruto." Shikamaru pointed out.
"What else could it be!" Naruto growled as he helped make Hinata comfortable against a tree stump.
"It's genjutsu. It's screaming in my head." Hinata's voice was barely audible.
"Break it Naruto." Temari said with a fearful look towards her friend.
"Okay, just some chakra then?" Naruto asked Shikamaru hesitantly.
Shikamaru only had a shrug to offer, his mind was a million miles away. Naruto made for his fiance, stretching out his hand to impart a piece of his chakra onto her.
"Don't!" She snapped, recoiling from Naruto's hand.
"What? What's wrong?" He stammered.
"Don't touch me. I'm sorry, not you." Her voice was unfamiliar and cold.
"Hinata what's wrong?" Temari asked, giving Naruto a sympathetic look.
"He won't let Naruto touch me. He's-"
"Who!" Naruto spat.
"The one behind it all, he's in my head Naruto. I don't know what he'll have me do. He's eating away at my will. You have to get away from me." Hinata's words were becoming more and more strained.
"Shikamaru what do I do?"
"I don't know Naruto."
Hinata collapsed on the ground, losing her struggle with the invasive genjutsu. Once she was under and her condition was no longer plaguing Shikamaru's thoughts, or at least to less of an extent, and the Nara was able to weigh all of the options against each other. The sixth Hokage was far better schooled in breaking genjutsu than anyone there. Though the genjutsu had a strange side effect, anyone attempting to break the spell would instead break the victims mind. Kakashi would never dive haphazardly into treating Hinata after he had seen what happened to the boy back home.
"One person can help her." Shikamaru knew Naruto would catch on to his line of thought.
"He's not here. She needs help now." Naruto argued.
"There's no help here. We don't know how long she has, or if this is even reversible. The best course of action is taking her back to the village, which me and Temari will gladly do, you have to go and find-"
"What if you're attacked again on the way? These people can find me anywhere, if I'm not around."
"If you're not around I don't think they'll be able to find us. And if they do you'll just have to trust us to protect her in your place."
Hinata choked on her own spit as the two shinobi talked, causing Naruto's panic to heighten and his eyes to become wide and wild.
"Relax. She's stronger than your giving her credit for. We'll take her straight home and the package for Lord Sixth."
"I don't want to leave her-"
"You have to! You have to go right now, get dressed and leave. Go find Sasuke, you're the only one who can. Or Hinata's mind will be broken just like the boy who attacked you in the leaf. We're your friends, trust us and go find him." Temari ordered, forgoing the gentle tone Shikamaru had adopted.
Naruto growled, but the blond girl was right. He retrieved his clothes from the locker room and handed the package for Kakashi over to Shikamaru. The Nara slung Hinata over his shoulder while Temari carried the boy.
"What about them?" Naruto asked, kicking one of the downed assassins.
"Well, do you want us to take them or Hinata back to the village? I'll have Anbu come back as soon as we get home but I suspect they'll have cleared out by then. They're good we can't bind them and expect-"
"It's fine. They're not important. I'm going to find Sasuke and then whoever is responsible for this... I'm going to kill them." Naruto abstained from touching Hinata before she was carried off by Shikamaru.
There was one way fro Naruto to find Sasuke, a signal that only the two of them knew, in fear of Sakura or the Hokage bothering Sasuke with trivial things. The blond shinobi made a mad dash for the final valley, or what was left of it. To get in contact with Sasuke in case of emergency Naruto knew to go to the valley and fire off a massive tailed beast bomb. Sasuke would make haste for the village as soon as he was able.
As he leapt for his next tree branch a feeling of deja vu washed over him. A man in a mask waiting on him did not hold the same wow factor it once did. This man was no Obitio Uchiha, Naruto was not afraid of him. His chakra was weak and his appearance was less than threatening. Naruto did not slow down nor did he hesitate once he decided the man was connected to his fiance's condition. He leveled his shoulder and attempted to crash into the man. Naruto passed through the man and struggled to catch himself on the next tree branch. That much was reminiscent of the troubled Uchiha.
"Please refrain from trying to fight my projection Uzumaki." The man chided in a distorted voice.
"Who are you?" Naruto demanded.
"Why does that matter? Are you not more interested in what I plan to do, what is happening to your fiance, or how to stop me?" The short man's voice chilled Naruto to the bone.
"Sure. Tell me all that then."
The man laughed as if an old friend had just told him a joke.
"I-"
The man was cut off as terrible whistling sound signaled a Rasenshuriken racing for him. The jutsu passed uninhibited through him, leveling a small grove of trees behind the man. The man shook his head in disbelief.
"You do not that I'm not actually here. And while your friend would be able to find out where I am from this projection, you do not have that capability. So, will you listen to what I have to say?" The masked man asked politely.
"You listen first. When I find you, I'm going to rip you apart. Why are you sending children after me? Why are you brainwashing people?"
"All the more reason to make sure you never find me."
"I will."
"As for the why. The answer is the same as it always is, revenge."
"What could I have done to you? I don't even know you." Naruto ground out.
"Ah yes. The arrogance of a hero. You're so busy saving your village, or the world, or those you love that you never stop to think about who you're stepping on in the process. You made your choices, you saved what you wanted and I wasn't able to. But now... Now at least I'm able to avenge those I loved."
"Look. I'm sorry if I hurt someone of yours. Hinata, these kids, the Leaf, and my friends have nothing to do with it. Settle this like a true shinobi. Fight me."
"Naruto you must think I'm as big of an idiot as you are. You would destroy me in a fight. I know that. What are your weaknesses though? For one your friends, they're terribly weak. And it's contagious." The man raised a finger as if he were giving a lecture.
"Is that all then? Why come here? To gloat, well save your breath. I'm going to stop you."
"It's cathartic. This is all just too therapeutic for me. And to give you a chance you never gave me. Spend your time with those you love wisely. I'm coming for them all, and then you. Think about what you have done, if you realize it I may give you a chance to repent before I cut you down."
Before Naruto could snap his reply the man faded from existence, leaving him alone in the forest leaking furious orange chakra. A million thoughts raced through his head. He was almost certain he had never killed anyone worth avenging. None of this seemed fair. That was his lot though, it always had been. At least now Sasuke would be happy to help him and there was nothing the two of them couldn't do. No one they couldn't beat.