AN: Chapter six. Joy.
v b B V
---
Sakura gasped for air as she sprinted up the wall of another house; the messenger tower was only another three roofs away. The medi-nin gathered her chakra to her feet and raced at a 90-degree angle up the tower and found her way in through the window. Two ninja who had been on patrol stood inside, expressions of shock on their faces; normally only the Hokage and Shizune came in here, and they always used the stairs.
"No time to explain, gentlemen; go outside to see for yourselves." Sakura pulled out a blank scroll from inside her Chuunin jacket and bit down on her right thumb; she used her blood to write a hasty "Konoha attacked, sustained losses, stay aware, enemies extremely strong, expect an attack from people dressed in gray. -Sakura" note. Forcing chakra into the wound to close it, she rolled up the scroll with a snapping motion using her left hand and tied it to Konoha's fastest messenger falcon and sent it flying out the window. She hopped out after them, returning to Tsunade's office.
All the two ninjas saw were some flashes of pink hair which could apparently speak, a spurt of red, and one falcon/hawk thing missing from its perch.
---
Suna was closest, so the bird flew in that direction first. It only took a matter of minutes for it to find the group heading for the desert – they had only left an hour ago, after all – and swooped down to Kakashi. He intercepted the bird and read the message out loud to his teammates; none of them could hide their shock and surprise. The falcon motioned its leg in a way that said "tie it on again, all the other people still need to see it", so the copy-nin did.
"I think it's safe to say that we're going to be expecting some gray people in a while," Luffy said. "Usopp, I know you got some fancy glasses or something, so put them on and look for anything dangerous."
At that moment, twenty figures leaped from the trees and undergrowth and all the forest terms that you can think of. The team was clearly surrounded; Kakashi counted sixteen on the ground and four hung in the trees. Usopp screamed like a girl while Naruto grinned and Luffy copied the orange ninja and Lee swept the ground in a true battle pose.
"You will all die here and now, Leaf scum."
At that moment, Naruto closed his ring and pinky fingers on each hand. He brought them into a cross position in front of his chest and summoned up a fairly large amount of chakra. All twenty drew their arms back in a "I'm going to chuck this metal knife at your face now" position and let their metal death fly into clones.
"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" An enormous amount of shadow clones poofed into existence forming a dome featuring thirty-some layers of clones, offering near-total protection from attacks coming from the outside. The sheer amount of space that was just taken up forced the attackers flying; the kunai pierced only the first few layers.
----
Kakashi dug into the ground with his Doton jutsu.
---
Lee took off his weights (which now included ones on his wrists) and held them in one hand to use as projectiles as he scanned for an opening to attack from.
---
Usopp shook off the fear and unholstered a pistol which shot out compressed air (much like Toguro's 100 form), waiting for an opportune moment.
---
Naruto ordered a mass attack while laughing softly and forming a Rasengan.
---
Luffy jumped sky-high, found a nice gray-clothed target in the trees, and aimed a Gomu Gomu no Stamp at what he thought was a face.
----
Smoke filled the air near-instantly as clones fell one by one: a well-aimed kick here, a fire jutsu to the face there. The clones were able to take down three or four just because a hundred or so had tried to attack each figure.
Naruto's eyes caught a glimpse of gray clothing zipping through the bushes; he charged it and caught it from behind with a nice chakra-filled sphere of death to the spine. A few seconds of painful grinding into his back, and he was launched spinning into a tree. Unfortunately, it had a large, thick, sharp branch growing on it and it was pointed almost directly at the spiralling human…and a most gory and painful ending to his life happened.
Luffy's foot smashed into a man's face, and he fell to the ground in pain and with an odd imprint from forehead to chin. The pirate stretched his arms to the man from mid-air, certain he was not out cold yet; he yanked the gray thing towards him and 'accidentally' performed a head-to-chest Gomu Gomu no bell. Grimacing at the sight, Luffy chucked the body downwards and prepared himself for impact against the ground.
Usopp scrambled for a place where he could aim and shoot people without needing to run around all the time. He found a nice green patch, it was too bad that someone had been hiding there too. The woman who looked up and saw a kid wearing fishnet on his head paused for a fatal second; Usopp was surprisingly calm as he pointed the gun at her head and shot her; this was no time to panic and he sure as hell didn't want to die here, on land. He kicked the corpse aside and crouched down, staying alert at sounds coming from all sides.
Lee shot out of the smoke so fast that he just couldn't be seen. Hop, skip, jump, airborne: two weights embedded into two skulls and one guy missing some bones in his left leg was a direct result.
Kakashi found a woman acting as guard or scout or something; her position didn't matter to him when he yanked her into the earth. As he hopped out of the hole, her head still stuck out; a split second was all it took to chuck a few shuriken in her direction. There was no time to let people off with their life intact; they had tried to kill him so he killed them in return.
---
That's another one done. No one's dead. Yay!