A/N: Wooooooooooooo. Damn, it's been the longest time since I've updated. I finally got around to doing it though, and should probably stick to a once-per-week update schedule. Anyway, fight scene, plot development, and finally a bit of progression in terms of story. Read, review, etc.


Shit.

Naruto scanned the tree-line again, but the glowing orbs were gone. The voice was Sasuke's, but… He was dead, wasn't he? Naruto had been there, at the time of his death. He had watched the Sound's kunai enter his comrade's head; he had carried the body back to Konoha himself.

The forest became unnervingly quiet, and Naruto deftly reached for a kunai in its leg holster, before speaking out.

"Sasuke?"

Silence was his response. Circling around, with the kunai at the ready, he continued to search in the shadows for his friend turned apparent enemy. It was weird, really. Sasuke died a friend, but the words Naruto had heard made him uneasy. It was the voice of the old Sasuke that he had fought against several times over the years. Naruto probed the forest with his hyper-sensitive ears, but nothing seemed to be out of place.

He jumped into a tree, hoping to get a better look of the forest. Everything was quiet. Naruto let out a sigh of relief. There was no way it was Sasuke for real. He was imagining things. But… what if it was? He didn't allow himself to relax, so when the inevitable attack came, he was at full combat attention.

An arrowhead of throwing stars sliced through the air at Naruto, coming from a dark corner of the forest floor that he had not considered in his earlier scan. Instantly, Naruto was in the air flipping, throwing a star himself at the corner, but was only rewarded with the dull thwacking of metal against wood.

Replacement jutsu? Naruto asked himself.

He was answered by a grunt from behind him, followed by an explosion of pain at the back of his head. He tumbled to the ground, smacking face first into the gritty dirt of the forest with a meaty smack.

Too fast… On your toes, Naruto! He scolded himself.

He spat out dirt angrily from his mouth, and grunted while he bunched up muscles to get himself up. The foe – Naruto wasn't sure it was Sasuke yet – was upon Naruto before he could get himself up. A fist found its way to his face, but he managed to get a hand up to it before it connected. Instantly, he threw it away, and launched his own right cross as the enemy. His foe was as quick as the shadows that hid him though, and Naruto's fist found only air. The enemy leapt back into the darkness offered by the trees and Naruto knew that if he didn't find him fast enough, the enemy would be at an advantage.

Enough, time to take the offense.

"Shadow clone jutsu!"

Instantly, three Naruto clones popped out of smoke, and stood battle-ready.

"Fan out, two meters space, five up front. Move it." Naruto ordered. Obediently, the clones fanned out with two meters space in between each other, five meters in front of their master.

As they guarded the front, Naruto spun around, lighting his Kyuubi eyes. Felines slits broke the darkness of the night as he searched for the enemy.

There! Nine o'clock, up high in the trees!

He dug his heels deep into the dirt, and launched himself into the air. A foot lashed out at him, but he flipped over horizontally onto his back in midair, and extended his own foot out, hoping to plant it on his adversary's face. He grimaced when his foot instead found a hand gripping it, and he grunted when he was spun around, his face slamming into a tree trunk hard enough to break teeth and bone.

The clone poofed into smoke, and the intruder's eyes widened in surprise.

"Rasengan!" came the high-pitched cry, and the enemy only had a second to react before the blue orb crushed his chest.

Effortlessly, he reached out, and caught Naruto's hand. The movement, however, exposed the figure to the moonlight, and Naruto choked down a gasp as the face become clear.

"Sasuke!"

The Uchiha's eyes bored into Naruto's own, and he had to muster all of his resolve to not look away.

"Naruto. Sloppy as always, I see" Sasuke's words rang out in the silence of the night, and Naruto almost shivered at the menacing tone of his words.

"What the hell is wrong with you? It's me! Naruto!"

"I see that. I wouldn't kill you otherwise."

"What are you talking abo-" Naruto instantly was silenced, pain washing over him in waves on his side. He managed to grunt, and his hand groped his hip. The handle of a kunai barely stuck out, and as he shifted his leg, he could feel the grinding of the tip against his bone.

Sasuke coldly stared at his friend's pain, and let go of his wrist.

"That kunai is tipped with poison. Five minutes from now you will die. Enjoy the time you have left."

"Bastard!" Naruto managed between gritted teeth. The pain was excruciating. Sasuke must have added something acidic to the poison to irritate the wound as soon as it opened.

The raven-haired man, however, did not look back as he leapt into the trees, his menacing silhouette highlighted against the moon.


Naruto lay on the ground, and moaned as another fresh wave of fiery pain washed over him. He noticed with grim satisfaction though, that he could still maintain his train of thought through the agony. He was still far from death.

Shit, shit, SHIT! Got… to… get this thing OUT!

He mentally checked his resources. Both his clones had dispelled, and he didn't have it in him to summon more. The pain he felt was not unknown, in fact, based on the smell emanating from the wound, and the type of fiery pain, he thought that the poison used was probably extracted from a plant called Nightshade. It was common enough around Konoha, but also extremely powerful. In fact, five minutes was a pretty accurate estimate of how long he had left. The treatment, however, was not difficult to administer. What he needed was a milk thistle seed, which he could crush in his mouth, and apply to the wound.

First though, he needed to get the kunai in his hip out, before he could treat the wound properly. Mind racing, he rehearsed what needed to be done. Stiffening momentarily as the pain became unbearable for a few seconds, he lay on the ground gasping for air.

Quickly now, must hurry! He thought.

He was methodical in his movements now. From his pack, he retrieved some trip-wire chord, the ones usually used to create traps along with blast tags. He cut out a length about thirty centimeters long, his fangs easily slicing the material. Out his leg holster, he retrieved another kunai, and looped the chord through the holster's finger grip, knotting it securely. The other end he knotted around the small hole jutting out from the kunai embedded in his hip.

Now the hard part. Propped up against a tree, his breathing rate increased rapidly as he prepared himself mentally for what he was about to do. In one swift, sudden movement, he ripped out the kunai from his leg. His eyes widened instantly in pain, and a guttural throaty roar of agony erupted from his lips, as the kunai ripped a chunk of his flesh out of his hip as it came out.

Bastard! It was barbed!

But he couldn't stop now; he could still feel the burning afflicting coursing through his veins. He sighed though, as the imbedded kunai allowed his leg more movement. Still though, he knew he didn't have much time left, his limbs were already stiffening, and he could feel the effort and strain that his heart was suffering through to pump his blood.

Naruto's hand groped blindly around the forest floor as he searched desperately for the milk thistle plant. All over his nearby area his hands groped, but the herb was nowhere to be found.

He groaned inwardly, that meant he needed to move. It had been already about four minutes, he had at the most another two minutes before he blacked out, another thirty seconds after that before he died. He flopped over on his stomach, and bit his lip violently as the movement threatened his stomach to heave, and his limbs screeched out in complaint at the exertion.

Naruto didn't even think of stopping though. Crawling on his belly, caterpillar-style he moved on the floor away from the tree he had propped up against. Nothing though! Still farther he crawled, each movement becoming slightly weaker than before. In reality, Naruto moved ten meters a most, but to him, each shuffle was a thousand kilometers. His eyes searched in vain for the violet spiky flower that revealed the plant, but he found nothing.

He moaned in frustration, and laid his head on the ground. Already he could feel the stiffness intensifying. The wound at this hip was red and inflamed, and hurt to the touch of air.

So is the end of Naruto, Toad Sannin. Not even a month active and already dead. Shit, I'm going to miss you, Sakura. And I'm going to rip Sasuke apart when he dies.

He resigned himself to death. But… wait a moment… What was that scent? Naruto lifted his head stiffly, and took a number of short whiffs, his heightened sense of smell managing to catch the scent despite its weakness. Sweet… with a hint of milk sap?

Milk thistle! Naruto realized.

His energy bounded up as he quickly identified the source of the smell. In front of him, almost within arms reach, by the tree trunk! The shuffled to it agonizingly slowly, despite the stiffness. Luckily he only needed to move centimeters, and within moments the seed was in his mouth. He chewed it violently, careful not to swallow it. The blond spat out the substance onto his hand, milky and thick on his palm, and almost bit off his tongue as he slapped it onto the wound.

The discomfort was only momentary as almost instantly the acid feeling left his veins, and was replaced by a cooling feeling. The wound began to weep the poison, as the milk thistle expulsed it from his body, and Naruto sighed in relief.

So he would live after all.


The stiffness took a little longer to leave, but it too left him eventually.

"Damn, that was way too close. Got to be more careful next time" managed to say Naruto to himself, despite a still thick tongue. He dusted himself off from the ground, and mentally slapped himself to almost dying to such a cheap trick.

There was nothing more to do though, so he wrapped up the wound in a bandage to stop the bleeding, collected the few kunais on the ground and leapt into a tree. The few minutes of travel to Konoha were slightly uncomfortable – his leg gave him trouble – but it gave him time to think.

First of all, there was the fact that Sasuke wasn't dead. He allowed that thought to sink it for a bit. Sasuke was back from death. Which was something that made no sense at all. Naruto thought about it rationally. There were, maybe, three possible ninjas that were powerful enough, or experienced enough to know a jutsu that could bring one back from the dead. However, both Orochimaru and Pein were dead, leaving only Madara. He would definitely not help an ally of Konoha, but he could possibly be blamed for Sasuke's change of alliance. Possibly. Naruto was confused the most over this.

Therefore, Sasuke's life was probably restored by a third – unknown to Naruto – party, who was neither Sound nor Akatsuki. Which didn't make sense either, because besides those two, there didn't seem to be a group that had enough influence or power to gain ninja's of high-skill caliber. Different theories jumbled over in Naruto's head, but the initial shock of confronting his friend had already worn off. To try and deny himself the fact that Sasuke was back was folly.

Second though, when the hell had Sasuke defected from Konoha? He had been a Jounin at his death for Kami's sake. There were, of course, two obvious possibilities, Naruto thought. One was that Sasuke had been an enemy spy at the time of his supposed death. Perhaps he worked for Akatsuki. That, however, seemed highly unlikely, seeing that he played an important role in the attrition of the group. He would never pledge his allegiance to the Sound either.

So that meant that his change had probably been after his return from death, probably by a powerful energy of Konoha. That led back to Akatsuki or the Sound though. Naruto was beginning to think that either of those two groups was probably responsible.

His train of thought was abruptly cut off at the sight of the city gates. He snapped back into the present moment. First thing first, he needed to report to his Hokage. His wound was beginning to ache again, and while he hadn't promised to sleep over at Sakura's, she was probably worried about his absence anyway – but his duties came first.


He was stopped at the gate for a moment, but after seeing the dirtied state of his clothes, and the nasty bloody bandage at his hip, the watch let him in quickly. Naruto grunted his thanks, and took off at a ninja-pace, regulations be damned.

Within moments the base of the Hokage tower loomed in front of him, and Naruto wondered whether or not he was strong enough to bound up the side.

He did it anyway.

He charged up the side of the wall, silent as a breeze of wind. His wound protested painfully, but he ignored it as he leapt the final meter to the Hokage's office. Naruto burst through the window, and landed silently on the floor, his Sannin cloak billowing behind him.

What the hell? Baa-chan isn't here. The room is dark… he observed.

Instantly, a hand clapped over his mouth, his head was jerked back and he felt the tip of a kunai touch the base of his skull.

"Who the hell are you?" asked a voice, the tone hostile and sharp as a blade, and Naruto was not surprised to find that it belonged to his Baa-chan.

"Goddamnit you old hag!" Naruto said, his voice muffled by the hand covering his mouth. "It's me! Naruto!"

"Watch you language, boy. Keep in mind who you're talking to," Tsunade admonished, not even apologizing as she released the blonde's head. The knife she held disappeared into her sizable bosom. Naruto could see the apology in her eyes though, so he waved off the offense.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. What the hell is with the dark office and the cloak and dagger crap? You expecting someone else? I have important intel that I need to report on, and I'd rather you wait until I'm done to stab me with your little pretend kunai!"

The sarcasm wasn't hurtful though, and Tsunade brushed it off.

"Report. I'll share what I need to say when you're done" she responded, her tone businesslike.

Naruto then told her about what had occurred, and he had the rare pleasure of seeing Tsunade's face blanch at the story. The severity of that expression was lost on Naruto, as he misunderstood the face as shock at the return of Sasuke.

"Wouldn't you say that "weird" doesn't really do the thing justice?" Naruto asked rhetorically, referring to the Uchiha's return.

Tsunade had moved to her desk, and now she sat there in thoughtful silence, her laced fingers supporting her thinking head.

"Hey, listen, if you have something to say… I am kind of bleeding here," Naruto reminded her, pointing at the bandage, which had started to stain crimson once more.

"Naruto, remember that S-class mission I had talked about earlier?" she said, the first words since Naruto had told his story.

"Yeah, what about it? Is that really relevant to this?"

Tsunade's inflection was grave, as was her nod.

"It has everything to do with this," she paused for a moment and retrieved a box from under her desk before resuming. "Naruto. What you will see in this box will likely stay engraved in your mind until the day you die. I don't ask lightly of this. You can back out right now from this mission, and I won't resent or judge you a single bit because of it"

"Oh shut up, Baa-chan. Really, don't be so melodramatic. Besides, I've never refused an S-class" he grinned cheekily and moved his hand to lift up the lid. "Besides, it's probably some retarded dead anima-"

He stopped in mid-sentence, and his eyes widened in shock. Bile threatened to rise up in his throat, and his fingers began to shake uncontrollably.

"Baa… Hokage-sama… What is this?!"

Inside the box, Anko's neatly severed head lay looking up at Naruto.

The eyes had been gauged out, and a crude parody of the sharingan painted on rocks had been inserted into the sockets.

Naruto lost his self-control and ran over to the window. He stuck his head out of the window, and hurled the contents of his stomach the two hundred feet to the ground. Tsunade stared at the door in front of her desk impassively. She didn't say a word, and waited nearly a full five minutes before Naruto had regained his composure.

"My apologies, Naruto. I should have warned you more appropriately," she spoke, "but it was better that you see it rather than hear about it."

Naruto remained silent, but he maintained his gaze on Tsunade's face.

"Over the past month, I have been receiving intelligence reports that a dark silhouette with Sharingan-like eyes had been attacking isolated areas of the Land of Fire. Up until a few weeks ago I had dismissed this as rumors, which is why you hadn't heard about it at all," she said, quickly answering Naruto's question before he worded it himself. "That is, until yesterday. This was found in the gate watch's main office building yesterday. Nobody recognized it, or claimed it as its own, so it was opened to see if it had any contents in it. Of course, the head was recognized, and it was instantly brought to me. Nobody else besides you and the ninja who handled it has seen the contents. Which means that nobody else except yourself, Kakashi, Sakura or Sai may know about it."

"Of course, the Sharingan stones are a clear message. Sasuke is back, and he means business. We have no idea why he has done this, or what are his intentions. Your mission will be to answer those two questions. Your resources are the full use of your war-time capacities, fully approved by myself and most of the council. Funding will be unlimited, and you have been granted any resources you deem necessary to this operation. Understood?"

Naruto had stayed quiet throughout all of this, but now his eyes steeled themselves. His stance became more aggressive, his nostrils flared, and his lips pulled back, displaying his teeth. Everything had happened too quickly for any normal ninja to understand, judge correctly, but Naruto was different. He was the Toad Sannin, the most powerful ninja in the village, second only to his Hokage. He didn't have to waste time dealing with confusion or doubts. It came with the job.

"Understood."

"Good. Leave now, get rest. You will be back in this office at exactly 0900 hours," Tsunade turned swiftly around in her chair, and Naruto found himself staring at the back of her head. Dismissed.

He left the room.


A/N: Not going to lie, Naruto can be a bit of a badass when wants to be. Longest chapter so far, I think, and probably the one I like the most so far. So the story finally has a plot! Anyway, I'm thinking of adding some Naru/Saku fluff next, but eh, we'll see. Hope you enjoyed it!