A/N: So it's come down to my final two months at home, meaning that my time to write this story is running out. I'm going to have to push up my pace a little bit, probably to around three chapters a week. If I don't finish this now, you guys may need to wait several months for the finish of War of the Eyes, and I know for a fact that you don't want that.
Everything else is looking great; Mom and Grandpa are on the mend from their respective ailments, and I have plenty of time for physical conditioning, so I'll be more than ready for training come February. If I really apply myself to it, I should have no problem getting this done on schedule.
Ready, set...
Chapter Eight: Challenge
Insects can be marvelously efficient life-forms. The Kikai bugs, for example, are single-minded in the tasks that they are given, and are immune to fear. They can eat through a variety of materials—chakra included—as well as detect light and sound on a spectrum that humans cannot, making them excellent lookouts. Also among their fascinating abilities is the power to track an enemy by following the scent of one of their hive that has landed on that enemy.
Shino made use of all of these abilities on a regular basis. This very moment, in fact, he was using their lookout capabilities and their tracking power simultaneously. He had thrown the shuriken at the boy, Hikaru, for two reasons. The first, of course, had been to disrupt the killing jutsu that had been aimed at Sakura. The second purpose had to do with a conversation that Shino had had with Neji just after the skirmish in the waterfall cavern...
"They will come again," Neji said. "They will keep coming until they have what they came for. We don't know what kind of power or trickery they have backing them up, so it is possible that they may be successful after a few attempts, or possibly even the next attempt."
Shino nodded. The Hyuuga Jounin had always had a good head on his shoulders, and he still had one now. His own instincts agreed with everything that Neji said.
"Hinata-sama appears to be their target," Neji went on. "As one of her guard, as well as her cousin, I won't allow her to be taken. I want you to help me take preventative measures."
"What kind of preventative measures do you mean?" Shino asked, keeping his voice down. He and Neji both knew that if Naruto heard of this, he would want to do it himself, and while he had undoubtedly improved in many areas, he was a ninja more suited to cure than to prevention.
"Did you manage to put a bug on either of the attackers?" Neji asked.
"No," Shino replied. "The powerful pesticide produced by the female prevented any of my insects from reaching them as they ran."
The Jyuuken master's face betrayed no sign of dismay; he had either expected that response based on the accounts he had been given or he was simply as disciplined as was needed to keep a cool head in the situation. Rather than lose heart, he acted as a true leader and followed the situation to the next step.
"The next time they appear," Neji told him, "Put a bug on one of them as soon as possible. You'll be able to follow them if they run, and then you might capture one of them when they are off their guard, or at least learn something about their intentions."
So when the shuriken had stuck itself in Hikaru's arm, it had brought more than pain to the light-haired youth. The female Kikai bug had nestled down in his clothing, emitting the silent signals that only her male counterparts could detect. Shino now followed these signals as his insects picked them up, entrusting the search for Neji and Kiba to their other teammates. Sakura had as good a guess of where to look for them as he himself did, and he was certain that Neji, in the same situation, would rather have him pursue the Cloud team as well.
The living hive passed through the makeshift tunnel that ran under the south barricade, noting the dry smoothness of the surfaces inside—it had obviously been created by wind erosion. Also astounding was the distance that the enemy had covered in so short a time. This third shinobi in the blue robe was definitely powerful. Shino felt he would need to fully exercise his stealth capabilities to be able to enter and leave their camp safely, and capturing any of them would be out of the question if the wind user was anywhere nearby.
He followed the trail of the female bug southward into the blasted, rocky area where the buzzards slept. Here Shino found that the trio had rested for a little while; there was a collection of disturbed dust and random footprints near one of the spires. The scent of the bug had been fairly weak going from the exit of the tunnel to this point, since they had run so quickly that the signal had been dispersed in the air. Here, though, it became stronger as they stopped, and remained strong as Shino pressed on—their pace had slowed past this point. Sensing an opportunity to catch up, he increased his speed.
Eventually, after another two kilometers, Shino's search took him out of the rocky badlands and into a forested area which ran uphill towards the mountain's peak. He could see snow drifts only a few hundred meters up. He began to slow his pace, both to conserve energy and out of concern that the search would end soon. The group was fast, but they would not run much farther and be able to catch up with Neji's group when they left. And if they were stopped nearby, moving too quickly might cause him to blunder straight into their camp.
The bugs told him that Hikaru was not far away now. The scent was growing stronger. Shino withdrew a kunai from his equipment bag, preparing to fight his way out of any traps that may have been set.
However, before he caught sight of his target, the bugs gave a sudden warning: There was a human behind the brush at his four o'clock! Immediately, Shino slowed to a halt, coming to rest with his back against a massive tree. Silently, he asked the bugs to provide him with details about the human. It wasn't Hikaru, for the scent of the female bug continued for some distance. Was it the wind master, then? The bugs answered that the details were blurry, that water was confusing the sensory input. Whoever it was was in some body of water.
Carefully, silently, Shino scaled the great tree and looked down beyond the bushes. He couldn't see a person there, but a stream was running downhill from the mountain peak, which explained the water. Also, there was a pile of clothing laying just within his line of sight, at the edge of the stream. Whoever was out here was bathing in the mountain water, then. They must have been doing it on the opposite side of the tree from him, as well, since their clothes were nearby and he could not see them on either side of him. But who was it? Focusing his vision in the dark, he struggled to examine the pile of clothing on the stream's bank.
The clothing was simple, for the most part, but in the pile Shino could see a massive black cloak. In that instance, he knew that he was dealing not with the wind master, but with the female plant user, Ayaka.
This seemed to be bad news for him. Because she was female and bathing and her two teammates were male, she was likely to be alone, so he could not eavesdrop on any important conversations. Capturing her would be easier in the vulnerable state that she was in, but as professional as Shino was, he was not asexual or a cur; his perception of the rules of good conduct prevented him from attacking a naked unarmed woman.
No, he would be unable to do anything beneficial to the team in this situation. It would be best to continue pursuing the loud-mouthed, less careful Hikaru. He leaped down from the tree, ordering his bugs to pursue the scent again, but as he touched the ground and prepared to run again, a voice called out to him.
"Stop there, Aburame Shino."
It was the voice of the woman shinobi. She had detected him! What was going to happen now? Hikaru was probably very near, and she could easily call to him for assistance, which could lead to the wind master joining the fray... And if the wind user was nearby, defeat would be assured. It seemed that his reconnaissance sortie was compromised. But Shino stood silent and still, waiting and listening for the consequences of his carelessness.
But Ayaka did not call out to her teammate. She did not say anything at all for a long moment. Shino could not hear movement, but with skills such as hers, she could likely move silently even through the running water. Suddenly he had an idea? Had her command to halt simply been a ploy to give herself time to dress, so she might fight him herself?
But eventually she spoke again, saying, "I had thought that the Hyuuga would send one of you after us—if not you personally, then the dog and his master, at least. The branch members are predictable, protecting their charges aggressively."
One of Shino's bugs came back from around the tree and reported that Ayaka was still in the water. This confused him greatly. Why was she not taking steps to jeopardize him? Something was amiss here. Then he remembered what she had said to him earlier, as she had glided away from the cliffs...
"I hope one day to fight you on a more level playing field."
Was this what it was about? Did she want to fight him here and now, personally?
"You are alone and unarmed," he said, hoping to bluff her. "If you will not answer my questions, I will kill you and move on to your teammates."
"I expect I won't be alone very long," she said. "My teammate, Hikaru, is juvenile, foolish, and perverted. At any moment he may arrive in a nearby tree to peer down at me. What would you do then, Aburame?"
There was no emotion in her voice as she spoke. Instead she was cool and logical, much as he was. Shino understood why Naruto did not get along very well with him at times; being logically refuted was cause for annoyance. However, he had much more patience than his orange-clothed comrade, and was not about to lose his cool so easily.
"I have observed both your fighting style and your teammates'," he countered, "And by your own admission, the juvenile's effectiveness is greatly reduced in dark places like this. Also, you are away from your cloak, which I have observed holds the seeds that you use to grow your weapons. In this situation, I have a clear advantage even against both of you. Unless your teammate in the blue robe is also nearby, I see no reason for me to be afraid."
"Yes... if Kouhei was near enough, you would undoubtedly be killed, but he is not here," Ayaka admitted, much to Shino's surprise. Was she serious?
"If you are not lying," he said, "Then you will yield to my questioning?"
"I know your clan, Aburame," came her reply, "And I know that they are a people of rules and of honorable conduct. You would not attack me in my defenseless state, unless I initiated combat myself. I am in no danger if I do not answer to you."
Naruto would have snapped at this point. Shino's eyebrows narrowed in frustration; the woman was right, and though he was more patient than Naruto, there would not be much else that he could do if she did not start talking now.
"How do you know my clan?" he asked, deciding to play her game. "There has been no record of our involvement with any clan of plant-users in our logs."
"Ah," Ayaka said, "So they did not record it after all. Practical, considering how silently and quickly it fell apart. So quiet as to be insignificant..."
"You are stalling for time, telling me this to placate me while you wait for your captain to return," Shino accused.
"No, I am not," Ayaka rejoined in an annoyed tone of her own. "Though if I wanted you dead immediately, that would be logical. Your immediate death by Kouhei's hand, however, would not be satisfactory to me. Not with the vendetta between myself and your clan."
Shino was about to ask what this "vendetta" was—he had never heard of such a thing—but Ayaka was not finished speaking.
"I will tell you nothing that you do not already know, or will not figure out for yourself, Aburame Shino. My comrades and I have been ordered to capture Hyuuga Hinata alive, as well as the Jinchuuriki, Uzumaki Naruto."
Shino almost could not contain his surprise at the mention of his blond-haired friend. What did Naruto have to do with the Cloud's designs? How had she expected them to figure that out for themselves?
"I can understand why you would be after Hinata," he said, "Taking into account the fact that your village has desired the Byakugan for years. But why are you trying to capture Naruto?"
"That, I could not tell you if I were willing to. You would need to ask our client."
Their client? Shino wondered. If they had not been given this mission by the superiors in their village, then who was it that would have hired them for this? Akatsuki, he knew, was after Naruto, but they would have little use for Hinata. Much thought would be required to unravel this tangled web.
He did not have time to do the thinking here, however, as five kunai suddenly landed around him in a pentagon shape. Every one of them had something attached to it, which Shino was certain must have been special tags. He was caught in Hikaru's killing ninjutsu.
"I've got you now, bug-bastard!" yelled the boy from above, forming the necessary seals. "Nobody peeks on Ayaka-chan but me! Ninpou: Go Inkenraikou! (Secret Art: Five Treacherous Lightnings)"
Five bolts of electricity, each one colored differently, struck the body of Shino straight in the chest and back. Hikaru crowed in wild triumph as the body vaporized in a flash of red, blue, yellow, brown, and white light. Jumping down, he stuck his foot into the ashes, grinding them into the ground.
"HA HA!!" he yelled. "Aburame this, Aburame that... looks like he wasn't anything at all, in the end! I win!! No walking hive is better than..."
His words suddenly cut themselves off as a flight of insects zoomed up around his head and winged away into the night. He slapped at them wildly as a few of them nibbled at his eyes and ears. However, not a single one was hit, and within seconds they were all far beyond his reach. Enraged, he stamped the ground. When he looked at what he had stomped on, his rage grew. The "ashes" were actually a small collection of insect corpses.
"So the Aburame is nothing, is he?" said Ayaka. She stood over him now, fully clothed and looking amused. "He seems to be quite good, since he foiled the Mighty Hikaru's ultimate attack with a simple Mushi Bunshin."
Hikaru merely fumed, staring at the ground where the "bug bastard" had been. Ayaka looked up into the night sky, her face a mask of ice.
But as good as you are, you will die in the end, Aburame, and I will be the cause.
OoOoOoOoOoO
When alone and face to face with an entire legion of skilled shinobi, there is a certain set of prescribed logical responses listed by the textbooks for shinobi to follow. At the top of the list is the option that most shinobi in their right minds would choose: run away, and fast. Of course, there are certain situations in which it is impossible to run away. In these situations, your response can vary depending on the battlefield situation. If you know there are allies running to catch up with you, a smart option is to hide. If hiding is impossible or there are no nearby allies to come to the rescue, and are not in possession of a powerful weapon capable of massive damage to the enemy, it is a wise choice to destroy yourself rather than be taken alive, for the enemy may gain much through your capture.
On the other hand, if you are in possession of a mighty weapon, then the book offers you the option to hurl yourself at the enemy, using the weapon to inflict heavy casualties before you are killed. Haruka had no material weapons other than her own body. However, she had a temper and a drive to win that was more potent than ten crates full of exploding tags. All that was needed was to light the fuse.
The enemy had a force of four hundred Cloud chuunin and one hundred and thirty-five Cloud jounin, all of them trained for large-scale combat operations. These shinobi were at home in mountainous regions; the terrain favored them. Behind them were approximately fifteen-hundred soldiers bearing the standard of the Lightning Country. Behind those were catapult crews—the same ones, apparently, that had blown the hole in the wall.
At the head of this large company was a short, dark-haired jounin attended by a single chuunin, who followed behind him reverently, as though he were in the presence of god, though the chuunin was easily a foot or more taller than him. The lead jounin's sharp, beady black eyes surveyed the area before him, taking note of the current amount of damage to the town—it wouldn't be worth taking if it wasn't going to be intact by the end of the battle—as well as the apparent number of enemies inside.
And he took note of one more thing: a female lying prone behind a fallen pillar, peering up at his legion with silver eyes and engorged veins.
"Oh?" he said, cracking a smile. "How lucky are we? Our first opponent is a Hyuuga."
"Oh, we are extremely lucky, Boss!" chirped his attendant. The tall chuunin seemed very enthusiastic for his superior.
"Indeed, we are lucky," responded the Boss. "We have never had the opportunity to capture a Hyuuga alive. After the last mishap twelve years ago, the most we have ever accomplished was cheating them out of a corpse! And of course, we were unable to glean any secrets from it, because the villains had tampered with it. But now..."
Listening from below, Haruka knew that it was time to leave. She might have been battle-crazy, but she was nowhere near stupid, and she knew a hopeless fight when she saw one. She'd have to come back after she had regrouped with Naruto and the others. She pushed herself out of her inadequate hiding place and took off at a dead sprint away from the enemy.
The Boss gave a little chuckle as his advance guard cut her off. Four elite jounin flashed in front of her, brandishing all manner of weapons. One tall, tan-skinned man with long black hair and a cross-shaped scar on his cheek held a long katana poised over Haruka's head. Another man with shorter brown hair and frosty blue eyes held tonfa at the ready behind her. A pair of twins—one male and one female, both with oddly luminous purple hair and pale white skin—each gripped one of Haruka's arms with one hand, while holding the other fist extended towards her neck. The fists might not have seemed very threatening had they not been wearing wicked, glove-mounted knives. The female wore straight, razor-sharp blades on both hands, while the male wore a single serrated blade on the fist at Haruka's throat and steel knuckles on the other. Caught in the center of these four elites, there was nowhere for the once-outcast Hyuuga to run.
"I'm afraid that you won't be escaping, lady Hyuuga," called the boss. "Though it wasn't our original mission to capture you, a live Hyuuga will be a fine trophy, worth a considerable amount of honor. I suggest that you relax and allow yourself to come with us quietly, for all of our sakes."
Haruka looked around her with wide eyes. One moment, she had been fleeing at top speed. The next, she was caught, without having been tricked or trapped, but merely outrun and out-muscled. How did this happen? Never mind, she knew: these were the attacking army's finest shock troops, fresh from their camp, and while she was herself a very capable fighter, she had walked a considerable distance and fought in a major battle in the same day. So on top of being outnumbered and outclassed, she had less energy.
Damn it! She thought. I should have run the moment the wall blew instead of sitting here gawking aat them!
"Well, Hyuuga-sama?" called the Boss, mockingly. "Will you surrender, or is your clan's famed sense of pride forbidding you from even speaking to us low-lives?"
Haruka's lips pulled themselves back in a snarl. This man was really irritating, and there wasn't a god damned thing that she could do about it. She would now be separated from Naruto and the others, carted off to Kumogakure no Sato, cut up and experimented on so that the Cloud could try to obtain the Byakugan that they had failed to get from Hyuuga Hizashi. She would spend the rest of her life chained to an operating table, like Keisuke had so many years ago and probably was now...
She could imagine it: the eyeless one screaming to the merciless heavens while he was slowly turned inside out and cut to ribbons. No sound came from the vocal chords that had long ago worn themselves out, but she could read the words that his lips formed. Haruka! Help me!
On her own table, she reached her arm towards him, trying futilely to close the distance. But then, her arm was gone. She could no longer see it, because her own eyes, her brilliant silver eyes, had been removed. Haruka could do nothing to help Keisuke, because she was as blind and as powerless as he was.
This outcome was unacceptable.
"You..." she said, feeling rage bubble up from inside. Chakra flooded her core, pulsing in her heart and in her forehead, where the Caged Bird Seal—rendered fundamentally changed by Keisuke years ago—tinted it with sick, yellow color. The elite jounin surrounding her tensed as they sensed the fighting energy in her, and the twins tightened their grip on her arms. Their strength, however, was insignificant next to the strength of the Sadist's anger, and as Haruka heaved herself into an accelerating spin, they found themselves unable to hold her. Eventually, the force became so great that they could no longer hold onto her, and they went sailing through the air away from her.
"Bastards!" Haruka yelled as they crashed into separate piles of wreckage.
The Boss looked on with amusement as the action unfolded. He had expected the Hyuuga to put up resistance—their pride could only take so much, after all. Watching, he saw Haruka increase her Kaiten's speed and power dramatically, until the radius engulfed the two buildings on either side of her. The male twin was too slow and got caught by the growing blast, which hurled him away several hundred yards. He did not come back. The female was quicker, and escaped. The man with the katana and the one with the tonfa both were able to leap clear of the Kaiten, but the man with the tonfa was struck by a massive load of debris from the nearby burning house that had been hurled his direction by the maelstrom. He was knocked aside and half-buried beneath it.
The two fighters that remained stayed clear of the whirlwind, waiting for Haruka to emerge from it. They waited for almost ten seconds before the enormous yellow-tinted chakra finally began to decrease in force. Gripping their weapons, they took opposite sides of her as they anticipated the woman's follow-up attack or flight.
However, when the winds finally eased up to the point where they could see the eye of the storm, it was not a mortal woman that they saw; it was an angry female demon. Molten silver pupils radiated a sense of killing lust that accentuated its aura of illness and instability. The detestable seal on its forehead blazed with yellow murder. The image was intricately crafted to inspire fear, and it did its job well among the onlookers; even the Boss himself momentarily succumbed, taken by surprise at this sudden display of volatile rage.
It looked out at them for only a heartbeat before it moved, aiming straight for the katana-wielder. Paralyzed with fright, the man did not react in time to stop the straight thrust of chakra that slammed into his heart. The vital blood-pumping organ crumpled against the angry blast, and its owner likewise crumpled, dead before he hit the ground. The demon screamed in vengeful triumph before turning on the female twin.
The new target was less afflicted by the fear, and was able to move. As she dodged the first lethal attack, she wondered what the Hyuuga woman had done to acquire such strength so suddenly. When she and her comrades had gone after her initially, the Hyuuga had been nowhere near this fast or strong. What fueled this angry power? In her wonder, the purple-haired one made a decisive mistake in her footwork, nearly tripping over stray rubble and being forced to parry the next Jyuuken thrust rather than dodge it. Crisscrossing her blades in front of her, she intercepted the incoming palm one foot away from her chest.
The demon capitalized on her mistake, however. With its free hand, it jabbed a point on her shoulder, which caused that arm to drop limply to her side, its chakra flow cut off. Pained, the girl attempted a sweeping counterattack with her remaining hand-blade, but the demon ducked underneath and kicked her legs out from underneath her. As she tried to break her fall with her other arm, the demon jabbed that shoulder, too, rendering the second arm useless. The girl fell face-first to the ground, struggling to get to her feet.
But the Hyuuga demon didn't let her get up. It slammed its foot down on the base of her spine, shattering it.
The Boss, now over his fear, appeared to be unconcerned, though the loss of four of his elite guard was a near-inexcusable loss that his superiors would be loath to hear about. His chuunin attendant looked mortified, but he chose to ignore that; the whelp was fresh to war, anyway, and would eventually get used to seeing this kind of thing. Even so, this had gone far enough.
"All right, Hyuuga-sama," he called down, "Are you quite done? You've had a good amount of fun, there, but I still have an army at my back. It's time to come along, now."
The demon, Haruka, growled at him as she began walking slowly and purposefully towards the broken wall. He gave a hearty laugh. This was just too entertaining!
"Planning on killing me now, hmm? Well, we can't have that, of course. Let's see how strong you are when you have an entire legion at your throat. All units, engage! Capture the Hyuuga alive!"
There is no clear record of the exact events that followed the boss's command to attack. No surviving Cloud or Lightning Country forces have come forward to testify, and Haruka herself was too busy fighting to remember who, how many, and how she killed. Later, a body count was done within a fifty yard radius of the hole in the barricade in an effort to estimate the number of the angered Sadist's victims. The Sand forces conducting the investigation found a total of fifty-two dead and fifteen maimed into immobility within that radius. Among that number were seven confirmed jounin, as well as the infamous Cloud general known affectionately among his troops as "Boss."
Haruka stood over the dead body of the Boss, growling, snarling, and spitting at the mass of soldiers and shinobi that struggled to seize her. She flailed her tainted chakra in all directions, striking whoever and whatever was within range. She would not surrender to them. Hyuuga Haruka, proud Captain of the Hyuuga Guard, would never surrender, and she would never die. Not until a blind relic was free of Orochimaru's hold.
But the sea of enemies, incensed over the death of their leader, was about to literally drown her. The fear-inducing genjutsu that she had projected around herself had now faded, and her three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision had become blurred. The one thing that she could see with any distinction was the face of the tall chuunin attendant, his eyes wild with grief and anger, as he swung his fist at her.
And as she at last fell to the ground, her vision on the verge of blacking out completely, the young man's face became the face of a weathered shinobi with no eyes, which cried out soundlessly to her...
"Help me!"
I tried, Keisuke. I really tried...
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
"What the hell was that?!" Naruto yelled. "I thought the Sound were beat!"
He and the others had just seen and heard the flash-BANG of the third collapsing wall. It had flashed before it had banged—a burst of bright white light that lit the village like a sun—and the noise had been much like the crack of a thunderbolt. Shouts of surprise, inquiry, and command were being thrown back and forth among the Sand forces around them.
"The Sound didn't come with siege engines like those," Neji reasoned, "Or they would have used them at the very beginning."
"The Sound never had siege weapons," Sasuke said from the ground. "They've always relied on their allies for those capabilities. And the Rock did not go this way to Konoha."
Neji gave the prisoner a hard stare, clearly desiring him to shut up. Few could blame him, as the Uchiha's comments could easily distract the team when they should have been focusing on the events at hand. Naruto, though, accepted the information he offered.
"Okay," he said, "So it's not Sound. Oy, you Sand guys! That wasn't one of yours, was it?"
A passing Sand jounin confirmed the negative. The blast hadn't been caused by either them or the Sound forces. Teams had already been dispatched to see who the culprit had been.
"Damn it, then who the hell was it?!" Naruto wondered vehemently.
"Could it have been the Hidden Mist?" Sakura asked. "Ibiki-san said that Orochimaru might have recruited them to his side."
Everyone gave a nod of approval to that thought, with the exception of Hinata and Sasuke. The latter simply lay in his bonds, watching events play out in a bored-looking fashion. Hinata, a concerned look on her face, glanced in Neji and Sakura's direction.
"I don't think it's the Mist, if the attack is coming from that direction," she said.
"Hmm? What do you mean, Hinata?" Naruto asked, causing her to turn to him. He could hear the worry in her voice as well as perceive it in her expression. Something about this was really getting to her.
"Hey," he asked, "What's wrong?"
"I think I know what Hinata means," Neji said. "The attack came from the northern part of the wall. To come up here, the shortest route that the Mist could take would be through the southeast, the same way we and the Sand came. If that were the case, then the Sand would have had plenty of warning beforehand."
"So it isn't Sand, Sound, Rock, or Mist," said Naruto. "There's no way Tsunade Baa-chan would send any of our guys here yet, not so soon after the attack. That only leaves..."
"...the Cloud." Hinata finished. She looked positively sick with worry, and for good reason; the village that they now knew was actively seeking her out had sent their entire army down here.
"Huh?" Kiba asked suddenly. He'd been silent a long time, withdrawn into himself in wake of his horrible experience. But at the mention of one of his precious friends' worst enemies, he temporarily woke up to action.
"Cloud military? Here? No way!!" he yelled. "Hinata, we've got to get you out of here!"
"I agree," Neji said quickly. "It is extremely dangerous to keep Hinata-sama here. If their strike force discovers her, they will attack relentlessly until she is captured or killed. We need to leave here now."
"Hey, hey! What about Shino and Haruka?" Naruto asked. "Are we just going to leave them behind?"
"Shino is safe," Neji said. "He is doing something that I asked him to outside of the village. He should meet us before morning."
Naruto stared at him a moment before deciding to trust him.
"Then, what about nee-chan?"
Sasuke surprised everybody by saying, "If it suits your needs, then leave her. If you leave here now, then even though you left one or two behind, the mission can still succeed.
Everyone was quiet for a long moment. Naruto had rounded on the Uchiha and was glaring at him with terrible anger in his eyes. Sakura kept her head down while Neji kept a tight hold on Sasuke's bonds. Hinata looked on, unsure how to defuse the situation. Kiba simply stared and prepared for the worst.
"You were on Kakashi-sensei's team," Naruto began, grating out each sound, "And you're telling me you don't remember the very first thing he taught us? Damn you to hell, Sasuke! 'Those who break the rules are lower than garbage...'"
"'But those who abandon their comrades are even lower than that.' I remember it well enough, Naruto," Sasuke said.
"Then what the hell are you doing, trying to get me to leave Shino and Haruka nee-chan behind?" Naruto was red-faced and fuming now. Hinata wanted to reach out and calm him down, but Sakura intervened, putting her arm on the Hyuuga girl's shoulder—this was between two bitter rivals, and Sakura had learned that in situations like these there was only so much that a girl could do.
Sasuke glared back at Naruto, saying, "If you want to be Hokage, Naruto, then you need to realize that at some point you need to stop blindly following the philosophies of others and adapt them to your life. If you never challenge anything, you will never understand how the world around you works. You want to survive this battle? Run away now. Following after the Hyuuga woman will only get you killed."
The glaring contest continued for another long moment. Naruto bared and grit his teeth in anger, and his eyelids clenched shut as he tried to get a hold on his emotions. Finally, he stopped trying to hold them down, and released them.
"Damn it!!" he yelled. "I'm not going to let you drag me down this way! Even if I lose my life, I'm going to find Haruka nee-chan. You guys can run if you want, but I'm staying."
"Naruto-kun..." Hinata started fearfully. He was the same proud and brave young man she loved, but this was the part about him that tended to get him into the worst situations. If he threw away his life now...
"Naruto!" Sakura said, intending to reason with him. "Look over there! You can see the enemy now, look! There's hundreds of them, maybe thousands!! How are you going to fight that on your own?"
"The Sand will help me," Naruto said as he turned away, checking his equipment.
"The Sand have already been through one battle!" Sakura argued. "They're tired, and on top of that, there's only half as many of them as there are Cloud. There's no way you can win like this!"
"It doesn't matter," Naruto said. "I still have to save Keisuke nii-chan anyway, so there's no way that I can die here. If the enemy finds Haruka nee-chan before I do, then I'll kick their asses all the way to hell and back to save her!"
"But, Naruto, what if..."
"No 'what ifs'! I might be conceited, but unlike some people," Naruto said with a backward glance at Sasuke, "I don't consider myself too good for someone else's philosophy!"
A few moments passed in which the only sounds were Naruto preparing and checking his equipment one more time. Everyone had their own thoughts on what had just transpired, but at the same time they all knew one thing for certain: there would be no stopping their blond comrade now.
"Na-Naruto-kun," Hinata said, stepping towards him bravely. "I'm sorry. I know how much your friends mean to you, and... I should have supported you from the start. If you'll let me, I'll go with you."
Naruto stopped fiddling with his kunai pouch to turn his head and look at her. There was a sincere apology in her lavender-tinted eyes. He gave her a smile in spite of his recent anger.
"That's okay, Hinata-chan," he said. "You don't need to be sorry. Stay with Neji and keep out of the fight. Like he said, they'll be after you to the ends of the world if they recognize you."
"It does not make much of a difference if she stays with me," Neji said, "Since I will go with you anyway."
Everyone gaped at Neji, not having expected this response at all. He gave a sigh, and then shook his head briefly as a grim smile spread across his face.
"Naruto has a strange way of making me put my faith in him," he told them. "If he holds to Kakashi-san's teachings that strongly, then they will be good enough for me."
They stood mouths agape for a little while longer before Sakura let out a breath she'd held and capitulated.
"I guess I'm with you, too," she said. "At this rate, you're all going to need medical attention anyway. So, what are we going to do if we get mixed up with all of those ninja down there?"
Neji thought for a moment, before finally saying, "I'll think of something."
Sakura's jaw dropped again.
"You want us to go into that," she pointed at the clash between Sand and Cloud that had already started, "Without a plan? Did you forget..."
"Have you forgotten," asked a masculine voice from out of sight, "Just who you're here with? Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
Everyone shielded their eyes against the explosion that rocked the whole village. Smokescreen billowed up around them, a product of the most massive summoning that some of them had ever seen. When it cleared, they looked upward where the smoke had been to behold the form of their savior.
The Gama-Oyabun (Frog Boss): Gamabunta.
"All right!" Naruto yelled up at the frog and the Sannin who rode on it. "Gama-Oyabun is here! Ero-Sennin, you're not all bad sometimes!"
Jiraiya, who stood tall upon Bunta's head, beamed down upon him and gave a nod.
"Yosh!" Naruto said. "Me, too. Tajyuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
More explosions. More smoke. One thousand Shadow Clones filed into formation in the streets and on the roofs of nearby buildings. The Sand forces stopped what they were doing to look at the new additions to their army, and were awed.
"Okay!" Naruto yelled, "Let's go!"
OoOoOoOo WTF DON'T STOP no Jutsu. End Chapter Eight. OooOoOoO
Next Chapter: Shino has obtained some surprising information! What will the others think when he returns? What will become of Haruka, who has fallen before the enemy? Can the mighty Gamabunta and the Naruto clones successfully repel the invaders?
You can find out in the next chapter, coming soon!