Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any associated characters.

A/N:

Welcome to chapter ten of Sister Lost.

Once more that same ol' song: I do not have any beta readers so spelling, characterization and such are all on me, feel free to point out any and all glaring errors. Especially since English isn't my first language. I will try to avoid all the regular pitfalls, but it will be unavoidable that things slip through; feedback will allow me to fix mistakes and prevent future ones. So tear my grammar and spelling a new one if you find errors.

With this chapter I'm officially past 50k words of story, WOOOOOOOOO

Thanks to md5i for the tremendous help with the grammar of this chapter.

Chapter 10: Rescue

Hinata and Sasuke, cell in enemy shinobi compound

Sasuke was considering their options. They had been captured. Now they were apparently about to get sold off to Komugakure. He couldn't believe that they had been the target, how did the enemy even know they were coming?

There were so many questions and only a few answers. The shinobi had been after his teammate, he shuddered a little at what they had said before leaving. That would be their fate if they didn't escape from this.

Sasuke had no illusions about what would happen if they were taken to the Land of Lightning. One could only resist brainwashing for so long, eventually torture would break a person, positive and negative reinforcement would override what is left and they would become willing slaves.

Hinata's reaction to the Kumo shinobi had taken Sasuke by surprise, the quiet girl who only ever seemed lively around their blonde teammate had been straining against her restraints trying to jump towards the shinobi yelling and screaming. Swearing that she would kill him as soon as she could get her hands on him, daring him to come closer, even with her hands locked inside their restraints, which prevented hand seals.

The girl had slumped to the floor not long after they had left and was now looking at the door like she was looking at something on the other side of it without her Byakugan active. Sasuke had tried to talk to her, but she was completely unresponsive.

"Hinata... Hinata..." Hinata turned her head towards Sasuke, looking at him with a dead look in her eyes. "This isn't the first time Kumo has tried something like this is it?" Sasuke looked at the broken girl sitting on the floor a few feet away from him. She just nodded and then turned her head back towards the door, looking at nothing.

Sasuke preferred the super angry Hinata to whatever this was, that stare was beyond creepy.

Hinata's mind wasn't present, it was trapped in a repeating loop of that night. Her seven-year-old self was standing in the common room of the main Hyūga house. Her training was garb soaked in blood as she saw the door open and her father entering. Taking a step in and closing the door before the stoic Hyūga mask cracked and fell apart as he dropped to his knees crying, clutching the lifeless body of her baby sister.

Sasuke had been trying to get an actual response from the girl several times since his first attempt hours ago and eventually gave up. The situation was hopeless. He had been thinking of a way to escape, but with just the two of them it was impossible. They had parted with Naruto almost ten hours ago, and he wasn't sure if the dobe even survived. They hadn't heard from Kakashi since they split up to get away from the wolves. Despair was starting to take hold of Sasuke, they couldn't get away on their own, there would be no rescue coming. He wasn't ever going to get to savor the moment when he finally killed that man.

A rumble was echoing through the hall, growing in intensity. "What the hell is that?" Sasuke exclaimed. Moments later the floor and the walls shook, followed by the sound of explosions.

Hinata's head snapped up, her eyes went wide for a moment. She then slowly closed them, her face settling into a serene expression, a faint smile lining her lips. She turned her head towards Sasuke. In barely a whisper, voice still a little coarse, from her thirty minutes of yelling and screaming threats at the Kumo shinobi. "It's the sound of a promise."

Sasuke was staring at the girl in surprise. 'What?' Then it dawned on him. The dobe was reckless enough to attack the place head on in an attempt to save them, what was he thinking? He was going to get himself killed.

Kakashi and Naruto, 1 hour earlier, shelf on the mountainside next to the shinobi compound

"WE HAVE TO GO SAVE THEM KAKASHI-SENSEI" Naruto was furious, why where they still at the camp? It had been almost nine hours since they were taken. He was about to charge the compound alone if that was what it took.

What Kakashi had told him kept running through his mind. It was Kumo; they had taken Hinata-chan from him. He could feel his anger rising, everything seemed to go red.

A hand gripped his shoulder. "Calm down Naruto. You need to stay calm!" Kakashi took a step past his student and turned to look at him. "If you attack before we are ready, you will endanger both of them." Kakashi was relieved when the boy's eyes, which had a slight tinge of red, returned to the normal blue.

Kakashi waited for Naruto to calm down completely before continuing. "Kumo cannot allow any witnesses, if we get any proof of Kumo being here we can rally the other three elemental nations in retaliation against them." Kakashi placed a hand inside his tool pouch. "We need to time this carefully; our priority is to save Hinata and Sasuke. To do so, I need you to create a distraction, I will enter the compound, freeing them, while you try to distract as many of their numbers as possible." He had dispatched Pakkun earlier with a message of the location to the Hokage. A team of ANBU would come, eradicate the clan, and look for evidence of Kumo being involved. His priority was to save his cute little students and their client.

Naruto eyed Kakashi. He knew their sensei was good, but to go alone into that compound would require one big distraction. He watched as Kakashi pulled out a large stack of paper out of his pouch. Naruto looked at the papers, eyes lighting up like a kid on its birthday, Explosive tags. There had to be more than a hundred there, he couldn't believe that their sensei was carrying that many around. Naruto had bought a few to bring on the mission but they were so expensive. Their teacher much be incredibly rich to afford that many. He had seen Kakashi working on something when he got out of his tent perhaps these were it.

Kakashi pulled out another stack of papers, there were only ten of them and they were square. "Naruto, I made these this morning, it's a design invented by my own sensei. They are a lot more powerful than those," pointing to the stack Naruto was now holding in his hand. "Use them to rig entrances to as many buildings as you can to detonate when we're retreating."

Kakashi pulled out a map. "I drew this while you were asleep."

Kakashi, waiting for the signal to begin the rescue operation

Kakashi was sticking to the outer wall of the compound, sneaking a look over the wall. His white suit prevented his outline from being spotted while he was scoping out potential targets for when it started. He had found a building with two shinobi guarding the door. That seemed like a good building to start searching for his students and their client.

Naruto had picked out the spot for him to start from. he had to give the boy credit, it was a sound plan. He would come in from the side, while Naruto would provide a distraction from the front and the back. He had left before the boy had come up with the primary distraction, needing a good forty minutes to circle around the compound to get to the right place without being spotted.

He heard a rumble in the distance. 'That must be the signal.' The two guards he was observing turned their heads towards the sound, he hit them both with a genjutsu while they were distracted, delaying their perception of sensory impressions by half a second. Kakashi appeared between them, with their reactions slowed, he had cut both their throats with a kunai in each hand before they reacted.

Kakashi opened the door and unsealed a tantō as he entered. He had not done much in the way of silent killing since he stepped down as an ANBU captain, but this was the time to pick up the habit again. Using Raikiri or even Chidori would attract too much attention. And since most Kumo shinobi used lightning jutsu it was safer to rely on kenjutsu if he were to go unnoticed until he had his students in tow.

He walked slowly through the corridor, the sound of people running echoed off the stonewalls. Explosions broke the silence in uneven intervals. He hadn't run across anyone in the five minutes he had been creeping along. That settled matters, Naruto had made a very efficient distraction, he would have to get a hold of a certain seal mater once they were safely back in Konohagakure to teach the boy how to make explosive tags. He hadn't heard the very distinct Crack the Minato specials made. The boy had followed instructions and was saving them to cover the escape.

Dashing forward he deftly sliced the throat of a man that turned a corner towards him, flinging most of the blood off the tantō in the same movement without slowing down his advance through the corridors of the building. That was only the second person he had encountered inside the building, there had been no alarm raised in the building yet, only a distant noise from outside was ringing.

He pushed open a heavy door, a hallway with reinforced doors stretched out in front of him. He had found the cells. Now to locate his students, he wandered past a few empty cells before spotting Yūki, going past the cell, as he needed to free the others first before getting her out. He found the two sitting in the next cell, what met him surprised him, Hinata was smiling and Sasuke was humming a tune. He felt like bashing his head against a wall there was something seriously wrong with his team; normal genin should have their spirits broken by the situation alone.

Sasuke looked up at Kakashi through the hole in the door, almost looking surprised. "Hn. I had half expected the dobe to show up. You're late sensei. I, uh, kinda lost track of time but that is at least three days, trying to set a new record or got lost on the road of life again?"

Kakashi hung his head; they had no respect for him, when all this way over he would have to beat some respect into them during training or something, and maybe start to show up on time. Still their faith in their teammate was impressive.

He went over to his students and released them from their bonds, as they were done stretching after sitting in that awkward position for so many hours, Kakashi motioned them to follow him.

Kakashi ran through a long sequence of hand signs and placed his hand on the lock to the cell next door. A sizzling sound was heard and it swung in, Yūki was on the floor crawling away from the three. She hadn't been restrained, there was no need to do that to hold a civilian.

"Please..." She crawled away from them, her face twisted in terror, as she finally came to rest pressing against the back wall. "Please-Please don't kill me, I-I didn't know." A tear rolled down her left cheek.

Kakashi looked at the woman as she was cowering. "We're here you rescue you." He hadn't been expecting that reaction. Had they done something to her? It seemed unlikely since they hadn't touched his students.

"Just leave me here; I don't deserve to be rescued. It is my fault, I heard the man as he entered your cell a few hours ago. It's my fault they knew you were coming." Her voice broke as she looked at the three with tears streaming down her face. "I was allowed to send a letter back with the message that we were departing. I mentioned her." She pointed at Hinata. Yūki had in her elation that she was finally going home again, written about the three children that was going to be her escort, about the little girl with the strange white eyes.

Kakashi closed his eye, and let out a small sigh. She blamed herself, it wasn't her fault. Civilians wouldn't know about such things, he would have to first ferret out who had sold the information on the receiving end and once they got back home he would have to figure out how such information made it past censoring. Any mail sent by hawk from civilians was screened to avoid information leaks; there was something wrong if information about a bloodline had made it past.

He looked at the small woman that was broken for the second time in as many months, she was once again captive and had blamed herself, Kakashi hoped she wouldn't become a danger to herself. "Yūki, listen to me, none of this is your fault, there is something larger at play here, something of this magnitude cannot happen just because of a letter." He went over to the woman and offered her a hand; Yūki let him help her to her feet.

They ran back through the corridors in hopes of finding their equipment, it was too cold to go without their gear. Kakashi exploded into a room where three guards were sitting; before they had time to react, he kicked the table they were sitting around pinning on to the wall with a sickening crunch. His tantō sliced the throat of the guy to the right of the table, while grabbing the face of the guy on the left with a hand crackling with electricity, frying him instantly.

In that moment, a klaxon was heard. 'Shit!' The guard that had been pinned against the wall had gotten close enough to the alarm trigger. He motioned for the three to come in and pointed to a table in the corner where their gear was spread out. Letting them put things on while he went back out into the corridor. Several shinobi turned the corner further down the corridor, Kakashi cursed to himself and went into the room, they could not fight that many in the cramped corridors without risking injury.

Kakashi grabbed Yūki and threw her to Sasuke who threw her over his shoulder. Kakashi then started running through seals, much faster than before, putting both hands on the wall, causing it to crumble in a circle big enough to go through, stepping out into the cold air.

The four of them stared at the devastation all around them as they ran for the nearest wall.

Naruto, setting up the distraction

Naruto was sitting on the edge of the shelf looking down at the compound, he had sent twenty clones with explosive tags out to circle around to the far end of the compound. There was still twenty-five minutes until he was supposed to start the distraction and he was still working out all the little details. Standing up he made another twenty clones, pairing them up and giving each pair one of the special tags Kakashi had made. Since he only had ten of them, it was best to have a backup to continue with the attack in case the carrying clone was dispelled. He split the groups sending four clones to approach each side after they had started, bringing four with him into the charge.

He glanced sideways to the mountainside; a grin almost split his face in two as an idea formed.

Twenty minutes passed, it was time to start. Naruto got up and looked at the clone army standing behind him on the shelf. He had created seventy clones to carry explosive tags, saving ten for himself. Naruto gestured out on the mountainside, twenty clones broke off the army and placed themselves with ten yards' spacing between them. The remaining fifty clones and Naruto retreated away from the clones, signaling to start as soon as they had gotten to a safe distance.

All twenty clones dug a hole in the snow that covered the mountainside and placed their tags, igniting them instantly.

Twenty perfectly synchronized explosions shook the mountainside, starting an avalanche. A massive amount of snow and rock shaken loose by the explosions started to rumble down the mountainside heading directly for the compound. Naruto and his clones ran to the left and slightly behind of the large volume of mass moving at an increasingly higher velocity.

The avalanche smashed against the outer wall of the compound, overwhelming it and moving into the compound itself, burying almost half the area.

Twenty clones split off from the assault team and charged into the area looking for targets of opportunity like the ones coming in from the other side had. Naruto ordered the remaining thirty clones to hang back and pick off targets once people started to come out. He then broke off to enter the fray himself.

A of wave memories from clones dispelling hit him detailing that he had caught several people in explosions as they exited the various buildings. There were a few shinobi milling about the place.

Naruto boosted off and landed near an enemy, as he set down he threw out a punch, the shinobi managed to guard himself with his right arm. The arm snapped like a twig, the pain distracted the shinobi for a moment, giving Naruto enough time to place an explosive tag on him, boosting off towards the next target as he set off the tag. Killing the man in melee would have taken too long; there were a lot of enemies emerging from the buildings. A lot of them were caught off guard by the kamikaze clones, he was down to five or so clones from the initial charge of forty.

Coming up to a shinobi wielding a naginata, Naruto boosted towards him. The shinobi seeing him airborne extended the weapon towards him. Naruto quickly formed a clone next to him and replaced himself with it. The clone was impaled on the blade and disappeared in a puff of smoke; Naruto grabbed hold of it right below the blade and hit the shaft with a chakra-reinforced blow, causing the shinobi to lose his grip. In a smooth movement, Naruto flipped the weapon around and impaled the unfortunate shinobi with his own weapon. It was a boy no older than he was. Naruto had no sympathy for any of them, they all had to die, they had taken Hinata-chan. Now they had to pay.

'This is taking too long, where is Kakashi?' More people were emerging from the buildings, and some had begun to crawl free of the snow. An orange blur streaked across the sky above him.

Kakashi and company, having just exited out into the yard

Kakashi had barely slowed down to create a wall to cover the hole. He was assessing the area as he ran alongside his students, Naruto was incredibly destructive with explosive tags it seemed, a lot of doors had charred corpses and bits of flesh scattered around them. He looked at all the snow, how someone had that was clever enough to use a mountain as a weapon of destruction gotten so low Academy scores. It boggled the mind how terrible the grading system was, if stuff like that slipped through.

Sasuke had his sharingan spinning looking for potential threats as they ran for their lives. A shinobi was crawling out from the snow not too far away; he readied a shuriken, having only one hand free really limited his choices in how to fight. He was interrupted just as he was about to throw it.

"BANZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIII II" An orange blur landed next to the shinobi, looked at them and promptly exploded.

Sasuke wished he didn't have his sharingan running at that moment, it would forever be recorded by his eyes, the shock-wave that ripped skin and muscle from the shinobi, how the flames following right behind had flash burned everything. He was starting to see why so many Uchiha retired from active duty to work in the police force at a young age. Remembering every detail of every single kill, would take its toll on anyone.

A loud thump was heard behind them and Naruto fell into formation as he raised his arm as a signal. "How big are those explosions from those tags sensei?"

Kakashi looked at the boy running next to him. "Shit! RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

They spend up, CRACK as a shockwave buffeted them from behind, jumping over the wall without slowing down they landed on the snow on the other side at a full run and kept going. The remaining nine tags exploded almost at the same time CRACK. The shockwave from the explosions joined together toppled the wall behind them and knocked them over.

Getting up quickly, Kakashi picked up Yūki instead of Sasuke, freeing his students to move as fast as they could.

Team Kakashi and Yūki, a few hours later

Naruto was carrying Hinata, she was using her Byakugan to make sure they weren't followed, using it to concentrate on the area behind them meant she couldn't see where she was running, so Naruto had unceremoniously scooped her up as they ran without even slowing down.

"Looks pretty clear, scanned an area of three miles around us now, there is no one in sight." Hinata was a storm of emotions, not that it would show behind the stoic mask that was the trademark of a Hyūga. She was happy to be back at Naruto's side, her protector, the one who had just taken on an entire clan to save her. They had just run away, there was a Kumo back in that base, she knew that it had been the best option, even without her Byakugan active she had noticed how the man carried himself the Kumo shinobi was strong. It infuriated her; they needed to become stronger, strong enough to never back down.

She had been lost and felt helpless after the shinobi had left them in their cell, her mind playing that night repeatedly. It was not until the rumble had interrupted her thoughts and she somehow knew that Naruto was coming for her she had felt like everything would work out. He would always be there for her, she closed her eyes and a small smile tugged at her lips at the thought. Her eyes sprang open with a faint blush spreading across her face where had that come from, she squirmed a little in his arms to be let down and resumed running beside the others.

Several hours later the night was rapidly approaching. Kakashi had created a bivouac for them to take shelter under as they prepared to make camp for the night. There had been no sign of anyone following them so far and they could afford to take a break.

After having built a small fire to warm some food over, they ate in silence.

Yūki was nervous, she was going to have to share a tent with Hinata later, it had been her fault they had been after them, and she wasn't sure how the girl would react when they were alone. Hinata had already gone into the tent; she could be waiting to attack her when she entered.

Naruto and Sasuke were still sitting starting into the fire as well. Kakashi was going to stand watch the entire night, so they were only putting off going to sleep.

Sasuke had a new death to add to his slowly increasing collection of nightmare fuel, he wasn't really looking forward to see it again, which he was sure to do as his brain picked apart the sensory input from the sharingan.

Naruto had killed a lot of people today, while he hadn't seen many of the kills he had a long list of faces twisted in terror and surprise before the clones blew up. He was a bit afraid of the nightmares; his normal nightmares were more than plenty. Deep down however, he was more afraid of not having nightmares about it. Being able to distance himself from killing that many people, like he had when they had escaped from the small cave a few days ago. It hadn't plagued him at all and he was afraid that he might be losing his humanity, like many of his nightmares had indicated he would. He wished he could have some time alone with Hinata-chan so he could talk with her about it.

After sitting for a while, both boys got up and headed into their tent. There was no reason to put it off any longer.

Yūki was left alone with the fire, and decided she should probably get some rest as well; she was sore after being carried over the shoulder for so long. Standing up and walking over to the tent, she hesitated for a moment before opening.

Hinata was sitting in the middle of the tent watching her as she entered. Yūki flinched a little when she locked eyes with her, and broke eye contact looking downwards.

Hinata let out a small sigh. "I don't blame you Yūki-san. It hurts a little to see you afraid of me."

Yūki stared at the girl, nothing got past those eyes of hers it seemed. She plopped down on her sleeping bag, quickly stripping off her jacket and pants and crawled into the sleeping bag.

Hinata followed suit and went to sleep as well, she couldn't change how things was. Hopefully it would be better once they had all gotten some sleep.

The next morning

Naruto was the last to get up; the others were staring at him as he exited the tent.

"Wow, you look like shit" Sasuke said with a smirk. "Didn't sleep well?"

"No, had nightmares." Naruto replied as he stood up.

"Why are you smiling then?" Sasuke studied the blonde.

"Because I had nightmares." Naruto said as he sat down pulling out a ration bar.

Sasuke thought about that for a moment. 'Oh' Sasuke had killed a shinobi and a wolf on the mission so far, but Naruto had a death toll past 50 by now, it was no wonder he had nightmares. Still he wasn't sure why the dobe was happy about it. 'Dobe...' Sasuke thought about it, it didn't really seem right to call him that anymore. The blonde had saved them all several times on the mission, never even mentioning it, just doing what was necessary. "Hey Naruto... Thanks."

The blonde eyed him suspiciously. "For what exactly?"

Sasuke let out a small "hn" then looked him in the eyes. "For saving our asses for the third time since we started this mission. You have really come through for us."

Naruto busted out his widest smile at that. "You're welcome."

Hinata was looking back and forth between the two. That was completely unexpected; maybe the Uchiha really was warming to them.

They broke camp an hour later and set out towards their original goal. Traveling as fast as they could without exhausting themselves, their supplies were dwindling; Hinata did occasional area scans with her Byakugan, directing Naruto to send out clones to catch any animals they came across. They had managed to come across a deer, it had helped a lot on the food situation but they would still be cutting it close.

A couple of days later

They were making good time and it seemed like they would managed to get to their goal before they would run out of water, various animals were sealed in their scrolls, the biggest concern was water, with rationing it should stretch to their arrival at their goal.

In the distance, a howl from a wolf was heard. Hinata stopped for a moment, focusing as much chakra as her eyes could handle, stretching her vision to focus a few miles behind them, a large wolf was running towards them, behind were at least forty people, her eyes widened when she save him, a tall, lanky man with greasy hair, the Kumo shinobi were pursuing them.

She set off towards the others in full speed. "Kakashi-sensei they found our trail, there are forty shinobi behind us, and they are gaining on us."

Kakashi looked thoughtful for a moment. "We need to keep moving, we cannot fight that many without sustaining casualties." Everyone sped up a little; they had already been traveling at close to what was possible for any sustained period.

More than an hour had already passed, the force behind them had followed suit and increased their pace, and they were now in normal visible distance.

A muted Thunk was heard and time seemed to slow down as Hinata stumbled forward, a kunai embedded in her back, right behind her heart. She fell forward. Naruto watched in horror as she finally landed face first in the snow.

Sasuke's sharingan was spinning as a massive amount of killing intend flooded the group. He looked Naruto, who was kneeling over Hinata. The hand he had placed on her back was changing; the nails were getting longer. He looked up at the boy's face, his eyes had turned blood red, his teeth were turning serrated and he had actual fangs. The whisker marks grew darker and more pronounced. His golden mop of hair looked like it was electrified and was standing on edge. Then a huge amount of chakra leaked out wrapping him in a shroud of red that would be visible even without his sharingan.

Naruto threw his head back, let out a cry of anger and pain, and then he was gone, Sasuke blinked for a moment, he had moved faster than he could follow even with his sharingan.

Kakashi was kneeling over Hinata, checking for a pulse.

A/N:

Welcome to Cliffhanger City
Population: You guys :D

Thanks for the overwhelming response to the previous chapter; sorry it took so long to get the follow up chapter up. As an apology, there will be another two or three more chapters this week. Chapter status is posted on my profile.

Happy you guys like it so far, and I will return as soon as able with Chapter 11: The Cloak of the Fox

So we had the first glimpse at the events five years ago, there's a lot more coming about that night, more details, and eventually an entire chapter about it, but that is far off into the future.