Hello everybody, and welcome to Chapter 10 of Season 1 of "Shippuden Zero"! Yes, I did a few editing with the name and stuff, and I'll be implementing spacers, which are chapters that separate every story with things saying "SEASON 1" or "Epilogue" or things like that. I put a poll on my Naruto Amino page, and it seems that the majority of you so far would like to have every story of Zero, Hinata, and Naruto in one huge book, instead of separate books which is was I was originally going to do. Regardless, I'll be implementing the spacers shortly after I'm finished with this chapter.

Remember to review/favorite/follow this story if you liked it! Enjoy!

After about thirty minutes of following Akamaru while he was sniffing the trail out, the group of ninja had come across a detour, which is what Shikamaru had predicted. "See? I told you guys whoever this person was would leave something behind. The trail ends here."

"Relax, Shikamaru." Kiba requested. "Akamaru can just sniff out the right scent." Directly after what Kiba said, Akamaru had lifted his nose up in the air, trying to get a hold of the scent. "What's wrong, boy?" The dog whimpered after Kiba's question. "Hmph. Looks like he lost the scent."

"Well, seems like whoever this guy is definitely smart." Naruto confirmed.

Shikamaru crossed his arms and tilted his head over to look at Hinata. "Hinata, can you use your Byakugan to see if you can find a traces of anything?"

"Sure..." Hinata whispered. "Byakugan!" She thought, strengthening her vision and the veins around it, giving her the ability to see three-hundred and sixty degrees again. Nothing was around her, just the chakra around the four people next to her. "I don't see anything."

Shikamaru had looked up at the sky. "Ugh...this is a drag." He threw his arms up in the air. "Zero, you're the last one with the ability to enhance senses. Try to see if you can get something out of this."

Zero nodded. "Let's see..." The chakra in his head was starting to focus again, giving him the Z-vision. He focused it on his eyes this time, to see if there was anything left behind.

Suddenly, a large impulse erupted in Zero's mind, sending pain to his eyes and his head. "Agh!" He cried out in pain. It felt as though his eyes were burning off and his body was engulfed in lava. Zero tried to remove the chakra that he was using to remove the Z-vision. Despite all his efforts, the Z-vision was not going away. His vision was still producing the Z-vision and giving him the sight enhancement. The others quickly paid attention to him.

"Zero?" Ino questioned. "Are you alright?" She hustled over to Zero and started to use her medical ninjutsu since he was in pain. "Oh...what's happening with..."

"What is it, Ino?" Shikamaru asked. "Is Zero okay?"

"His weapon...it's lighting up!"

The other four pairs of eyes widened in astonishment. It was true, the scythe on Zero's back was starting to turn white, as if it was reacting to the Z-vision.

The pain was slowly lessening the more Zero was using his Z-vision. The vision wasn't going away though, only the pain. Zero had his eyes closed because he was clenching them together because of the decreasing pain. As strange as it is, Zero didn't feel Ino's medical ninjutsu at all, so obviously she wasn't the one who was lessening the pain. When the pain had almost subsided, Zero's eyes had opened. He was completely surprised at what he could see. Not only was his Z-vision locating chakra points now, but for some reason when he looked at the other members of their team around him, he could see small red points around each of their bodies. There were also small scatters of yellow light on the ground, as if it was indicating some sort of trail.

"Are you alright, Zero?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah..." Zero answered. "I think I saw something though."

"Did it have anything to do with the trail?" Shikamaru questioned, paying close attention to the mission at hand.

"Yes," Zero pointed off towards the direction that the scratch marks he had seen in his Z-vision were leading to. "I'm pretty sure I saw something over there."

"Alright Akamaru. Over there!" Kiba directed his dog towards the area that Zero was pointing to. Akamaru followed his trainers instructions and ran over to the area. The rest of the group followed behind the dog. Surely enough, Akamaru had lifted his nose up again and started to lower it towards the ground. He barked in confirmation that he had picked up the scent again. "Nice, he found it. Let's keep going."

The six ninja, along with their ninja hound, had continued towards the scent for the next hour. It seems that without Sai, the trip would take longer. Although the trail was gone, the scent luckily could be tracked by Akamaru's nose.

Naruto had looked around at the other members of his group. Shikamaru was explaining the plan for the night to Kiba, as the sun was starting to descend over the opposite end of the horizon it had risen. Zero and Ino were talking for some reason, apparently their conversation was a little quiet. Naruto could point out though that they were talking about Shikamaru and Choji, so Ino must've been explaining to Zero about Team 10. "Wasn't there another person here...?" Naruto thought. He looked to his right, and to his surprise, Hinata was walking next to him. "Oh, hey Hinata."

Hinata's eyes widened at her crush's remark. "Hi...Naruto." She whispered. "How are you?"

"I'm alright, you?"

"I'm okay as well."

Naruto looked off towards Zero for a moment. He remembered what he saw the night before the dinner they all had.q Naruto was watching Hinata train Zero that night. "You know, it's pretty cool how Zero was able to learn that technique from you."

"W-what?" Hinata gasped. "How did you know I did that?"

A laugh escaped from Naruto's mouth. "I saw you guy's training before Neji got there. He didn't really care that I was there to be completely honest with you."

"Oh..."

"I was actually thinking about doing that too." Naruto explained. "To teach Zero the Rasengan while we're here."

"You're going to teach him that? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Of course. Zero only knows taijutsu, and he's not as powerful as you are." Naruto looked down at Hinata, who was a few inches shorter than him. He completely ignored the fact that Hinata was blushing, due to his naive nature.

"That's a very good idea, Na-"

Hinata was interrupted by Shikamaru. She was always interrupted by people that spoke in a louder tone than her, but she didn't really mind it. "Guys, looks like the sun is almost set." Shikamaru explained, pointing to the sun that was halfway peaking above to horizon, descending inch by inch as the time passed, "Let's call it a day."

About an hour after the group set up their sleeping bags, they started to create a fire. Since none of them had Fire chakra nature, they couldn't create it instantly. Shikamaru had decided to offer Zero a break because of the incident with his Z-vision a few hours before. Zero politely accepted the offer and went to lay down on his sleeping bag that Ino had given him, propping his scythe next to the tree. The others had started to gather sticks around the area for the fire. Shikamaru informed them about giving Zero a break so that they didn't scold him for "being lazy". "It's pretty cool how these guys are so organized. A lot of them seem to be so different." Zero thought as he closed his eyes and crossed his hands behind his head on the tree he was laying against. "Maybe I should go get them a small gift back, just a thank you for being nice to me." Zero took the kunai out of his flak jacket's pocket and twirled it around, debating the idea for a moment.

Zero decided to act on his decision and got up from his sleeping bag. He crept over behind the tree so that the others didn't notice that he was gone. Once the shadows had engulfed him behind the tree, Zero picked up his pace and started to jog off towards the darkness. He activated his Z-vision, and focused his chakra on his eyes. Zero completely ignored what happened earlier, and despite those thoughts, nothing bad happened when he activated his Z-vision. The area around him was now light blue, giving him the ability to see in the dark. The forest seemed to just be trees, but eventually Zero saw a river to his left whilst walking through. Zero released his Z-vision and started to walk over to the pond, because the moon was giving light that reflected over the river. Zero knew where he was going, and folded up his leggings and took off his shoes.

The water had average temperature to it. "This isn't cold...?" Zero thought. He could feel the presence of fish swimming around in the water under him. "Regardless, let's get started. I need to get seven fish, one for each of us, including Akamaru." Zero thought as he began to activate his Z-vision once more and pulling out his kunai. "I should probably practice on my hearing. Maybe I can improve this way." Zero inferred, focusing his chakra towards his ears. When activated, Zero could hear small ringing in both of his ears, but they didn't cause any pain. He ignored the ringing and focused on the movement of the fish, reacting to one small splash and piercing a fish with the kunai in his hand.

Back at the campsite, Hinata was gathering the last stick from the small pile to be put for the fire. "Well, that took longer than expected." She thought. It was strange, Hinata could even tell that her own thoughts seemed like a whisper.

When Hinata stood up from grabbing the last stick off the ground, she looked over at the campsite, and her eyes crossed Zero's sleeping bag next to a tree. However, Zero was not in the sleeping bag, and only his scythe was propped up next to the tree. "Where is Zero?" Hinata thought. She walked over to the empty sleeping bag to examine if he left anything behind. Before doing so, Hinata placed her sticks into the pile that was going to be used for the fire.

Something caught her eye when she walked over to the deserted sleeping bag. A small streak of light was forming on the blade of Zero's scythe, so she couldn't help but take a look over at it. "I hope the others don't see me inspecting this..." Hinata thought, taking a quick look over at the group. They were having a conversation about what they were going to do in the morning, and didn't pay attention to what Hinata was currently doing. "They don't notice me, apparently." Hinata now focused back on the scythe. The light had formed some sort of word onto the blade, and Hinata could barely depict what it was forming though. With a few more seconds passing by, the light was forming a clear word that Hinata could easily tell what it said. The word was quite strange, and Hinata didn't know what it meant, all she could do was question it.

"Ascension?"

That's Chapter 10 of "Shippuden Zero"! I hope you all enjoyed, and although it didn't really seem like much of an exciting chapter to me, it still had some suspense to what Zero's scythe just did.

Remember to review/favorite/follow the story if you like it so far!

Also, follow my Naruto Amino page, "Zer0Insanity". I am still holding the event for you guys to create characters for the next part of the story.

Chapter 11 will be out later this week. This is AM, signing off.