Ch. 12

The moon was high in the sky as the creatures of the night crawled and lurked amongst the shadows. On this night a man was sitting in a cave as he envisioned his future. Upon the wall that he faced was a drawing of an ancient creature that had created great strife to mankind. It was his goal to bring it back into the world and be its master.

As he reached out to touch the engraving of the creature, his subordinate appeared behind him. He did not move as he addressed his henchman.

"What did you find?"

"They are on their way. Should we intercept them?"

The man tilted his head towards his little spy. It did not surprise him that they were already making their move. A valuable asset was in danger of being destroyed, something had to be done. In their haste they led the last puzzle piece to him. What fools.

"No, let them come to us. The fox is in the party is he not?"

The spy nodded his head from his kneeling position in confirmation.

"Good." The man maliciously smirked, "Seems like they are overly confident of themselves. Go and capture him, I tire of waiting."

The spy quickly vanished as he went off to do the work of his master. The man's attention was brought back to the etching on the wall.

"Soon you will be mine."

xXxXx

"Thank you so much for your time," Kagome smiled as she left the vegetable stand.

The team had arrived the day before at the city of Yugakure. This was the ninja village of the Hot Spring Country and so far they could not find any leads. Akamaru and Shino's bugs were able to trace Hitori's scent to this village but it did not make any sense to Kagome why the Akatsuki would come to an area where there were multiple ninjas that could have spotted them. Yet even with all the ninjas it seemed that no one had seen Hitori or anyone with a black robe that has red clouds on them.

'I don't like this, something feels off.'

Kagome shook off the feeling as she walked out of the city and entered the woods. She went to the designated meeting spot and found the rest of her team already there.

Neji was the first to spot her and asked, "Any good news?"

Kagome sighed, "Nothing. I am afraid that we will be forced to go with Plan B."

Everyone shifted uncomfortably. No one felt right about advertising that Naruto was the Kyuubi vessel, thus intentionally putting him in danger. They could not justify giving up one of their own like that.

Naruto sensed the guilt in the air and did not like it.

"Hey guys don't worry about it, I'm stronger than before and it's not like you will be abandoning me." Naruto smiled his famous grin as he folded his arms behind his head.

Sakura lightly slapped Naruto upside his head.

"Sakura-chan! Why you have to hit so hard?" Naruto whined as he clutched his head.

The term lightly being that Sakura did not put any chakra behind the slap.

"You should know by now Naruto, we are a team and we don't abandon our members," Sakura huffed as everyone else nodded in agreement.

Kagome watched and could not help the small smile on her face. Oh how she was glad that the mentality of being a ninja has changed. The group continued their antics as Naruto tried to point out that being bait was strategically genius. Kagome soon noticed from the corner of her eye Shino giving her the signal that their little spy was back and watching them. 'Time to turn on the charm.'

Kagome gave her own signal to back to show that she saw the message. She then brought the groups attention to her.

"While we may not like advertising you, we still need to get going and have word spread that you are here. We will reside inside the Village and have you be your usual self. There is bound to be someone working for the Akatsuki and will send word to them."

"So now that we know what to do let us go and get some hotel rooms. I want a bath and a real bed tonight!"

Sakura and Tenten cheered until Kiba decided to open his mouth. "Thank god, I couldn't stand the stank. It was starting to get to much, right Akamaru? Akamaru?" Kiba turned to see his nin-dog lying on the ground with his front paws covering his face. "You too huh buddy? Well don't worry tonight we will get a break."

Akamaru could only whimper as his friend dug his grave deeper and deeper. If Kiba had turned to look behind him, he would have seen the three women in their team glowering at him with flames in their eyes and around them.

Neji, Sasuke, and Shino all took a couple of steps back and could only shake their heads in shame at the poor fool. Meanwhile Naruto could not help the malicious smile from growing across his face.

"Oi! Kiba, I didn't quite hear you. What did you say?"

Kiba turned to repeat what he said to the idiot's face when he saw the danger that was behind him. 'Oh fuck me!'

"Hehehe, ladies! Calm down now," Kiba held his hands up near his face in surrender. "I wasn't talking about you! I was talking about the idiot over there," Kiba pointed to Naruto, who did not do anything because he knew Kiba was about to get hurt. "I would never insult beauties such as yourselves!"

The girls looked back and forth from each other and to the guys it seemed as if they were having a mental conversation. Kiba was sweating up a storm, he was beyond nervous. Finally it seemed as if the girls came to an agreement. They faced Kiba. Sakura began, "Since you feel that we smell so bad that your nose is in pain,"

"And since we are in need of rooms for the duration of this mission," Tenten continued.

"We have decided that you will be paying for both our rooms and the guys' rooms." Kagome finished with the killing blow.

With that all the girls pivoted on their feet and marched back into the village in search of a reasonable hotel. In reality they were only going to get two rooms; one for the boys and one for girls, however, Kiba didn't need to know that. They were going to let him suffer a bit as they would throw out suggestions for the priciest hotels and tell him how each one of the team members would get a room from those hotels.

This left Kiba with calculating how much money would disappear from his accounts and how much he would have to owe. He cried silent tears as he realized that he would not be able to afford food. Akamaru would have to starve for his big mouth!

All the while Naruto was laughing his butt off. It served the damn mutt right! How dare Kiba say he smelled!

Neji, Sasuke, and Shino could only watch at the antics of the team and collectively sigh as they followed the women in the search for a place to stay.

xXxXx

"No wonder this is called Hot Spring Country! All their hot springs are amazing!" Kagome gushed as she leaned back on the side of the pool.

Sakura laughed at Kagome's antics. "I don't think that is why it is called that way." Sakura paused as the sliding door to the spring slid open to reveal a blushing Tenten wrapped in her towel.

"What's going on Tenten?" Sakura asked in concern. Tenten looked at Sakura but quickly looked down and closed the door behind her. "Umm, are the boys on the other side of wall over there?" Tenten pointed to the wooden fence to try and get the girl to face away from her.

Both Kagome and Sakura turned to face the wall as if they could see through the wood and spot the guys on the other side. While they were turned away Tenten slid into the spring and tried to find a comfortable spot to sit.

It occurred to Kagome what might be the problem. "Don't worry Tenten, I'm sure Neji won't be a pervert and use his Byakugan to see us."

There was a pause before Sakura busted out laughing. Tenten flushed even more before she slapped her hand over her face.

"What is so funny?" The girls heard from the other side of the wall.

"Ka-Ka-Kagome thinks that Neji can see through the wood and see us naked!" Sakura managed to get out between her laughter.

Naruto and Kiba joined Sakura in laughing their butts off. Shino and Sasuke smirked in amusement while Neji unknowingly blushed along with Kagome.

Once the laughter calmed down a bit Neji explained, "The Byakugan can only see chakra paths, so while I can see you through the wall, I can only see your chakra paths."

"Oh well, that's good then…" Kagome trailed off as she watched Sakura trying to catch her breath.

"So…you and Gaara, huh?" Tenten casually asked to try and redirect everyone's attention.

Kagome smiled softly at Gaara's name. "Yep."

"How did that happen?" Kiba asked. Who would not be interested to know how a person like Gaara got a person like Kagome?

"Well it was your typical boy-meets-girl scenario….only with a bit more of girl-trying-to-make-boy-see-reason." Kagome answered truthfully.

Sakura jumped at the chance to hear any type of romance. "What do you mean? Was he trying to kill you? Did you have someone at the time and he had fallen madly in love with you at first sight and wanted him out of the picture? Was it because you both were separated by social status?"

Everyone was surprised she did not stop to take a breath throughout her questioning. Naruto could not help but think that maybe Sakura was secretly into Jiraiya's books considering that those suggestions were a reoccurring theme in them. Sasuke did not want to know so he left the spring. He had better things to do than listen to someone's love life, like sleep.

Kagome laughed a bit nervously before saying, "Well it was more of we both realized we loved each other but he refused to get involved with me because of his past. So I kind of had to knock some sense into him."

"That…does not sound romantic at all." Tenten could not help but point out.

"Maybe she is down playing it so that you will drop the subject." Neji offered wanting to rest for a bit from idle female chatter. He took a page from Sasuke's book and left the spring before the conversation continued anymore.

Sakura got upset at how rude Neji was. "Well as much as this is fun and all I really need to get some sleep. Night guys!" She quickly walked out the spring and into the building.

Only Kagome, Tenten, Shino, and Naruto were left to soak in the springs.

xXxXx

The trio, with Shino adding a comment here and there, still had conversations going back and forth between them. After a while it seemed Shino could not stand the heat anymore and exited the spring. "Good night Shino!" Kagome called out.

"So anyways, back to my story. After days of trying to find out what Kakashi's face looks like under his mask and days of failed attempts we finally asked him when we had enough. And guess what? He said ok! We were all excited and waited for him to show us how he looked and you know what he did? He just pulled down his mask to show us another mask!" Naruto all but yelled. "Who does that?"

Kagome and Tenten exploded into laughter. Though Naruto was ranting a bit, he too started to laugh. It was funny to think about the old days and the trials he had to deal with Kakashi.

As they were calming down they noticed that it was strangely silent. No bug noise, no animal calls, not even the wind passing through the trees.

"Naruto, do you have any weapons with you?" Kagome whispered. The unnatural silence was making her nervous.

"I didn't bring any with me," Naruto whispered back.

Tenten soundless summoned chakra into her hands before she pressed them to her biceps. Once her hands came into contact with her arms it seemed and as seal signs appeared on her skin before a poof of smoke revealed a staff in her right hand and two kunai knives in her left. She passed one kunai to Kagome and threw one over the wall to Naruto.

"A little warning would be helpful next time!" Naruto whispered forcefully after barely being stabbed by the kunai.

That seemed to be what the enemy was waiting for because at that moment the water rose and made bubble like prisons around them.

"Naruto!" Both Kagome and Tenten yelled.

"Fuck! This looks like a Water Prison Jutsu!" Naruto screamed.

"But isn't the person supposed to be touching the bubble? We should not be able to move, right?" Kagome shrieked back. Tenten tried to tear through the water with her staff but all it did was bounce back the attacks.

"My my my, what a smart girl." Kagome and Tenten lifted their heads to see a person crouching on the ledge of the wall separating the spring. He was dressed in black from head to toe. They could not even see his eyes due to the material covering them.

"What the fuck do you want?" Naruto bellowed at him.

The man turned his attention to Naruto's side of the spring and replied, "Why for you of course. I would like to thank you girls for giving me such a nice present. My master will be most happy." The man stood up as he made a lifting motion with his right hand. " Come come, time to go!"

"Fuck you dick head!" Naruto tried to punch through the bubble and get his hands on the guy. When he came into the girls' vision they did all they could to get out of the bubble, but it was no use.

"Such temper. I think you should relax." With that Naurto's bubble turned greenish. While Naruto did his best to resist he succumbed to the stranger's wishes and passed out.

"Naruto!" Tenten and Kagome screeched.

"This is where I take my leave. You should hope we don't meet again."

The man ran along the top of the wall till he bounded to a tree branch. He disappeared into the surrounding trees with the towel clad Naruto not far behind him.

However, even with the man gone Tenten and Kagome were still imprisoned. Try as they might, they could not get out.

"Naruto!"

AN: Soo...for those that wanna know why I took forever go check out QuickStar's "The Change". It is a Predator fic that I have been helping her with. Yep...I got into Alien/Predator stories. :3