Ok, I'm really sorry this one took so long, but when I went over my first version, it was pretty cheesy. So... yeah, here's Chapter 14
Note: I don't own Naruto, or any of the characters. All I own is my plot, the Element Users,and the many characters I havemade up
Chapter 14:
A Sneaky Kage
Before the smoke had even cleared properly, Sakura looked around the room quickly before she joined her team mates in running out of the village. She didn't want any evidence, nor any questions about what had just happened. She herself didn't know exactly what just happened; Sasuke had seen everything and knew everything that had happened, but he wasn't talking, or at least wasn't saying anything without a riddle involved. Figures.
When she got to them, she had already transformed into a henge. Her hair was a bit lighter than Naruto's normal hair colour, and she was wearing a sky blue dress, much like her old red one. Her medical apron had disappeared from sight, and her nails were painted a light purple.
Naruto wasn't very good at making effective henge still. He had wanted to use the sexy jutsu, but Sasuke refused to go anywhere with him like that. Thus, he came up with a different one, a very different one. He was a boy (thank goodness) with greenish hair that covered one eye, sort of like Tayuya's. He wore shades and was dressed in a suit much like his other one except it was blue. Sakura rolled her eyes at him as he grinned at her.
Sasuke had done a lot of appearance changing when he was with Orochimaru. In fact, he didn't even use a henge. He had pulled his hair out of the pony it had been in that had reached to the center of his back and now had his blue hair about the length of Sakura's. His navy blue shirt had been replaced with a deep army green colour turtle neck that didn't have the Uchiha crest on it. His pants were the same colour, but they were real pants, not those shorts he was wearing before. He had even somehow managed to change his eye colour to a turquoise. That part must've been a henge, shouldn't it?
"What took you?" Naruto asked.
"You left a clump of your hair idiot," Sakura replied, holding up a bag with a bit of yellow hair. "That could've have been tracked back to Konoha, and then we would be in big trouble."
Naruto snatch the bag from her and did his best impression of Sasuke in a bad mood, which got him a smack upside the head.
"Don't," was all Sasuke said.
Naruto rubbed the back of his head and Sakura stifled a giggle. People around them looked at them suspiciously, giving Naruto odd looks. Sasuke looked at them and turned back to Sakura.
"I don't think we should do this," he said. "We should just go back to Konoha and find the real Kakashi-sensei, or tell Hokage-sama."
"If you're going to suggest things, tell us what your reasons are," Naruto growled.
"I kind of have to agree with Naruto on this one Sasuke," Sakura sighed. "If you're hiding something, you really should tell us."
Sasuke gave out an exasperated sigh. The next moment, he was gone in a puff of smoke. Naruto looked around furiously, getting more strange looks.
"Why'd he do that?" he asked Sakura.
She shrugged. "If you're asking me why he's like that, then you're even dumber then you seem."
Naruto glared at her, and then followed her to the south gate. That was the plan: to exit the village, head off the island north of the Lightening country and stay there for a day or two. That way, no one could blame them for the Raikage's death. Or so it seemed. Sasuke had said repeatedly that what happened didn't really happen, and had frustrated Naruto to no end with his riddles. Even Sakura had started to get annoyed. They both had no idea where he was now, only could hope he was at the north island waiting for them.
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Ino was starting to fall behind Chouji. She was panting harder than him, yet he still managed to snack on a bag of chips.
"No way he's stronger than me," she thought. "I mean, as much as he denies it, he's fat. Well, I guess he would have more stamina than me from eating so much, but still."
Shikamaru looked behind him and yelled at Kakashi that they were going to take a brake. Kakashi glared at him before coming to a stop. Ino was relived at the brake. Chouji immediately sat down and took out another bag to replace the empty one. Kakashi stood perched on a branch eagerly awaiting the brake to end. Shikamaru walked over to Ino and patted her on the back. She fell to the ground and lay on her back, looking up at Shikamaru and panting heavily. He smiled down at her slightly.
"For once… I'll agree with you…" she said through her heavy breaths. "Going with Kakashi… is a lot of work…"
Shikamaru chuckled. "You mean troublesome."
Chouji looked at his other two team mates and was almost ashamed. He was the reason that they hadn't been friends for the beginning part of their group-man ship. Ino had been frustrated that she had Chouji as a group member, and since Shikamaru stood up for Chouji, he had gotten the bad mood treatment from her as well. He reached into his bag and felt around. One more bag left. He sighed and took that out, eating as slowly as he possibly could, which wasn't very slow at all.
Kakashi started to tap his foot as he became more and more impatient. His squad was about to fall into a trap set up by the Raikage herself, and they could just lay there? The thought infuriated him even more, and just when he was about shout at them to get going, Sasuke appeared in front of him.
Startled, Kakashi lost his footing, and found himself hanging upside down.
"Hey, Sasuke! What are you doing here?" Shikamaru yelled up to him.
"And why do you look different?" Ino asked, eyeing him.
"Naruto and Sakura don't understand they're heading into a trap," Sasuke explained.
"If you can tell, why don't you tell them?" Chouji asked.
"Because all the villagers know about it, so I can't just go blabbing about something like that in front of them."
"The villagers know?" Kakashi asked, jumping onto a different branch than the one Sasuke was on.
Sasuke nodded. "The Raikage tricked Naruto into thinking that he killed her, when really she teleported to the south gate, where a trap is set up for Sakura and Naruto."
Kakashi thought about it. "And how do you know this?"
"During the battle in the office, I had my Sharingan activated, but used a genjutsu to hid it."
Ino got up off the ground and brushed herself off. Chouji got up slowly and looked at Kakashi. He didn't look too happy, but then again, who could tell? Shikamaru eyed Sasuke; he never really liked the guy, and he still didn't, but he knew him well enough to know when he was exaggerating and when he wasn't.
'Well I say we go help them," Shikamaru said with a sigh. "It will be troublesome if the Raikage is involved, but if we can save our friends, it will be worth it."
"I agree!" Ino chimed in.
"Me too," Chouji agreed gruffly.
"Lead the way Sasuke," Kakashi ordered, happy that the brake was over.
Sasuke nodded and jumped down onto the path. Kakashi jumped down as well, and they were off again, taking a detour to the right to get to the south gate quicker. Sasuke made sure his pace was appropriate so as not to tire out anyone.
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"How big is this village?" Naruto complained.
Sakura rolled her eyes. They had only been walking for about a minute before he had started to complain. The gate was in view now, and Sakura was sure they would be out of Kumo in another minute. All the people had left the streets now; in fact, there wasn't a single living creature in sight.
"Naruto, do you think something is wrong?" she asked him.
Naruto frowned. "I don't, but Kyuubi thinks so."
Sakura shuddered. "I thought I told you not to talk to that thing anymore."
"I can't help it! Not talking to it is like not thinking!"
"Well it's not like you do that anyway."
"What was that?"
"Nothing. Look there! See the gates now?"
Naruto shaded his eyes from the sun with his hand and squinted in the direction Sakura was pointing, completely forgetting he had sun-glasses on. He could see the gates just fine, but for a moment, he thought he had seen something else, something that shouldn't be there. It had only been there for a second, and the next it was gone. He shrugged.
"Yeah, but what's your point?"
Sakura was disappointed. He hadn't seen what she had seen, that slight shimmer of purple. Must've been her imagination.
"Ummm… Sakura, little help here?"
His voice brought her back to reality, although she didn't like it. They were surrounded by cloud ninja, the Raikage just off to the side.
"So, you two are here, where's the one that knows all about the Element Users?" she asked through a grin.
"If you're wondering where Sasuke is, forget it lady!" Naruto yelled, hands crunched up into fists.
"That's a shame," the old women said, shaking her head. "I would've let you guys go if you had told me, but since you're just so stubborn…"
She never finished. She just stood there, head down. The jounin looked around and at her, wondering what was going on.
"Raikage-sama," one of them dared.
She shook her head. "Sorry about that, now where was I?"
Sakura frowned. How was she able to do that without the Raikage sensing her?
"You were about to decide the punishment of these youngsters," the same jounin told her.
"Right, I knew that," she said. "Alright, I sentence you to go back to Konoha and never come back!"
Naruto almost fell over. "Not that I'm asking for a worse punishment, but what kind of sentence is that?"
"All of you get going. I need to talk to these children alone."
"Yes." And then they were gone.
A moment passed before Sakura started shouting.
"Ino, how could you! She's the Raikage!"
The old women shrugged. "Shikamaru saw it as a better idea than having to fight her."
Naruto blinked. "Ino?"
The Raikage giggled, sending shivers up the other two's spines.
"Yup. You guys can come out now!"
A little bit farther in the forest, Shikamaru, Chouji, Kakashi and Sasuke came out of hiding and ran up to a stunned Naruto.
"Sasuke, what happened to the plan?" Sakura ask the raven-haired teen, who had changed back to his normal appearance.
"Our plan fell perfectly into the Raikage's plan," Sasuke explained through a sigh. "But even so, I couldn't have told you guys straight because the villagers also knew about this plan."
Sakura let out a little 'oh'. That explained it, why he was using riddles, and why he had disappeared. She undid the henge and Naruto followed suit. Chouji's scream broke the silence.
"It can't be! No, no, no, no, NO!" he wailed, clutching his head and running in circles.
Everyone stared at him, watching him burn a circle into the ground. They all found it rather amusing. At last he sat on the ground and, still clutching his head, started to cry.
"Chouji, everything ok?" Shikamaru asked cautiously.
"NOOOO," Chouji wailed.
Shikamaru stepped back, shaking his head and muttering something about troublesome outbreaks. Sakura stepped in after him.
"Chouji, what's wrong?"
"They're gone!" he cried.
"For goodness sakes Chouji, what's going on?" Ino/Raikage shouted.
"No more, no more!" he wept.
Sasuke walked up to him and punched him on the head.
"Tell us what's wrong or else."
Chouji whimpered. "No… more…snacks…"
Everyone glared at him. Kakashi sighed and took out a copy of 'Come, Come Paradise' to hide his face, though that was technically already done for him. When he sensed that danger to Chouji was about to strike, he put the book away and cleared his throat.
"Well, Ino, you can either take the Raikage's body back to Konoha with us, or leave her here, your choice," he said to her.
Ino/Raikage put her index finger up to her chin and thought about it for a moment.
"I think I'll just leave her here," she said as she crossed her fingers into a cancellation hand sign.
Then her body (or the Raikage's body) flopped onto the ground and the real Ino stirred in the bush off to the left. She got up, brushed herself off and joined her comrades.
"Right, umm… so, we need to inform the Hokage about this right away," Kakashi explained. "I'm sure you all can get back on your own, so… Go."
Everyone went their separate ways, all heading to the Hokage's office building. Far behind them, the Raikage stirred, getting up slowly and going over the rest of her evil plan.
