A/N – Yay I've finished Uni and got me degree. Now I'm free! Now I have to find a job… dammit – also sorry I took so long. I seem to be lacking in motivation at the minute.
Gotcha
Yamato was still seething as they returned to the village. The others had been smart enough not to mention the photograph, although Hinata looked like she may pass out from blood loss. And Naruto was still grinning like a mad man. Shikamaru had lost interest… after passing the picture to the others of course. He couldn't believe those bastards had been making bets about who was going to sleep with whom, let alone the worrying situation of Itachi's obvious obsession with Naruto. When he'd heard that Itachi had come back before and tried to kidnap Naruto he'd honestly thought it was to piss his bratty little brother off. At least now he knew who his target was. There was no way in hell he was going to let someone kidnap his kitsune. 'How did he actually get the photograph?' he wondered. He knew the girls were good at spreading gossip but that seemed rather extreme. He was going to have to find out. Then he was going to kill Naruto.
Naruto, wonderfully oblivious to his lover's murderous intentions, continued to peek at the photograph when no one was looking. He actually really liked it, although it was slightly creepy that Itachi had a copy. The blonde, thankfully, had his own copy tucked away under his pillow. He wasn't sure why Yamato hated it so much. 'Maybe he hated being caught off guard?' Again Naruto let a small smile dance across his lips. It was one of the reason's he loved the picture. It was rare to see the Captain looking so damn cute. He'd never tell Yamato that of course. He wasn't that oblivious.
Nobody noticed the ominous shadow that was standing not so unbelievably obviously behind a tree. It chuckled darkly to itself before retreating in all its shadowy glory back to its gloomy lair in a strangely menacing looking area. It happily pinned a new and unmarred version of the photograph to his wall… along with a rather worrying amount of pictures of our young blonde fox.
Once home Yamato began to plot. He had to find something that would embarrass Naruto. This was a difficult task because the blonde tended to completely embarrass himself on a daily basis and thought it was hilarious. He couldn't scare him either because Naruto had apparently become immune to his creepy grin. That and he had made odd yet scarily threatening innuendos about having 'the pants scared off him'. It sounded good until he mentioned the words 'in public'. 'Maybe if I scare him and embarrass him…' Yamato grinned as a plan began to form in his mind.
Naruto lay in bed snoring happily unaware of the intruder sneaking through his room. He barely stirred when his cupboard creaked open and merely turned over as a loud ripping noise tore through the silence in the apartment. The large explosion however caused him to sit up, crack one eye open and mumble something obscene about alarm clocks. The Captain quickly fled the apartment and made his way to the Hokage tower. Unfortunately he was too busy grinning at the thought of Naruto's new attire and accidently ran head first into someone. Looking up at the shark like grin Yamato shuddered slightly. He quickly jumped to his feet and pulled out his Kunai, but Kisame had a different fight in mind.
Naruto stared dumbly at the clothes lying on the floor, shook his head and went to make breakfast. When the second explosion sounded he flung on the clothes without a second thought and ran out the door. He ignored the slight breeze, desperate to stop whoever was attacking his village. He even ignored Sai's odd jibes about being a 'trend stealer'. It wasn't until he spotted himself in a shop window that he stopped in his tracks. His top looked almost like a belly top with slightly less material. He briefly had an image of old renaissance paintings flitting through his mind before he shook his head and tore the ruined piece of fabric off. Glaring at it he thought it looked like the time Akumaru had gotten into his laundry basket. Actually, it looked exactly like the time Akumaru had gotten into his laundry basket. 'I'm going to kill Kiba', he thought, dumping the 'top' into a nearby bin. At least the shorts didn't look so bad, except a little… short.
Growling he turned to follow Sai – and hopefully kill Kiba on the way – only to bump into the oddest looking man in an orange mask. Noticing the Akatsuki coat Naruto opened his mouth to get his attention when the man started bouncing up and down shouting "Tobi's a good boy!" Shuddering, he quickly changed his mind and went the other direction, taking another route to the Hokage's Tower. Again he managed to run past an 'unseen' but unbelievably ominous shadow. Apparently the people of the fire country do not deem ominous shadows worthy of their time.
He finally arrived at the foot of the tower to find the odd orange man had beaten him here and Sai had the unfortunate job of fighting him. Naruto would have felt sorry for him but his attention was squarely on Shikamaru who was being attacked by a talking head. Well, more like the head was snapping at his ankles and screaming, "I'll bite your fucking legs off!"
With hind sight running and kicking the head like a football wasn't his best idea. Well, it was, but he should have at least considered the trajectory first. He cringed as he heard Tsunade's scream and both of them took off in different directions. Naruto wasn't sure where the lazy ninja was off to but he decided he'd actually give Sai a hand. After a minute he realised that fighting Tobi was pointless. The man was un-bloody-touchable. He turned and saluted to the frustrated artist before taking off to the city walls to help the others.
The place was a mess. There were fires and rubble and puppets everywhere. Momentarily distracted by wondering just how in the hell Sasori's puppets were here Naruto barely had time to register Itachi's genjutsu attack let alone defend himself from it. He watched the world melt and change and felt himself shiver remembering his last encounter with the Uchiha's spell. Quickly checking he had no extra body parts the blonde blew a sigh of relief before pulling out his kunai and preparing to plunge it into his leg. He quickly took in the world around him, gaping at the cerulean skies and pure green meadows. Shaking his head he plunged the kunai deep into his thigh and closed his eyes as the world again melted around him. Opening his eyes to the chaos of reality Naruto lifted his weapon ready to fight. With Itachi gone, again, the blonde turned his attention on the people around him.
He spotted Kakashi first fighting that weird blonde guy – hadn't they killed him already? – and Sai was above him swooping on his ink eagle. He guessed Sai had finally realised fighting Tobi was useless. He saw Sakura fighting puppets that were seemingly moving on their own and Shikamaru was again being attacked by the immortal insane head. Ino and Chouji were fighting a man covered in thousands of stitches and strings – again, hadn't they killed this guy before? – and Neji and Hinata were using there Byukagan to try and find the best way to attack. He finally spotted Yamato off in the distance and couldn't help but gape. It looked like the Captain and shark boy were, well, just staring at each other.
The Captain felt his eye twitch as he watched that insane toothy grin get impossibly wider. He could feel himself grin back – the hell he was going to let a damn shark beat him – and in that moment thousands of children worldwide screamed in unison and were mentally scarred for the rest of their young lives. He knew the damn shark was just trying to distract him, but he couldn't help playing along. What worried him was that he wasn't completely sure what Kisame was trying to distract him from – to keep him from fighting, or to keep him from helping Naruto? He hadn't seen the blonde since the explosions had went off and it was starting to concern him. Naruto should have at least ran past him by now. 'Maybe he went another way', Yamato tried to reassure himself but he could feel a knot forming in his gut. Sighing, the Captain quickly performed some hand seals and trapped shark boy in a wooden shell. Although he found the sharks form of distraction hilarious he knew he had to finish this fight quickly
Naruto rolled his eyes when he saw Yamato finally enter the fight and start creating a maze of tree's to try and trap the enemy in. The blonde took off to help Sakura, and was glad to see the pink haired girl was still fighting fit. "Sakura, you go and help the healers. I'll take over here." He grinned at her and summoned a few shadow clones who immediately began attacking the puppets. Sakura smiled gratefully at him and took off to help the injured. She knew the infirmary would be overflowing and that Tsunade would need as much help as she could get. Sakura hated leaving the others behind to fight but she knew where her skills were the most useful. She could see Ino and Hinata following behind and smiled. Healing was just as important as fighting.
Yamato let out a sigh of relief as he finally spotted Naruto out of the corner of his eye. He was beyond happy to see him running dashing about like the idiot he was. Then he sniggered. He was a little disappointed that Naruto had discarded his creatively cut top, but he took a minute to admire the view. He couldn't help drooling a little as he watched Naruto running around in nothing but shorts, though he quickly regained his senses when a shuriken flew over his head. He could admire the view later. He turned his attention back to his work and tried to block out the noise of fighting and instead focus on whatever orders were called out. He felt one of his branches connect with the 'medical' ninja's head and grinned. His victory was short lived when he heard a shout from Naruto. He turned to see the puppets swamp the blonde, attacking from all sides. He stared in horror as a familiar raven haired ninja walked out from the shadows and towards the horde that had taken over Naruto. Feeling an odd dread settle at the pit of his stomach he quickly scanned the grounds until his eyes landed on a man and his dog, "Kiba! Help Naruto!"
Kiba quickly darted towards the horde of zombies- sorry, puppets- and pulled the blonde out. He and Akumaru kept them at bay as Naruto faced his stalker. The Captain watched feeling helpless as Shikamaru joined the fight – having finally kicked Hidan's head into Yamato's maze – and stopped a few of the puppets from attacking the blonde who was standing stock still. Yamato's eyes widened as he realised Naruto was caught in another genjutsu. He was really going to have to teach Naruto how to defend himself from these sorts of things. He couldn't stab himself every time he was caught in a genjutsu. Yamato changed the direction of one of his branches so it collided with Diedara, knowing that he needed a little more help on this one. "Kakashi", he called as the silver haired ninja turned to thank him, "don't let Itachi near Naruto!"
Kakashi's visible eye widened as he spun on his heel to see the Uchiha advancing on Naruto's prone form. Itachi heard the call for help and grinned. He wanted to see the look of helplessness on the strange tree conjuring ninja's face but he didn't dare break another genjutsu. He had put a lot of effort into Naruto's fake world this time, hoping to distract the young blonde for long enough. He didn't want the fox to stab himself again. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of silver and knew the copy ninja was coming for him. He quickly leapt and grabbed the blonde. He was about to disappear when a chunk of wood crashed into the side of his face. He recovered to find Kakashi before him and Naruto stirring from his trance. Cursing he pulled out a kunai and joined the battle. He'd get his kitsune after he dealt with the copy ninja.
Yamato let out a sigh of relief when he saw Naruto snap out of the spell. He'd almost managed to trap all the Akatsuki members, though holding them was proving to be difficult. Diedara had gotten out and taken to the skies. Luckily Sai was hot on his heels. Shark boy had finally hacked his way out of his cocoon and was running for Naruto. The blonde was quick and managed to miss most swings from the great sword. Kisame managed to clip him once round the side, but it was all he needed. Naruto landed at Itachi's feet just as Kakashi missed. Both Junin's stared in horror as Itachi grabbed the blonde and disappeared.
The rest of the Akatsuki were quick to retreat and only a few bothered to chase them. Yamato sat numbly on the ground staring at the spot were Naruto had disappeared. Kakashi laid a hand on the mans shoulder, "I'm sorry Yamato, I tried…" the copy ninja's voice trailed off as he dropped his head in defeat. The Captain sprung up and marched towards the ninja's that remained. Though hurt and tired they all stood to attention and awaited his orders – not out of fear of him, but fear for their friend. Yamato found he had no idea what to say. Instead he simply ran past them and through the destroyed wall. The others nodded to each other and followed without a second thought. Kakashi watched silently. 'We'll need a medic', he thought before disappearing to find the last member of team 7.
Yamato could feel his vision blur but he continued running through the pain. He had to find Naruto before Itachi had a chance to do whatever it was he was up to. He recalled what had happened to the red head. This time however, there was no one to bring Naruto back to life. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind and kept running towards the only place that the Akatsuki had been known to reside. He could hear someone calling out his name but he ignored them. There wasn't any time for talk. He had to find Naruto – before it was too late.
A/N – sorry for the ending and my awful attempt at writing fight scenes. I'll have the next one up sooner. I'm already working on it, honestly!