Chapter Fourteen: Retrieving Uchiha Sasuke

Naru looked at Tsunade sharply. "I'll take it," she said, rolling the mission scroll up and tucking it into her pocket.

Tsunade nodded. "Good," she said. "Despite you being a member of the ANBU, technically, you're still a genin in the public's eyes, thus, Shikamaru will be team leader for this mission." The pineapple-haired chuunin nodded. "Because of Orochimaru's recent invasion, the village had a shortage of both jounins and chuunins, thus, I can only spare you genins. The FIRE Nine are usually sent for missions of this caliber, unfortunately, I can't spare you any of them as most of them are all on missions. Sasuke could not have taken the worst possible time to leave. Take whoever you want and then go after Uchiha Sasuke immediately."

Shikamaru nodded slowly. "Why did Sasuke leave in the first place?"

Tsunade sighed. "We only have one clue why he left," she said before showing a piece of black cloth with black clouds on it and Naru narrowed her eyes. "He was lured by the Black Clouds' organisation. Their members are all high S-class shinobis. This mission may be on a high level A-rank to a borderline S-rank, maybe higher. Be careful."

Naru nodded before turning towards Shikamaru. "Shikamaru, who are you thinking to get for this mission?" she asked. "I'm thinking Lee, Neji, Shino and Kiba. Hinata is away on a mission, thus, she won't be available."

Shikamaru frowned and thought for a moment before answering. "Chouji."

Naru nodded. "Alright. Take him, along with the others and meet me at the eastern gate. I have something that I need to do first."

Shikamaru nodded before running off to find those that were mentioned. Naru sighed as she took off running to the Namikaze clan complex and headed into her room where she quickly formed a few handseals and muttered, "Kai!"

A secret panel on the wall in a corner of her room was revealed just then and Naru headed over to it before swiping some of her blood down it and the entire panel disappeared to reveal a number of scrolls and a few Hiraishin kunais in it. This secret panel was part of her secret hiding place that no one but herself knew about. Like her father and Jiraiya, she was well on her way to becoming a seals master and this secret panel was hidden by two seals to prevent anyone from finding it.

Naru reached into the panel and pulled out a scroll with the Uchiha clan's emblem on it before stuffing it into her pouch and re-sealed the secret panel and turned to look at the photo of team seven on her desk. Naru watched the picture of Sasuke for a moment. 'Sasuke…are you so afraid of my power and your brother that you've decided to take the Black Clouds' offer and turn traitor to your own village? You idiot.'

Naru then left the Namikaze clan complex and headed to the eastern gate where the team that both Shikamaru and Naru had assembled stood waiting, all with equally grim and serious looks on their faces. Naru came to a stop before them.

"Alright, I'm guessing from the looks on your faces that Shikamaru must have told you about this mission," she said and everyone nodded. "Despite Shikamaru being the technical leader for this mission, I'm currently the highest ranked in the retrieval team, thus, the success or failure for this mission falls entirely on me." She sighed. "From what we knew, Uchiha Sasuke had left the village sometime during dawn this morning. Apparently, he was lured by the Black Clouds' organisation – an organisation which consisted of S-class missing-nins, among them which was a traitor of the FIRE Squad themselves." The faces of everyone present lost all colour; they knew how powerful S-class shinobis could be. "Alright, we'll be moving in the line formation."

Shikamaru then took over and took a quick glance around all those present before speaking again. "Kiba, you will be at the head. You have an incredible sense of smell and could tell immediately if anything is out of the place at once. Second in line will be myself, I'm team leader for this mission and will be able to give out orders as the situation sees fit. Third in line will be Naru; if I fall, she will take over and furthermore, currently, she is the strongest out of all of us here. Fourth in line will be Shino, then Lee. And last of all will be Neji; you have the Byakugan and could see all around us."

Naru then took over and look over at everyone present. "Alright, listen up. I only know of five members of the Black Clouds' organisation and there could be more of them. We don't know the abilities of the enemies we may encounter in this mission or their numbers; so be prepared for anything." Naru glanced at the boys before slipping off her weights and dropping it to the ground where it hit with a loud thud and kicked up a cloud of dust. "Anyone wearing weights, drop it now. We have to move fast and we can't let anything interfere with our movements."

Neji and Shikamaru immediately dropped their weights and Naru turned to Lee. "I don't care what Gai-sensei said about youth! You will drop your weights right here and right now!"

Lee reluctantly did so and before the team could set out, a voice cried out, "Wait!"

The retrieval team turned around to see Ino and Sakura standing behind them, the latter hunched over with hands on her knees, breathing heavily. Naru groaned inwardly at this; what, is this the most well-known mission in Konoha?

Ino looked apologetically at Naru and gave a half-shrug. "Sorry, but she insisted on coming," she said, giving a desperate look at Shikamaru who saw that Naru's eyebrow was twitching with annoyance and her left thumb was twitching out of control – always a bad sign as it always happens before Naru loses her temper.

"I'm coming too!" insisted Sakura and Naru exploded.

Naru had never liked Sakura and neither did any of the kunoichis for that matter as the pink-haired girl brings disgrace to the name of all kunoichis. Hell, her loss to Temari didn't make her any stronger and Naru privately thought to herself that even Academy students could beat her hands down.

"No way in hell am I bringing you!" snapped Naru and everyone was taken aback; as long as they had known the golden-haired kunoichi, she had never snapped or lost her temper and now she was doing both. "It'll be a cold day in Fire Country the day that I bring you along on an S-class mission! This is a life-and-death mission and I'm not about to let a weak kunoichi drag the rest of the team down!"

Sakura looks as if she was just slapped and looked down at the ground. "Just…bring Sasuke-kun home… I know that he wasn't a traitor, no matter what anyone else says. He's a good person and he's just hurt because of the recent invasion and-"

"Goddamn it, Sakura!" yelled Kiba. "I can't believe that you're still defending that traitor after what he did! The entire village knew what his clan did and yet, he is as blind as a bat to things that stuck out a mile! Wake up, girl! Your schoolgirl crush on him is bordering on insanity!"

Naru looked at Sakura coldly. "I've told you before and I'm telling you again," she said coldly. "I hate traitors. I detest them, in fact. And you'd better pray that the others get to Sasuke before I did as the only way in which he is coming back if I ever caught up to him first is in a body bag!"

Naru then turned to the retrieval team. "Alright, let's go!"

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A group of four was all traveling through the trees when one of them – the only female in the ground held up a hand to stop her companions and they all stopped, landing on the branches of the trees.

Unlike with the elite members of the Black Clouds' organisation, these four are usually the ones sent out to accomplish the menial tasks for the organisation. All four looked to be around the age of 16 or so. There was their leader, Soita Kenji who was dressed in a simple black shirt and dark pants with a nodachi on his back. He had silver hair just brushing against his shoulders and blue eyes.

Then, there was Akita Souta who had dark green hair tied up in a ponytail and dark brown eyes, dressed in a black fishnet shirt with a black jacket over it and dark green pants. Then, Yamaichi Genji who had blueish-green hair and dark brown eyes, wearing clothes to a similar fashion to Souta. Then, there was the only female of their group; Kamiro Sati. She was dressed in a red and white shirt with a pair of dark blue pants. She had reddish-orange hair and green eyes and was the one carrying the barrel that contains one Uchiha Sasuke.

"Damn," muttered Kenji. "We're being followed. How many?"

"Five…no…seven!"

Right on cue, the Konoha retrieval team landed on the tree branches, eyeing the four before them. Naru narrowed her eyes at them. "You guys…?"

"It's been a while, Uzumaki Naru," said Kenji, narrowing his eyes. "Yuka-san did warn us about you. Uzumaki Naru, also now known as Namikaze Naru, daughter of the Yellow Flash!"

"Stop stalling so much, Kenji!" snapped Sati. "We have to hurry and bring the Uchiha back to the organisation!"

"I know…" said Kenji. "We have to go on ahead. Genji, can you handle them?"

Genji nodded as he stepped up. "Leave it to me. You go on ahead. I'll catch up later!"

Saying thus, Kenji and the other two then leapt off into the trees again. "You're not getting away!" yelled Kiba and Genji flashed through a number of handseals before announcing his jutsu, "Earth Barrier: Earth Confinement!"

To everyone's absolute horror, a round earth barrier enclosed them and all seven of them could soon feel themselves falling to the ground and they landed with a loud thud to the ground. "What the hell is this?!" howled Kiba, trying to slash at the barrier with his kunai; keyword, 'tried'.

Naru growled. "We don't have the time for this!" she snapped. "Everyone, stand back!"

Everyone obeyed immediately and the temperature of the surroundings dropped several degrees and outside the dome, Genji was shivering with cold especially since ice and snow immediately coated the grounds and without him concentrating on the dome, it easily broke through when Chouji uses his Meat Tank technique and the temperature immediately went back to normal.

"An ice user, huh?" muttered Genji. "I didn't know that there was anyone like that in Konoha, other than Tenken and Kousetsu of the FIRE Nine."

"Naru, seems like the other three had gone off ahead." Shino informed Naru and said blonde nodded.

"We have to go on ahead," she said. "Who thinks that they could take this guy on?"

Lee was about to volunteer when Chouji stepped forward, determination written all over his face. "I'll fight him," he said. "Naru, Shikamaru, you go on ahead. We can't let them get Sasuke!"

Naru nodded. "I'm counting on you, Chouji!"

Chouji nodded as he stood facing against Genji as the rest of the retrieval team took off into the trees again. Genji smirked as he watched the departing backs of the rest of the retrieval team.

"Seems like you really are in a hurry to meet the Shinigami," said Genji. "A lowly genin such as yourself don't stand a chance against me." He then took on a stance. "Let's see what Konoha, said to be strongest village in all the elemental countries had to offer. My name is Yamaichi Genji. Let's hope that you are able to give me a challenge."