I don't own Naruto. Seriously, someone has to pay for making everyone put this in every chapter of every Naruto story grrrrr...
Naruto was officially bored. The whole guard duty seemed a bit less pleasant than being dragged by that perverted hermit around the women's bath houses for no good reason. And his constant grumbling wasn't making things any better.
"Oh would you shut up already! You have been grumbling non-stop from the very beginning of this mission! Aren't you done yet?" Yamanaka Ino, equally bored, snapped at her teammate, finding a convenient target to direct all her frustration.
This ignited the spark of a ferocious argument that lasted for seemingly hours, during which Aburame Shino, the team's leader, kept stoically quiet, and Hyuga Hinata, with her bloodline limit activated, scanned the area.
This seemed like another long, lazy and uneventful day. Naruto would finish his watch, grab some ramen with Hinata, then go to the training field and train until late at night. After that, he would go home, have a bath, sleep, and the next day he would relieve the night shift, repeating the whole circle again.
'So much for a C-rank mission. If I were Hokage, I'd give it a D-. And I would enforce it on academy students and death row convicts, not active ninjas.'
his thoughts -and continuing argument- were interrupted by Shino, who had abruptly stopped and raised his hand. The team fell silent in an instant.
"Hinata"
"Yes, Shino-kun, I see them. Four persons, one carrying something big, they are making their way north. They are ninjas, maybe chunin or low jounin level."
"I am concerned about these people. The Hidden Leaf is protected by a detection barrier, yet no alarm is sounded. Either they are of the Hidden Leaf, or..."
"We get them and find out" Naruto impatiently finished his leader's trail of thoughts.
"We are to report to the closest station and keep track of them" Shino continued. "Their level is way above ours, anyway. Ino, you go to report to the station. Hinata, keep discreet track of them. I will keep guard in case they take notice of us and counter any surprise attacks they might try."
"What about me?" asked Naruto in mild irritation. His freak of a leader had left him out again, dammit!
"You just keep quiet" After receiving a cold death glare, the young Aburame sighed. "Fine. You will guard Hinata from up close. But you must still..." he approached Naruto and grabbed him by the collar. Naruto felt uneasy, as his teammate's shades glimmered in the afternoon light, seriously freaking him out. "...keep quiet" Shino finished, and let go of Naruto's jumpsuit.
"F-fine!" Naruto managed to say before almost hiding behind a giggling Hinata, who winked at Shino and resumed her duties as a tracker.
They remained unseen and kept following them, or so they thought. The seemingly harmless intruders, clad in ordinary peasant clothes, rolling a handcart, seemed like nothing noteworthy to common eyes.
Yet Hinata's eyes were not ordinary. The chakra system of these peasants was developed beyond what it should have been, giving them away. They obviously thought it a bit too much to mask their chakra, for that would raise suspicions, and it would be very tiring to do so the entire way to the Hidden Sound village. But what Hinata didn't notice was their hand movements, almost-indecipherable hand flicks and gestures way too fast to hold any particular interest to a common passerby, yet meant a lot to the trained infiltration ninjas that Orochimaru commanded. The Hidden Sound hand code was developed for quick communication and identification among Orochimaru's spies, enabling them to merge with the crowd and pass on information without anyone being the wiser.
'We are being followed'
'The carrier has to make it to the village'
'We execute the plan then?'
'Yes, when we put a bit more distance between us and the Hidden Leaf'
When the ninjas sprang into action, it caught the guard team flat-footed. The ninja who carried the handcart dashed towards north, with his seemingly heavy load easily carried by one hand. The others moved in different directions, with blinding speed.
Naruto's battle instincts flared. "Mass shadow clone technique!" A few seconds later, a hundrend Narutos started dashing around, searching for the ninjas. The original picked up Hinata and moved as fast as he could towards the village; if help was on the way, he had better be close.
His tactics kept busy two of the ninjas, for he could feel the clones dispersing. He would have to ask his mentor about this; it has been troubling him for a long time. His thoughts were interrupted though when he sensed another ninja coming, and narrowly dodged a kunai thanks to Hinata's early warning.
"So this is the infamous Byakugan that blew our cover" the man said. Naruto let go of Hinata and formed his signature seal.
"Shadow clone technique" Ten clones formed around him. "Hinata, leave"
"But-"
"NOW!" All Naruto's dashed towards the smirking ninja, who readied himself for the foolish frontal assault. Who did he think his opponent was? Obviously this was a greenhorn ninja, charging like a bull, even if he could perform the shadow clone technique, a high level technique on its own.
Yet the clones didn't charge at him. They split up in two groups and formed a circle around their enemy. 'Hmm, it seems that I misjudged this kid... this is a basic tactic though' the Sound spy thought in confidence, and unleashed a shower of kunai at all directions, dispersing three clones. What he didn't expect was that the clones running around him were working on some kind of technique. They seemed to pour chakra into each others palm. His eyes snapped open in realization: this was the container of the Nine-tails. He started forming seals.
"Fire Element: Great fireball!"
Another clone was blasted from existence.
"Earth Element: Rock spears!"
The stone projectile hit one of the seven ninjas around him in the arm, but this one wasn't dispelled. He smiled. "There you are"
His smile faded when he saw all of the clones stop and turn to him, with identical grins. "Too late"
Seven arms, one bloodied, turned to him, each holding a small sphere of chakra. Hus eyes narrowed.
"There is no chance in hell you will hit me with the Rasengan, demon brat" he spat, yet his battle intuition told him that something else was about to happen. All of the blond ninjas held the technique-holding hand's wrist with their other hand. "Who told anything about hitting?" came the mocking voice, seven times. Hinata's eyes widened and sought cover near the trunk of an old oak. With her enhanced vision she saw the chakra in the spheres being destabilized and overcharged. That would make Rasengan into a...
The explosion shook the ground and snapped nearby trees, raised a considerable cloud of debris and dust and sent Hinata flying into a bush, despite her cover. Pain coursed through her body, but her worry overcame it within seconds.
"Naruto-kun!"
She dashed into the cloud, her eyes already wet.
The Sound ninja rushed with all the speed he could muster towards the Hidden sound village. Orochimaru would have their hides if they failed to deliver the package of secret codes, missions and special plans back. So far everything proved smooth; his escorts would cause enough havoc for him to slip through the border guard unnoticed.
"Going somewhere?"
The ninja nearly dropped his package. On the very tree in front of him, stood a man with the weirdest clothes he had seen so far. What truly startled him wasn't that though; it was the ease that this guy had sneaked up on him and got into such close range, the casual way he stood before him, brimming with confidence, even though he had an enemy in front of him. For a moment he wondered if his disguise had fooled the man, but he immediately crossed out this idea. This man was powerful, that much he could tell even from afar. Then his eyes fell on the scroll strapped on his back, and his long white hair.
"Damn it!" he yelled as he threw a smoke bomb and made a regular clone, to provide him with a distraction to try to slip through this impossibly strong enemy. Of all the enemy ninjas he could bump into, it had to be the Toad Hermit, one of the Sannin.
Jiraiya sighed. "Kids these days... they think they can take on the world, and are rude as hell" His remark reminded him very much of his student, and with a snicker, he moved to capture the fleeing ninja.
"Naruto-kun!"
Hinata dashed to the fallen silhouette of Naruto, and checked his vitals with trembling hands. 'Calm yourself, Naruto-kun needs you! I must be calm to help him!' She kept chanting in her head. Feeling a steady heartbeat and breathing, accompanied by soft groans, she sighed in relief. 'He is alive'.
A slight thud behind her made her stand up and turn around in a heartbeat. There stood the other two ninjas, a little battered by the distraction the clones had caused, and very, very pissed. Their companion was on the ground, in a leap of limbs in weird angles. Hinata didn't even bother activate her eyes to figure out that the man was dead; that attack caused so much damage peripherally, it was a miracle she was able to move so quickly after it (though, a small voice in her head reminded her, Naruto played a major role in her immediate revival). Being in the center...
She focused on the two enemies at hand. How much time ago did they send Ino away to seek help? She wondered if she could keep those two busy until help arrived, but a groan from behind made her resolve. She was most definitely not going to abandon Naruto. Activating her eyes, she readied herself.
A very small chapter, but I am working on the other one, and I do think it is going to be the last for this story, or maybe almost-last. The time-skip seems convenient enough, and as long as I take care of some loose ends, I feel it is going to be fine to actually try it. A word of warning though, the next book-story-volume-whatever is going to take a lot of time, because I intend to start my other idea of a crossover fic. As always, please share your thoughts with me, in the review section, that is :)
