AN: Wow, I ... People hate me. Why does Kakashi strike such a chord with everyone? Oh well.
Read, Review, Enjoy!
Setting the Beat
Naruto felt Sakura's breath quicken as he pulled back just enough to separate his lips from hers. She followed him; but he slid one hand up her back again gently took some of her hair in-between his fingers, making sure not to pull but simply hold her in place. When Sakura felt that she couldn't prolong the touch, she opened her eyes and stared up at him. She was smiling.
"Is that a yes?" she asked in a whisper, her green eyes sparkling.
Naruto didn't respond for a minute, weighing exactly what he should say.
"I need you," he said quietly, the words sending wonderful little chills down Sakura's spine. "Though right now there's still so much work that has to be done. One thing in particular requires your special touch."
"Anything," said Sakura, letting go of most of her weight and pressing in against him. She felt his arm tighten around her waist as his hand released her hair.
"If you feel well enough," Naruto began, "I need you to go to Chouji. Tell his men to go on the offensive and take the fight to the enemy's camp in the forest. If they hurry they can catch Oto off guard with minimal casualties and crush the camp now that their general has been gravely wounded. We need to finish this fight before we lose too many more men or we won't have the resources to attack the other villages. After that, I want you to fall back into the city and do what you can to hunt down any straggling enemies."
"Consider it done," said Sakura, not letting go of him. "Where will you be?"
Naruto grinned. "I'm going after a somewhat bigger game."
"The Kumo camp?" Sakura guessed.
"That's the idea," said Naruto. "I'll drive them off, and then, if Chouji hasn't finished with the weakened Oto forces, I'll make my way to help him crush the bastards."
Naruto released his grip on her, and Sakura let her hands drop to her sides as she continued to look up at him. "I don't need to tell you to be careful, do I?" she asked smiling.
Naruto forced a convincing grin, then taking her chin in his fingers, leaned in and trailed a kiss up and along her jaw line. The quick, light motion gave her goosebumps. "I'll be fine," he whispered in her ear. "Just make sure that you stay safe."
"Can do," said the Kunoichi, trying to remember to breathe this time.
"Good," said Naruto, stepping back and disappearing in a whirling blur of rushing wind.
I've got to be dreaming… thought Sakura, despite the situation.
SC
"But first," said the blonde Ninja, materializing at the end of a dark alley, nearly halfway across the village from where he left Sakura, "a little business to attend to."
He reached into the folds of his tight black vest, and after sifting around for a moment, produced a small, white piece of paper that had been folded in half several times. Flicking his wrist, Naruto opened up the note, and then began scanning through the hastily scrawled penmanship.
"Two-thirds of a league West of Konoha," the blonde read to himself, letting the hand holding the paper fall to his side. He snapped his fingers and the scrap of note instantly caught fire and disappeared in a puff of black, pungent smoke.
In a flash, Naruto was gone again, running through the now deserted streets of Konoha. He leapt quickly and easily over the bodies of nameless warriors Chouji's secondary guards had piled up in the street and continued, uninterrupted on his way to the breach in the Western Wall.
If I ever happen to see Sasuke again, thought the blonde, I'll have to remember to thank him for warning me about the invasion before I kill him. And to think that at first I almost didn't trust that Shadow Clone he sent the other day. It's a good thing I found it before someone else did… otherwise things might have been considerably less favorable.
The crumbled ruins of the Western wall passed underneath Naruto like a graveyard as he sailed over them and rushed out into the small field that separated Konoha from the dense forest beyond. The trickle of Kumo Nin had ceased completely, and all throughout the field there were nothing but a few dozen dead bodies that marked where Kakashi had earlier ventured beyond the walls to strike at the Cloud ranks from behind.
They must have totally panicked, thought Naruto. I'll bet that once they saw Kakashi's fight with their leader that they just scattered and ran away. Still, it wouldn't be wise to go on recklessly.
Naruto ran forward, quickly but cautiously, scanning the fast approaching trees for any signs of danger. The wall of the forest slapped around him as he darted into the trees and began fighting through the underbrush. The Amber sword was shimmering like a golden icicle in his hand as he wove between the massive trees.
With a grunt the Jounin leapt up into canopy high overhead and began jogging through the branches silently, scanning the forest floor for any Ninja so unfortunate as to have gotten themselves into a spot where he could catch them. There weren't any signs of battle or even of human presence as he passed about the treetops. His nerves began to wear.
Patience, he told himself. You'll get there soon enough and there's no need to hurry. Chouji is more than capable of handling things from here, and even if he's not then that's only one more minor annoyance I'll have to clean up.
With a scattering of leaves Naruto broke through the canopy and rushed out into the empty air over a clearing. He dropped to the ground, nearly a hundred feet below and landed, crouched and unharmed with a quiet 'thud.' He knew he was exactly where he needed to be, two thirds of a league West from Konoha, but only the grass stirred as he landed. The clearing was full of tents and small circles of rock marking long dead cooking fires, but no people to speak of. It was as silent as anywhere in the forest.
"How odd," Naruto muttered, walking down one of the evenly spaced rows of pup-tents bedded down in the tall field-grass. "No body's home I guess."
He picked one tent at random and crouched down next to it, peering inside. He reached in and dragged out three bedrolls, each one overlapping on the one next to it, and set them out on the grass. Next he removed a small carry-bag from one corner of the tent.
"They must've been in some kind of hurry," said Naruto, dropping the contents of the bag on the ground and sifting through it, "to have left this behind."
In the bag were all the standard items one would expect to be in a Ninja's survival kit: a small first aid kit, half a week's supply of soldier pills, sewing materials, spare kunai, and a bag of shuriken… But one item in particular, a small, leather bound book, caught the blonde's attention. He pulled out the book and flipped through its blank pages.
"Damn," he muttered. "Not one note, nothing. No clues."
He tossed the book aside, stood up and started to walk away. But he stopped and looked back at the miniature volume. It's just a dumb book of blank pages, he told himself, looking away. But there could be some secret, he responded to himself looking back towards the book. Or it could just be an empty waste of space, he retorted. Then again it could hold some kind of hint to the Cloud's plans, he argued, walking back to the tent, picking up the book and slipping it into the folds of his augmented ANBU suit. But I'm not going to waste time sifting through blank pages that are really blank.
Naruto's head snapped to the left and he jerked down, crouching in the tall grass as a rustling off to his side caught his attention. He could see nothing through the grass but he smelled blood. There was someone there. In a rapid series of seals Naruto cast a quick and simple jutsu to muffle his tread as he snuck through the grass towards the source of the sound.
"Shit," he heard someone mutter. "Where is everyone…?"
Naruto reached out and separated the grass with his hands. There, not a whole foot from his fingertips, stood a Kumo Nin, frantically looking about the camp.
"Haruka-Sensei!" called the Ninja, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hands. "Haruka-Sensei! It's me Kakmaro, are you out there!"
Naruto could practically feel the panic in the young Ninja's voice. This is going to be too easy, thought the blonde, reaching up and putting his hand over his forehead protector. A little bit of chakra and some silent movement underneath his palm quickly erased the Leaf Insignia, leaving the metal plate blank and smooth as glass.
Without any sound at all, Naruto lay back in the grass and sheathed his sword across his back. He pulled a flap fabric sewn into his uniform up from his collar which he tied around his face above the nose to conceal his features. He spread his hands out in the field and closed his eyes.
"Hey kid," Naruto muttered, his voice raspy and aching. "Kid!"
Kakmaro jumped at the sudden breaking of the calm and whirled around, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a kunai. "Who's there!" he shouted, a bead of sweat rolling off his forehead and dripping onto his white-knuckled fists. "Show yourself!"
"I'm right here," groaned Naruto. "What's going on? Who are you?"
The short, but well proportioned Kumo Nin stepped cautiously forward and stared down at the dangerous looking man laying face up in the grass. "Who are you?" he asked, making no effort to hide his fear as he pointed the knife towards Naruto in a threatening posture. Naruto grinned beneath his mask, amused by his would-be attacker.
"I'm one of the mercenaries the Raikage hired for this raid," said Naruto. "Last thing I remember was charging into Konoha from the breach in the wall, getting nailed in the chest by some kind of energy wave, then waking up here. What's going on? Where are the rest of the men?"
Kakmaro didn't move and his face didn't relax. Still more sweat condensed on his features as he continued to hold the knife at Naruto. "I don't believe you," he said. "All the mercenaries were killed in the first wave. They were the first ones in and that silver haired Ninja killed them. How did you survive?"
"I thought I was dead," Naruto explained. "My unit was part of the group that was ordered to attack the city. We charged in and got a ways into the city before we ran into the guard and things went bad." Naruto clutched at his side and groaned. "Something hit me hard and I went down as the rest of my unit was retreating. I think they carried me back here."
Still Kakmaro didn't move.
"I'm not going to bite, kid," said Naruto, seeing that the Ninja couldn't be older than twelve, thirteen at the most. "My name's Burondo. What's yours?"
"How do I know I can trust you?"
Naruto groaned again, this time as much out of exasperation as out of thespianism. "Look, if you don't believe me then kill me, but I'm struggling to breathe, and half paralyzed laying in the middle of the abandoned Cloud base with a blank forehead protector and a pouch of coins that your Kage, that's the Raikage gave me as payment to attack Konoha. There's nothing I can do to prove I'm not really lying, but I'm asking for your help. Now will you please help me up?"
It was a very juvenile trick, but Kakmaro seemed to be a juvenile Ninja, and Naruto expected that he would quickly fall for the façade.
Slowly, very slowly, Kakmaro bent down and put away the knife. His raven hair drooped down beneath his eyebrows as he grabbed Naruto's wrist and pulled him up to his feet. "I'm Kakmaro, a Cloud Genin" he said, wrapping Naruto's arm around his shoulder to support the badly injured Mercenary.
"Kakmaro," said Naruto, shifting a little more of his weight onto the Ninja and limping on one leg. "Where do you think everyone is?"
"I'm not sure," said the Kumo Nin hesitantly. "But Sensei said that if the mission went badly that he was going to give the order for everyone to retreat to the Alpha-Site."
"Alpha-Site?" probed Naruto as he and Kakmaro began to stumble off towards the edge of the woods. "I never got orders concerning anything like that…"
"It's where we attacked from," said the Cloud Nin. "We gathered our forces there and established an underground bunker about a month ago where we could send out raids against Konoha."
Perfect, thought Naruto, beaming beneath the mask. But how did our spies miss activity like that? No matter, this way I get an even bigger prize.
"How many of us do you think are there, Kakmaro-San?"
The black haired Ninja shrugged, eliciting a feigned groan of discomfort from Naruto. "Whatever's left of the army plus the garrison, I think. Raikage-Sama ordered two-thirds of the whole Kumo army to mass at the Alpha-Site, and from there two hundred Ninja were left as a garrison to hold the bunker. I don't know for sure but I think that there's probably between four and five hundred Ninja there."
"So we should be safe?" Naruto asked worry in his voice.
"Probably," said the Genin. "Haruka-Sensei said that the bunker is the safest place for us outside of Kumo. It's completely sealed off from the world with only one way in that only opens inwards and one way out that only open to the outside. It's a complete secret."
"Where's the entrance?" asked the blonde. "My unit was brought in just in time for the battle and I've never heard of this bunker. I think they were all expecting the mercenaries to be the first group wiped out."
"It's about a mile West by North West of here," said Kakmaro, grimacing.
How fortunate thought the Konoha Ninja as the two of them reached a large tree.
"Hold on," Naruto groaned. "I need to rest for a minute."
"Alright," said Kakmaro, setting Naruto easily against the trunk. "But we should hurry, I don't want to be anywhere near here when Konoha recovers and comes looking for us."
Naruto nodded. "Just need to catch my breath a bit. Whatever his me really knocked me cold… by the way, how are we going to know where to the entrance to the bunker is?"
"Haruka-Sensei said the camouflaged door was set in a large oak tree and that the right tree would have a green ribbon strung somewhere in its lower branches. How are you feeling Burondo-San?"
"Better now," said Naruto, making an effort to breathe harder than he normally would. "I'll be ready in just a minute."
Kakmaro glanced warily around the camp from the edge of the clearing, not noticing as Naruto silently stood up behind him.
SC
"Well I hope this was worth all the trouble," Naruto mumbled, pacing around the base of the massive oak growing beside a small river. He glanced up at the small green ribbons tied into the lower branches, nearly laughing at how easily he would have missed them if he weren't looking for them.
Naruto did a lap around the tree, finding the door-shaped indentation quickly. He decided he was in no real rush and walked to the nearby water-bank kneeling down by the river and washing his hands in the flow. He rubbed the crimson from his skin and watched as it wafted downstream.
"Now to work," said the Ninja, walking back to the door and pressing his palm to the rough, bark-like exterior. He pressed against the door to test its strength, then pulled back when a brown seal activated and held the door stiffly shut on hidden hinges. Naruto pressed more forcefully and the seal glowed more brightly.
Well fine then, thought the blonde, readjusting his mask and pressing both hands against the door. "Kai," he grunted, pumping a sudden burst a chakra into the door. The seal glowed bright purple and sparked, then disappeared in a flash of red energy. The door swung open revealing a broad stair that spiraled down into a black well.
Naruto stepped forward, feeling around with his left hand for a rail to guide him down. When he found a bit of rope strung between two poles that acted as the guardrail on the open end of the stairs, Naruto reached out with his right hand and shut the door, sealing himself in the blackness, and deciding that it would be best not to create any light that might give him away.
Step by step he silently began descending the well. It was absolutely lightless and Naruto had to test his footing before every move he made. There were no torches on the wall, no lamps hanging from the ceiling, nothing. This is rather strange, thought Naruto, after nearly slipping on an uneven step. One would think a passage like this would be well lit so the troops using it wouldn't slip and hurt themselves… are they trying to avoid giving off any kind of energy or heat signature?
Abruptly, Naruto came to a landing after he'd counted one hundred and three steps. Exploring it with shuffling steps he determined that he had indeed come to the bottom of the well. Three of the landing's walls were perfectly smooth and on the wall directly opposite the base of the stairs, a heavy wooden door with a rusted iron latch stood closed.
Naruto tested the latch, making out that he could get it open silently if he was careful, and began to slowly pull on the handle. The door creaked once, settling, and he stopped, then began to pull again more lethargically. As soon as the tiniest crease appeared in the wall, a stream of dim light poured into the blackness and Naruto inched his face closer to the crack and peered through.
Beyond the door, which was nearly eight inches thick, Naruto could see what looked like a checkpoint, a large room, devoid of any furniture except a desk along the far wall, beside yet another door that Naruto assumed lead into the main complex. Sitting at the desk was a single man dressed in tan fatigues, on whose sides stood five Ninja wearing black outfits and Kumo forehead protectors. None of the other Ninja seemed to have noticed that Naruto was watching them from a miniscule crack in the door.
Perhaps it would be best if I didn't cause a ruckus just yet, Naruto mused, kneeling down and pressing both of his hands to the floor. Poison will work just as well as power. A dim, almost imperceptible red haze began to form around Naruto and seep into the floor. Carefully, the blonde pumped more and more of the gaseous energy into the ground and guided it beneath the Ninja in the other room. After a few moments he had a massive store of the demonic chakra hidden away beneath its soon to be victims, and Naruto began to loosen his grip on the energy. It lost its color and started floating up.
When he felt that he'd distributed enough of it through the room, Naruto sat back and waited, giving up control of the now invisible energy and feeling it seep up through the floor and pervade the room like a mist. He watched and suppressed a grin as the first of the Ninja shivered upon feeling the demonic energy. Within a minute they'd begun to talk amongst themselves. One threw up on the floor, his stomach convulsing and his face raked by sickly expressions. To Naruto it was obvious they had no idea what was going on.
The Nin in the tan clothes had just gotten up when one of the Ninja in black fell to the ground and wretched once. The other Ninjas rushed to his side as Naruto began to reach out with invisible chakra and concentrate all of the deadly energy around those gathered by the body. They all fell to the ground after just one breath and stopped moving.
A panicked yelp went up from the Nin in tan as all of the demonic energy rushed to where he stood and condensed into hazy red cloud surrounding his face. He fell to the ground almost immediately, his eyes running red from bursting blood vessels.
Naruto stood up and opened the door fully, strolling silently out into the checkpoint room. He passed by the dead bodies and the desk, making sure that all of the eleven Ninja were indeed dead, and upon confirming that, reached out and took hold of the intricately carved handle on the door.
Explosion
The heavy door exploded in a cloud of shrapnel that peppered Naruto's face and arms with flecks of wood. Searing pain shot through his body as he flew back. Ten holes were ripped through his chest as some unknown missiles, red hot and moving at supersonic speeds passed through him effortlessly.
Naruto collapsed to the ground several yards away, blood pulsing from the wounds punched into his body, and clutched at his torso. He had no idea how extensive the damage was, but he could feel hot liquid flooding his lungs. Naruto tried to roll to his feet, but his body was in such shock he merely flopped once on the ground, landing on his stomach. His legs pistoned one time before his chest heaved and he spat up a mouthful of blood.
An icy cold wrapped around Naruto's neck, nearly crushing his larynx, and lifted him off the ground. The bony hand's nails were sharp as knives and dug into the flesh around the back of Naruto's throat. The blonde opened his eyes enough to see a pale face framed by white hair staring back at him.
"Uzumaki Naruto," said the Sound General as footsteps filled the room and dozens of Ninja in black masks rushed in around Naruto and his assailant. "My name is Kaguya Kimimaro. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."
"You?" Naruto gasped, the single word belching up more blood from his flooded lungs. "An ambush?"
"You're too easy," said Kimimaro, as a thin spine slithered out of his hand. "I'd thought getting you here would be a challenge, and then to reveal yourself so plainly with that chakra earlier… You walked right into it. Though it is a shame I had to sacrifice Kakmaro to you. He was so trusting."
"Bastard," growled Naruto, pumping chakra into his wounds, closing them up. "Son of Gaah!"
Kimimaro had barely flickered, but his hand was pressed up against Naruto's stomach, a thin bone with a razor sharp point protruded from the blonde's back. Blood was pouring from the fresh wound. The Kaguya grinned.
Kimimaro's arm began to flash forward and back as he reared around, and slammed the bony spine into Naruto's chest, ripped it out, and plunged it back in again, a dozen times in a split second. Naruto barely felt the piercing. It was actually far less painful than when the hilt of Kimimaro's weapon (the butt of his palm from which the spine extended) rammed into his chest or stomach.
A sinking sensation began to overtake Naruto's thoughts and make his mind hazy as the blood rolled out of the wounds and congealed on the floor in a puddle all around the blonde Jounin. Kimimaro didn't grin now, but just stepped back, still slashing and jabbing at Naruto, to move his exposed toes out of the red pool. Every other Ninja in the room watched with guarded satisfaction as the Champion Leaf Nin was nearly hacked to pieces.
"How much of this shit do you have in you?" asked Kimimaro, stopping his attack and looking down at the large puddle on the floor. "And how much more can you take I wonder?" The Kaguya let one side of his lip twitch up as two more bones protruded from his wrist.
Ram, boar, serpent, horse, Naruto thought, his left hand twitching at his side. Please work one-handed… RAT!
The crimson pool around the Kaguya's feet swirled instantly turning dark brown. "What?" was all Kimimaro could gasp, before he was driven back and up into the air as a mud-colored spike shot out of the swarthy blood pool and rammed into the General's shoulder. Kimimaro's grip on Naruto slipped and the blonde collapsed to the ground as the General rocketed back, the spike ripping through his shoulder and continuing on its path out the other side, carrying the general with it.
Kimimaro only stopped when the spike, nearly twenty feet long, buried itself in the far wall and pinned him to it. He clutched at the spear and jerked wildly, trying desperately to get it out. "Fire!" yelled the Kaguya. "It's fiery! Cut it off!"
The room fell into chaos. No sooner had Kimimaro been pinned, than had four more spikes raced out of the puddle and impaled four more vulnerable Ninja, thrusting them against the wall and holding them unwaveringly. One had been skewered straight through his throat and was now helplessly convulsing, gasping for air as his feet kicked nearly a meter off the ground. Another was unlucky enough to have been hit in the groin and now hung upside down against the wall like a mounted trophy, flailing and screaming out in pain and hate.
A sword-like bone punched through Kimimaro's hand as the General hacked at the thin pillar holding him fast to the wall. The blade sunk halfway into the spine and Kimimaro chopped at it again, breaking it. He fell to the ground, landing gracefully even under the circumstances and looked around.
"Goddamn it!" he growled. "That little bastard."
Naruto was gone.
"He can only get out from the other exit!" Kimimaro shouted, "block it off and capture him! No, Kill Him!"
All of the Ninja in black who weren't bleeding out against the wall raced out of the room through the shambles of the door Kimimaro had shattered. Some were silent as the moved, while others shouted orders or curses.
Clever Naruto, very clever, thought the Kaguya. You knew your regenerative abilities would sustain you until you'd readied your distraction. And, if it weren't for Kabuto-San's sharing his own abilities with me… Kimimaro removed his hand from his shoulder, revealing that any evidences of Naruto's attack were gone; I might have been killed by it too.
The Kaguya took off running, hands behind him and feet silently navigating the path ahead, into the complex. For several minutes, until Naruto was sure that no one was around, the entry room was silent aside from the dull moanings of the last Ninja left, alive, pinned to the wall.
Once that man stopped his complaining and died, most likely of blood loss, Naruto let the first layer of the Genjutsu dissipate; unveiling the three seals he'd quickly smeared on the ground in blood. After that he dropped the second layer, revealing the two shadow clones who were casting a moderately powerful concealing technique on Naruto himself. Naruto then dispelled the clones, on whose strength the inaudibility seals were drawing. The last of the Genjutsu was gone and Naruto stood visible exactly where Kimimaro had dropped him.
"Holy shit," Naruto groaned, collapsing against the heavy, one-way door at the entrance of the complex. "Kimimaro's a regenerator just like that Kabuto bastard? No wonder he survived the Rasangen…"
The blonde reached up and wiped some of the blood smeared hair out of his eyes and rubbed his neck. I can heal these wounds all day long, he mused, relieved that he'd already recovered from Kimimaro's vicious assault, but I'll eventually overuse the demonic chakra and then it's over… I've got to get out of here.
SC
"We wiped the bastards out!" Chouji's victorious bellow carried all throughout the forest, ringing like a massive bell, deep and loud. "Don't ease up on them!" he shouted as the eighty Konoha Ninja raced around him, pursuing the broken and fleeing Sound army, pushing them farther from Konoha by the second, "Run them to the river and then drive them into it!"
The Akimichi Lieutenant rumbled through the woods like a tank, faster than anyone his size should have been able to move. He rushed to the head of the ranks, and leapt on top of a straggling sound Nin like a tiger, driving him to the ground and crushing his skull under a heavy metal boot.
"A good day's work," said the Lieutenant, stopping for a breath and a look around. The woods were echoing with explosions and battle cries. He'd been skeptical when Sakura arrived with orders to go on the offensive, but it was plain as day to him now that it had been a brilliant maneuver. Going up against superior numbers with more skilled warriors gave us a chance to plunge straight into the heart of the army, thought Chouji, glancing over his shoulder at the completely ruined Sound base in which he stood.
"Chouji-San," said Sakura, appearing beside the guard. "What's the status of the battle?"
The Guard turned around grinning. "We've completely broken the enemy," he proudly announced. "There was minor resistance at first, but once we killed a few of their better warriors, the rest of them just started to scatter like frightened birds."
"Good," said Sakura, "Naruto will be pleased."
"Speaking of which, where is our newest Jounin?" asked Chouji. "I thought he would have wanted to be here for a victory this grand."
"He was going to go take care of the Kumo base," said Sakura. "He's probably already wiped them out."
"He went alone?" asked Chouji.
"Yes, why?"
"Don't you think that might have been kind of foolish? After all, he is only one man," the Guard said.
"Careful," said Sakura, an edge creeping into her voice. "Naruto may be just one man but he's quite easily the most powerful Ninja in Konoha."
"I meant no offense," said Chouji, detecting her mood. "I merely meant to say that I'm surprised you didn't go with him; just in case something went wrong. Even the most powerful can get caught off guard. Even the worst Ninja among us can get lucky once in a while, and in battle it only takes one mistake or one slip up."
"I think he'll be fine," said Sakura, the iron-clad confidence beginning to fade from her voice.
"You're probably right," said Chouji. "But if you'll excuse me, I have an enemy to exterminate."
"Dismissed," said the Steward.
Chouji nodded and charged back off towards the now distant sounds of fighting, while Sakura stood in the forest and pondered. I don't even know where the Kumo base is, she thought, Damn I should've asked Naruto before he left… then again I was a little… distracted at the time being. Well, there's no way to help now. I might as well go back to Konoha and clean things up there. We've won here anyway.
For her whole run back to the Hidden Leaf Village, Sakura's stomach was busy tying itself in knots while she worried about Naruto. When she cleared the forest and neared the village, her gaze instantly snapped to a group of about fifty Ninja standing atop the rubble of the ruined wall. She recognized the man at the head of the column: Jiraiya. He looked furious and horrified.
SC
"That goddamn fucker!" roared the Sanin in red. "He took full advantage of his superior numbers to attack Konoha while Tsunade and I were fighting in Suna!"
Sakura shifted her weight uneasily; she'd never seen Jiraiya angry before, much less incensed like this. "It's better than it looks," said the Steward. "The battle's already won. Chouji's guards cleared out the city and wiped the Oto base off the map. Even and as we speak Naruto is dealing with Kumo. We've suffered minimal losses and dealt a severe blow to the enemy."
"Some good news at least," said the Sanin crossing his arms. "It seems like things here might have gone better than they did at Suna… But you mentioned that Kakashi was dead."
"Yes," muttered Sakura. "Kakashi-Sensei is… dead, but he didn't die meaninglessly. He and Naruto killed the Sound General. And alone Kakashi held off most of the Kumo Nin. He was instrumental in our victory here."
"We'll all miss him," Jiraiya said solemnly. "But we don't have time to mourn him now. I need to debrief you and some of the other Jounin on the situation that unfolded in Suna. Things have taken a turn for the worse. Where's Naruto?"
"Like I said," replied Sakura, "He's dealing with the Kumo Ninja."
"When did he leave?" asked Jiraiya.
"About half an hour ago."
"He should have been back by now," said the Sanin to himself. "Did he say where the Cloud base was?"
"I… neglected to ask him," said the Steward.
"Shit, we have to find him," Jiraiya cursed. "He might be in trouble… But I don't see anything we can do for him except send out scouts and a party to look. Sakura, I'll head out to look for him and collect anyone I run into along the way. You stay here and finish cleaning up this mess. You know what to do."
"Yes sir," said the Kunoichi.
"Good," Jiraiya muttered, turning to the column of troops following him. "You men are under Sakura's direct command until I get back."
A simultaneous 'yes sir' went up from the Ninja and without further word, Jiraiya ran off towards the forest.
"He sure is in a combat mode," said Sakura, her mind plagued by a suddenly more acute fear for Naruto's safety.
Please be all right, the Kunoichi begged.
AN: Review Please!