Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Don't sue me.
Update: Major Revision! Many details were changed, along with some completely new parts. You might want to read the first two chapters again.
A/N:Thanks to WormKaizer, Odor, MistressDragonFlame, and Gopu for reviewing on the last chapter.
Hinata stirred the butane-heated pot a little more, and then checking to make sure the noodles were nice and soft, she ladled a good portion into Naruto's wooden bowl. Getting a spoon, she walked over to the blond-haired teen's prone form, taking care not to spill the hot contents.
"Naruto..." She nudged him with one foot. "Uh, Naruto..."
"You can't wake him up like that." Kinenbi said, nursing his shoulder. "Hinata, here, let me do it." He strode over to Naruto's gently snoring form, and kicked him. "Oy! Get up!"
-Hidden Void: Part 2-
"Man, what happened to the ramen?" Naruto said, scratching his head. "It's more like a stew."
"Ah- sorry, I-"
"Don't apologize, Hinata." said Kinenbi. He turned to Naruto. "I brave five hostile ninjas, destroy a house and murder several green trees just to get the ramen to you, and you dare complain?" His eyebrows shot up. "I should've kicked you harder."
"I didn't feel a thing." Naruto shot back. "Besides, -sorry, Hinata, for thinking it was you- I should've known it was you. No wonder the ramen was all smashed up!"
"You blame me? What about you, sitting here the whole night, taking lecherous looks at our dear Hinata?"
Hinata blushed, looking away. Naruto glared at Kinenbi. He said, "What about you, then? Besides, in your words, fighting off several ninjas while carrying the food to me, what did you do?"
"Well, well, I escorted-" stammered Kinenbi.
"Right, escorted-" snorted Naruto.
"I happened to come across several beautiful women-"
"Who robbed you blind after seducing you-"
"No they didn't you bastard- I helped them across the river-" said Kinebin, now angry.
"You mean you helped them get their kimonos off-"
"Why you lecherous snake-" cried Kinenbi.
"While they robbed you blind!" Naruto yelled, finishing the stilted conversation. Seeing Kinenbi's glare, he said hastily, "Fine, I'm sorry for that. But did you get the bird to Tenten and Shikamaru? And are other cell's still active across the lands?"
"Well-" Kinenbi slurped up the floating bits of ramen "Yeah. Tenten and lazy boy are in the city, whatchathaname-"
"I believe it was Ano." said Hinata.
"Ano? Why the hell would you call a city 'Ano?'" Naruto asked, puzzled.
"Dunno." said Kinenbi, shrugging. "But there's supposed to have been reports of a strange cult of ninjas brewing there- Tenten and Shikamaru met up with that old man-"
"Jiraiya?"
"Yeah, the one who writes all those books my father used to read." Kinenbi stirred the bowl with his spoon. "Anyways, they met up with him and this weird guy with a puppet-"
"Was he a Sand-nin?" Naruto asked.
"Yeah, supposedly. I wish I could just bring the letter to you... It'll be simpler than explaining to you the whole thing."
"But if you get caught, and if the letter falls into wrong hands..." Hinata said softly.
"We're fucked." Naruto finished. "Just tell me right now, will ya?"
"Fine." Kinenbi took a deep breath. "Four of us are dead. They got slaughtered while trying to get to the Cloud country- got ambushed by several dozen Void-nins. Kiba and his dog has been captured, or so Shikamaru says- he thinks Kiba might have commited suicide before he could be captured, though. And old faces have been seen among the ranks of the Void."
"Old faces?" Hinata asked. Then she took in a breath. "You can't mean-"
"Yeah." Kinenbi said darkly, his face turning into a scowl. "Several Leaf-nins have turned traitor. A disgrace to your village, or what's left of it."
"...Is that all?" Naruto asked, quietly.
"Some of the Sand-nins have pledged to aid us, too. That puppet guy- and a girl with a fan. Shikamaru didn't bother finding about their names."
"Too troublesome?" Naruto asked wryly.
"No doubt." Kinenbi stood up. "My village still won't extend their aid to you people- so I'm stuck upholding our honor for your village." He grinned. "Not that it hasn't been interesting..." He turned, and picked up all the bowls and the pot. I'll go wash the dishes and the pot- you two can digest what you heard and what you've ate." He jogged away, long legs vaulting him across the grass.
"So many dead..." Hinata said, softly. Naruto thought he saw a tear glimmering in her eyes.
"Four people... And Kiba was your teammate under Kurenai, right?" Naruto asked.
"Yes. Poor, poor Kiba... and four more people dead..."
Naruto stared at Hinata, who was crying silently for her lost friends. And he looked at himself, coldly calculating, and shuddered... Why couldn't he shed a tear at least for Sakura? I am a monster, he thought. I am a monster-
Hinata threw herself over to the right, screaming for Naruto to do the same. The blond-haired teen followed instinctively, leaping back. Naruto looked around; he could see nothing, but he thought he felt a presence of a strong chakra somewhere... He took a glance at Hinata, and saw that she was looking around with her byakugan.
"I don't see anything at all... I merely felt a... disturbance. Look at where we were sitting." Hinata said, calmly. Naruto saw that the ground before him had been incinerated... All without him ever noticing.
"Must be a Void-nin... Kage Bushinn no Jutsu!" Multiple copies of Naruto appeared suddenly. "Only a ninja of the void would be able to attack like that..." The doppelgangers sped away, where the void-nin must have been. Naruto ran to the other side.
Hinata scanned the landscape again, but she saw nothing- not even with her byakugan. Where had the attack come from? Nothing was around them; but- a blade of grass, bending suddenly -against- the wind. A leaf of a tree stirring suddenly. A scuff of hard-heeled sandals sounding across the morning light... How in the world did they sneak up to them in full daylight? Only some small traces of minor disturbances of nature around her told her that some people were near.
Her hands flicked to her kunai, and she whipped it out, repelling a dozen shurikens thrown her away. They fell to the ground with a clatter. She gasped: she hadn't even seen them... only instinct and reflexes, honed from years of constant danger, had protected her. She hadn't even seen the shurikens that were thrown! And they must have been only testing her- she shuddered to think of what might have happened if they had attacked her with ninjutsu...
A sudden cry came from her left, and her byakugan allowed her to see a man, dressed in a full gray jumpsuit, fall to the ground, a kunai stuck in his back. Even her byakugan hadn't seen him! Only her formal ninja training that gave her unprecedented awareness of her surroundings and also her heightened perception allowed her to even -tell- that there were others. And somehow, Naruto had taken one down...
She had to keep the other void-nins occupied, and let Naruto deal with them one by one. She formed the handseals: this was a small, rather weak genjutsu she had learned while traveling with Naruto, and it had never served too well... however, this time the surroundings were perfect for it, and it would serve her purpose.
"Spikegrass no Jutsu!" Suddenly, the grass grew, melting before one's eyes; then they shot up, becoming green blades six feet tall... she could hear cries of pain from the attackers, and immediately sped to a place where she thought she had heard something... Her byakugan let her see someone struggling with illusionary blades, one portruding from his stomach and the other from his shoulder. Strangely, she could only see his upper torso- it was as if he was floating from the ground with no legs. It wouldn't last long, however; their brain's could only supply so much delusions of pain, and already the man seemed to be getting ahold of himself...
She stopped right in front of the void-ninja as he was just getting free. He saw her, his face half-covered by a mask; his eyes were shocking black, and he twitched... "Just a wench? I was hoping for the infamous demon-boy-"
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Naruto let the Kyuubi's senses guide him, tendrils of red chakra pulling him towards the hidden void-nins one by one. They were somehow invisible; it was either that their stealth skills were something unprecedented, or it was merely a newly-devised jutsu... It was as if they had banished into a pit of void-
That was it! Somehow, they had covered themselves in a small pit, a rip in time/existence. Light couldn't get in or get out, and thus wouldn't be seen, even by those with byakugans. But they could be heard... and most of all, a demon like the Kyuubi would be able to home in on these very absences of sight. And, he thought, he must be doing that already... Those thoughts that he just had wasn't his. He was sure of that; the Kyuubi must be leaking it's thoughts to his brain, it's own chakra, already mingling with Naruto's own, and offering solicitious bits of advice to his subconciousness... Although, and this was what troubled Naruto the most, what was the fox demon gaining by helping him?
But this was no time to complain. Naruto followed the red tendrils, and he could tell that there was something distinctively wrong about a particular branch of a solitary tree- not only was it a perfect place- and therefore the most conspicuos place- for a trap, but the grass right below was moving, bending in the other direction of the wind... Smiling, Naruto formed the Rasengan.
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Hinata stepped back as the man keeled over, bleeding from his ears, his eyes, his nose, and his mouth. He attempted to move his arm; all that came out was a twitch.
The blue-haired girl looked around, byakugan still active. This man had been easy to overcome; overconfident, the man had succumbed to her Gentle Fist techniques, blood vessels in his brain and heart suddenly rupturing.
She could hear a scream- and suddenly, below a lone tree in the field of grass blood spurted forth, bits of flesh flying around; a headless corpse tumbling out of nowhere...
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Naruto grinned as his (or the Kyuubi's) theory proved to be correct. He had aimed the Rasengan at a general area around the chest; but the enemy ninja had been so short that the Rasengan had hit the man's head instead. Naruto had had no way of aiming by sight, of course; he merely relied on his own guts to guide the projectile. And as the headless corpse tumbled from it's hole of Void, he smiled.
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Hinata glanced at the grass, now shrinking back to it's original state as the spikegrass jutsu began to wear off. Three of the void-nins were down and maybe even more, considering how Naruto's doppelgangers were running around taking down anything they bumped into, still they were outnumbered with no way to see their enemy... Detecting Chakra went so far before their enemies concealed it, and they could still kill without a sound- a knife slipped soundlessly in to the back, or a garrote choke that killed without cutting. What they needed was something that could kill over a wide distance, some sort of a explosion. And she had nothing of the sort; her attacks usually targeted only one person, and those were usually precision strikes involving damaging nerve cords or the Gentle Fist techniques. And although Naruto could produce something similar, how would he manage to do it without killing her?
She rolled to her right, seeing from the corner of her eyes a flicker of hot light- the ground that she had been standing on moments before burned, blue flames crackling. Again, only her reflexes had saved her; but would they do so next time? She tried to be calm, but she was nervous- no, scared.
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Naruto had seen Hinata's near escape from the fire jutsu attack. He couldn't use the Bakudan without harming Hinata, and possibly Kinenbi- the damage area was too spread out, and if he warned Hinata beforehand, the void-nins might possibly learn of it too. He cursed.
His Kage Bushinn doppelgangers were running around still, he knew. The void-nins hadn't taken the bait: he knew that if they killed one of the shadow clones, he would sense the death and also the place of their demise- thus allowing him to home in on the location. But the doppelgangers ran around still without meeting a single thing.
What they needed, he felt, was a ambush- If Kinenbi could march in here, fully knowing of everything that was going on here (which he should, Naruto thought: any idiot could see something was wrong when they saw a corpse with a kunai sticking from his back, and also a headless body), he might be able to turn the battle in their favor...
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Hinata twisted, presenting her side to the void-nin as the kunai slipped harmlessly past her stomach. She grabbed the hand that held the kunai, and immediately burned the nerves with chakra- the void-nin, a woman, cried out in pain, dropping the kunai even as she lashed out with the other hand. The blow caught Hinata by the cheeks; the blue-haired girl fell, and the woman, one of her arms still burning from the nerve-damage, was about to fall on her- when Hinata, with blurred movements, whipped out a kunai, rolled to the side, and let the woman fall onto the blade.
-On the Next Installment-:Kinenbi Comes to the Rescue
A/N:Review! Review! Review!