This is the second chapter. No, it's not beta'd, I don't have a beta reader. Sorry. But thanks for all the lovely reviews. Especially to pweh pweh. I've always considered stabbing myself and dying to be a rather interesting way to die. And no, I'm not being serious.
And Drackial, I never really thought of her taking over like that, lol, but I don't know if it's so much coexisting as it is him just not wanting to move. Although they are the same thing…
Sorry the chapter is so short. I wanted to get something up to show you I haven't gotten bored of it.
Ten minutes found him in the doorway of the Hokage's office, demanding the mission. Thirty minutes found him leaving the village with his four man team to search for Sakura's last know whereabouts. Soon after leaving, one member moved to run next to him.
'Nara-sama, I am Suchi. Lord Hokage asked me to brief you on the way. Haruna-san and her team last checked in about 3 hours from here. They were closing in, but were not able to give all the information.'
'What were they after? What was the point of the mission?'
'It was only supposed to be a simple mission. One of the nearby villages was complaining about bandits, so they hired us to deal with them. Haruna-san was simply going to find out where the bandits were hiding, and then see what they could do or if they needed backup. It wasn't supposed to take more than a day. Then we lost contact.'
'How long since last contact?'
'Almost 23 hours.'
Shikamaru cursed to himself, touching off a branch with more energy then he thought he had. It was bad, and he knew it.
I just hope we're not too late…'Nara-sama! This is the place of their last transmission.'
The team stopped suddenly in a small clearing. There were no outward signs that anyone had been there previously, but Shikamaru knew better than to look for that. Sakura was too good of a ninja to leave obvious signs during a mission. He sent his men to pan out around the clearing and find the signs she would have left intentionally.
Ten minutes of fruitless searching made Shikamaru uneasy. We can't waste any more time. We may already be too late. Damnit, Sakura! Which direction!
A sudden shout from across the clearing had him running. A small branch, broken in just the right way, a rock unsettled pointed them on the right path. And in an instant they were running again.
It was not more than ten yards before they heard the sounds of camp, and in an instant they were concealed, watching.
A small camp. How could she have fallen to this? There can't be more than a hundred people here. And they're not ninja's, just ruffians. This doesn't make sense.
The pointed tips of tents spread out over a full acre, hidden only by the tall spruce that surrounded them. Camp fires collected in the center circle, and a few cooking fires closer the what were obviously the sleeping tents. Fenced in horses and posted training dummies surrounded the camp. There were people milling about, Some eating, some mock batteling. Only a few seemed to be on watch duty. It was much too rudimentary. Shikamaru had no doubt that they could get in and out without being noticed.
Suchi came to his side again. 'I can tell the difference in the sleeping tents and working tents, but which tent are they keeping our ninja's in?'
Shikamaru smirked at this. 'Rather genius, isn't it? We have no idea which tent is used for what. This won't be as easy as I thought. We have to look in every tent. But they're not as well trained as we are.' Turning to his team 'Okay. We're splitting up. Everyone has their communicators on. One stays here just in case. Suchi, you're going to go around to the left. You' he pointed to one brown haired ninja 'will go to the right. I will go center. You say here and watch, if we get caught, you can tell Hokage where we are. Be careful, and don't underestimate them, they've already got a few of us, assuming Kakashi and Asuma are in there too.'
Three quick nods and everyone disappeared.
Navigating around the people was easy. The people of this village of tents had no ninja training and thus were completely oblivious to his movements. Tent after tent turned up nothing. A few sparse pieces of furniture were all that made up the first ten. Shikamaru was getting dangerously close to the center of the camp, and there were increasingly more people milling about. He knew that he would have to find the tent fast. Rounding another corner, this tent yielded a group, standing around a table covered in maps. Interesting, but not what he was here for. He was about to pull away when he felt the all too familiar point of a kunai. Turning slowly, he cursed inwardly when his eyes fell on the tell tale zig zag of the Hidden Grass village. The grass nin smirked over Shikamaru before he felt the blow to his head and everything went black.