Disclaimer:
Eevee-…(bangs head on desk)
Raquel-Harsh…
Eevee-Grr, I said I wouldn't make any more stories, I promised I wouldn't! But noo, I did anyway! (bangs head on desk)
Peggi-Its okay Eevee, just breathe.
Eevee-But!
Peggi-(whacks Eevee with foam mallet) Shush!
Eevee-… thanks, I needed that…
Selene-I'll say…
Peggi-(whacks Selene with foam mallet)
Selene-Owie!
Eevee-Anyway, yesum, new fanfic from the authoress who swore off new stories for a while and is now going back on that promise. (dodges shoe) Naruto is copyright Masashi Kishimoto-sama, the OC's in this story are based off of actual people for whom this story is written and will be credited at the end of each chapter as to not give identities away.
Summary: In the world of the five lands, there are other ninja going about life other than our four main protagonists. These overlooked nin's each have their own story that makes them unique. This story fallows them, the ninja you didn't see on camera.
Dedication: For my chans, no one else. I love you and always will. We'll see each other again, until then, here's my gift to you.
Naruto Himitsu, Nendaki no Sono Michi – Prologue
Cold night air stung at the open wound on her stomach, the only thing reminding Eevee that she was still alive. The sun had set hours before, while Eevee and her two-team mates were traveling back to their home village of Konoha after a mission in Sand, but it hadn't really been a mission.
So maybe things had gotten out of hand, they had still won.
Officially, they had gone to Sand for diplomatic reasons, to 're-establish' the peace treaty between the 2 countries. But that hadn't taken long, after not much debate on either's side, the peace treaty was just about the same, save a change in wording here or there. But unofficially, they had gone because the Kazekage and his siblings missed the presence of team 11.
'Gaara missed Naru!' They had teased him, but soon stopped when they noticed the sand start to move around his feet, indicating danger for the group.
Eevee had wondered what Naru saw in Gaara; he was hard to read and even harder to get close to.
Then again Naru was the same way, hard to read and next to impossible to get close to.
But she soon realized that it wasn't one sided. The two really connected on several levels, Eevee guessed it was to be expected. They were, after all, 'comfortable' with each other.
Hi had been compelled to give Gaara 'the talk' when she learned of the blossoming romance several months later. They all knew it was because Hi cared about Naru, but she really had no room to talk with her on-going relationship with a certain Come Come Paradise reader who was older by several years. Some might have found Hinote Hi and Hatake Kakashi's relationship weird, if not for them both being ninja. That seemed to change the rules considerably, and no one in the village objected.
The stinging in her stomach pulled Eevee from her thoughts, making her visibly wince.
Eevee's mind searched for answers, she didn't remember how things had gotten so out of hand. It had just been an easy mission, not even a mission by most standards. Tsunade and her anbu escort had gone back several days prior, and with a kind smile the lady Hokage had yielded to the Kazekage's request for team 11 to remain behind to see that the new treaty was sufficient. Then a week later, not being able to stay any longer, they were traveling through the familiar green woods around Konoha. Things had been quiet enough, simple, and they had chatted and laughed without a care.
They had been careless, and they had paid the price.
It couldn't have been bandits, their skills were to honed in the ways of ninja's. Missing-nins, perhaps? Eevee didn't think so; they didn't have the distinct black cloaks with swirling red clouds they Missing-nins seemed to be famous for (or was that the akatsuki orginization? Eevee couldn't think clearly at the moment). But who ever they were, they had the upper hand from the start. The three kunoichi were out-classed in almost every way.
Eevee smirked at a fallen enemy laying in a pool of his own blood, his head almost completely severed from his shoulders, and several kunai and throwing stars embedded in his body. They may have been out-classed with almost no hope of winning, but they had still managed to take out several before the rest had retreated.
"You guys still alive?" A rough, cracking female voice asked, her throat dry and burning. Eevee's smirk softened to a small smile, even in such a situation, Hi could still give off a very commanding demeanor.
"Barely." The softer voice of Ameshika Naru responded, and Eevee could just make out the silhouette of the shorter girl pushing herself off the ground with the help of a tree.
"Sutoon Eevee, are you still in the building?" Hi chuckled, retying some of her blue hairs back into its neat ponytail as she made her way over to where Eevee still lay, having made no attempt to stand. "Come on busty, we need to get moving." Her look soon changed from cocky and victorious to concerned when Hi saw the rather large wound on Eevee's stomach. "Oh shit… Naru, break out the bandages, we've got a problem."
"It's not that bad…" Eevee's actions betrayed her words when she gasped slightly, wincing again.
"Lying, stubborn…" Hi's intense yellow cat-like eyes looked at Eevee unimpressed, in a 'not falling for it' kind of way. Eevee not only had a very noticeable bloody wound in the moonlight, she also had cuts up and down her arms. Brushing some of Eevee's long red hair out of her face, Hi noted the large bruise on her left cheek. "Gods, you really are a lying slut."
The dark emerald eyes staring up at her flickered with anger for a moment, but that soon subsided. Hi shook her head, Eevee was always like this. Eevee stood up for others but not herself, she was always trying to make everyone else happy, and if anything was wrong with her she did not talk about it. Ever since they were kids people had made fun of Eevee because she developed faster than the other girls (Hi had always thought it was stupid anyway), and she had never said a word, the only time Eevee ever said anything was when her mother was put on the spot.
The word slut had a bad meaning for Eevee, for all the women in her clan for that matter. Maybe it wasn't intended to be an insult from Hi, but from anyone else it left a bad feeling hanging in the air. Either way, Eevee would always tense at the word, and made it a point to never use it herself.
"Team 11's medical expert, at your service!" Naru chirped, and Hi knew why by the shiny new headband tied around her waist. It was a weird habit Naru had picked up; Hi didn't think it was from Gaara. Whenever she won a battle with an enemy ninja that was either dead or unconscious, Naru would take their headband as a little souvenir. This one had four short lines carved in the metal, indicating that their attackers must have been from Mist. Wannabe renegades, maybe?
Naru, seeing Eevee's stomach, went into super-medical-ninja-mode. With the contemplative look in the blonds silver blue eyes, Hi knew that Naru was going back to her training as a med nin, undoubtedly running through handbooks she had read in the past to find the best diagnosis.
"Deep wound, very clean, inflicted by a kunai, sharpened for maximum effect." And how could Hi forget, Naru was one of the biggest pointy object freaks in the entire village, next to herself of course. "Abnormal blood flow, indicating that the wound is deep and or the kunai had some sort of poison on it." Hi's eyes widened at that one, she hadn't thought that there was poison involved.
"Careless lying stubborn slut."
"Oh bite me." The strangled reply from the red head came, and she coughed a little. Without missing a beat, Hi leaned over and sunk her teeth into Eevee's upper arm. But Eevee didn't wince; she had expected something like that.
"If you make her bleed anymore that's going to make my job harder." Naru said, dabbing an antidote soaked cloth over Eevee's wound. "I think the poison was meant to increase blood flow, probably to make the victim bleed to death once it entered the blood stream." Naru shook her head, making the two protruding cat-ear like things on her headband shake and the metal of her forehead protector glint, some of her blond shoulder length hair still covering her right eye. When they had first become a team, Hi and Eevee had mercilessly made fun of Naru for the cat-like feature her headband gave her.
Then they met Kankuro.
If it was bad on a girl, it was even worse on a guy, and they wasted no opportunity to let him know it. Thought Eevee wasn't all that comfortable making jokes about someone outside their group, Kankuro and his siblings soon made the ranks of friends and all doubt was thrown to the wind. With all the black and kabuki paint, the list of things they could pick away at with Kankuro seemed endless. Of course, it wasn't because they didn't like Kankuro; it was because they did like him that they made fun of him, in a weird initiation sort of way. Plus Kankuro was fun to make fun of people with, so it all balanced out.
"Cloud-boy and Meatball are going to give me hell when we get back…" Hi shook her head thinking of the welcome they were going to get when they finally did return. Or more likely, what she was going to get from two shinobi back home, they probably wouldn't bother with Naru. "She's going to be alright, isn't she?"
"The bleeding isn't stopping."
"So stop it." More panic clung to Hi's voice than she had indented.
"What does it look like I'm trying to do!" And Naru was clearly not taking this very well either. She worked feverishly to bandage the wound, to stop the bleeding, but found that with the poison it was increasingly difficult.
"Shit." Hi cursed under her breath, and she shook Eevee lightly. "Don't you dare die on me, I had to promise Chouji a billion times that you wouldn't get hurt!" The dark blue haired girl was finding she didn't like the distant, glazed look in her friend's green eyes. "Slut, don't you make me break my promise!"
