No More Dead Heroes
Chapter 6: Resilience
It's war now, and yes, it's hell. Oh how the times have changed; there aren't many smiles in this hidden village anymore. People are being separated from their loved ones left and right, either by death or duty, and some are starting to lose what hope they had left. But some are still holding out for that better day, whether it's ever going to come or not.
Naruto scuffed his feet in the dirt, watching with mild fascination as the dust clouds rose up.
This was boring.
He absolutely detested being on guard duty, as it meant he had to walk slowly in circles, and stay completely silent. He supposed it was better than having to sit still and be quiet, but not by much. Both made him want to strangle something just for the sake of something to do. Unfortunately, it appeared that he was the only one in this part of the woods, and strangling himself was not only counter productive, but probably slightly difficult.
The Jounin kicked the ground again, wincing as his foot connected with a rock.
"Damn." He muttered, and returned to what he had been doing before he had gotten involved in making pictures in the dirt (so far, he had a bowl of ramen, complete with chopsticks and all, a frog, a pretty spiral sort of thing, and what appeared to be a snake, but he wasn't sure).
Which had been seeing how far he could walk with his eyes closed before he ran into something.
And thus completely defeating the purpose of being on watch.
So far his record was twenty feet, but he wasn't all that proud of it as he had promptly fallen in a prickly bush after that, which kind of took all the pride out of his victory. And then the time before that he had nearly drowned when a stream had appeared where he wasn't exactly expecting a stream to be.
Bad things happened when Naruto got bored.
Jiraiya and Kakashi had learned this the hard way.
Poor sods.
Opening his eyes when he felt his foot connect with the base of a tree, Naruto sighed; he didn't see why they couldn't just take their chances with the enemy. Just because Shizune had been unconscious for the past four days, and Kakashi could barely move from over use of that eye, didn't mean he and Genma couldn't take the bastards.
Hey, if Sasuke hadn't been able to kill him, what would make these people any more capable?
Well wasn't this a pleasant train of thought?
Giving up on his game, the Jounin opened his eyes again and decided that now was the perfect time for some shuriken practice. Grabbing a handful of the stars from his shuriken pouch, Naruto chose a tree about thirty yards off to be his target. Lining himself up with his eyes, he got ready to throw the first set, concentrating on where on the tree he wanted to hit.
Whipping the shuriken away from him in a one fluid movement, Naruto grinned as they flew straight through the air to imbed themselves in the tree he had picked out of the lineup.
And as he did a little victory dance, he missed the eyes watching him from up in a tree about ten yards away from the one he had just assaulted with shuriken.
He really should have been paying attention to how far away from their makeshift camp he had walked.
Shino had planned this part well at least; he was already through the village gate when the sirens sounded, he had watched it close from a tree a few hundred yards away. And then he had started running.
He had been on the move for fifteen minutes when he finally couldn't hear the blaring noise of the sirens anymore, but he knew they were still going strong, warning villagers to stay inside until the Godaime knew what had happened and had decided on a course of action.
Tsunade-sama probably had an idea of what had happened the moment the first siren sounded.
So every second counted now if he wanted to actually make it to the other team before he was caught by hunter-nins. It really wasn't going to help that he had only returned from his last mission the night before and thus wasn't fully recuperated. Well, no one ever was these days; they were given a week tops, and usually much less, to get into as good as shape as they could manage before they were sent out again.
The length of time a shinobi spent in Konoha between missions depended on many things. One, their personal skill level. Two, the difficulty of the mission they had just returned from. Three, the difficulty of the mission they were about to take on. Four, the injuries they had sustained (if any) on their last mission. Five, how desperate the war situation was at the time.
Since scouting out an area for a Jounin Camp was a painfully easy task, only dangerous if there happened to be fighting in that area, Shino had only been given a day's rest in between his arrival in and his departure from Konoha. Even though his last mission had been a particularly grueling one. Even though it felt like if he had to run one more mile his bones would shatter.
When the sun rose that morning he felt little relief. He had made it through the first night, but the sunlight was only going to make it easier for the hunter-nins to find him, and he didn't have a clue about what kind of special jutsus they had for finding missing-nins. All he could do was keep running and hope they wouldn't catch up.
What a great plan.
Right now would be when he could have really used Shikamaru's skill at making practically fool proof strategies, but not everyone can be a genius.
Too bad.
It would have made things a lot easier for him.
Shino sighed, his brain working overtime. He had to have at least an hour on the hunter-nins, who would have had to receive their orders and prepare to go before they could actually take up the chase. So the least he could do was lay some traps for them, it wasn't like he could get into any deeper trouble.
That was little too much like thinking 'well I've already killed one person, so I guess it really doesn't matter if I kill a few more. It's not like they can kill me twice if they catch me' for his liking, but desperate times call for desperate measures, no?
His mind made up, Shino stopped, leaning against a tree trunk as he struggled to catch his breath. He wasn't quite up for this kind of strain on his body yet, he hadn't had any time at all to rest since he had completed his last mission. He dug around in a pouch until he found some explosive notes. It didn't take much effort to then alter them slightly so that they wouldn't explode until someone came within fifteen feet of them.
After tying six of the notes to kunai, he stuck one to the tree he was already in. Three of the rigged kunai he put back into a pouch, the other three he threw, one at a time, so that they were lodged into trees with this one as the center. With any luck, at least one of the notes would be triggered when the hunter-nins tried to get past, if not all four. The other three he would spread around a little further on, close enough to here that the hunter-nins wouldn't be expecting them, but far enough away that they wouldn't be triggered into exploding by the four notes here when they went off.
Surveying his trap, Shino massaged the place where his neck met his shoulders with a cold hand. He was still stiff and only getting stiffer; if he was forced to keep up this pace for too much longer he would get completely tired out and would be unable to hold of any other enemies he may run into. He also had to be careful with where he placed his traps, shinobi from Konoha came through here on an almost daily basis, it was close enough to the village that there weren't any Jounin Camps quite yet, but anyone returning to or just leaving the village from that gate would pass through the area.
Hopefully his traps would be tripped by either the hunter-nins or shinobi from the Sound or Mist, but there was always the chance…
Shino shook his head vigorously, trying to stop focusing on the 'what ifs'.
He had done something he probably shouldn't have, and now he was going to pay for it and pay well. If he didn't want to be caught, he couldn't dwell on the possibility of his traps either killing or injuring Konoha shinobi or allies of the hidden village for too long.
"What makes you think you can kill us?" Kiba snarled, jumping down from his tree so that he was looking the Sound-nin in the eye. Iruka nodded his agreement, one hand still pressed over his ribs, and Akamaru barked encouragingly. Any fear he had had before was almost gone now, replaced by anger. He may not have known Daiki all that well, but that didn't mean he didn't care that this shinobi had murdered him.
The Sound-nin smirked, taking his hand away from his face. "The way I see it all I'm up against is a school teacher with a couple broken ribs and a little boy and his mutt. I shouldn't even break a sweat against trash like you."
Akamaru barked again and Kiba unzipped his jacket, letting the dog jump down to the ground. "Akamaru isn't a mutt. And I'm not a little boy. I can prove that to you if you'd like."
"Go right ahead."
Kiba rolled his eyes and opened a pouch with one hand, fishing out two soldier pills, one for Akamaru, one for him. One second thought, he grabbed another and tossed it to Iruka, who caught it with one hand. Shoving one into his mouth and throwing the other for Akamaru, Kiba turned back to the Sound-nin. "Hey you, what's your name?"
Apparently not suspecting that, the shinobi gaped at him for a second before replying. "Kiyoshi Isamu, why?"
Kiba grinned, baring teeth sharper than they had any right to be. "I like to know who it is I'm killing."
Behind him, Iruka winced, not used to seeing his former students going all evil. Sadly, he was going to get accustomed to it far sooner than he would like, but it was a far cry better than watching his former students getting killed. Sighing, he swallowed the soldier pill the Inuzuka had given him, trying to ignore the sharp pain in this chest from the broken ribs. Daiki had been their medic of sorts; now he was going to have to wait until they found a town to have his ribs set, which meant he wasn't going to be much use in a fight until then.
Looks like Kiba was going to be on his own for this then.
Kiba watched Isamu's face as Akamaru digested the soldier pill, it was much the same as Naruto's had been all those years ago in the Chuunin exam; disbelieving. He smirked, the Sound-nin would believe it soon enough, like after they hit him with Gatsuuga for example.
Quickly, while the Sound-nin was still watching Akamaru, Kiba formed the necessary hand seals for Juujin Bunshin. Once his dog had transformed, Kiba considered his options. He didn't know what Isamu's jutsus were, or if they had anything to do with sound manipulation (he really hoped not, last time he had been up a Sound-nin with those kind of capabilities he had won, but definitely come out of the fight at less than 100 and he hadn't been able to walk in a straight line for a week). Hopefully, considering the kind of speed required for Gatsuuga, any sound attacks wouldn't be able to penetrate, and if they were… Kiba shrugged, he would just have to deal with that if it happened. "Ready Akamaru?"
No matter how many times he saw it, it was always disconcerting to hear Akamaru's bark coming out of a mouth on a body that looked exactly like his.
"Then you know the drill, if we lose, we don't get to see Shino again, and we don't want that do we?" Akamaru barked again, a predatory grin on his face as he stared the Sound-nin down.
Iruka backed away from the pair, stopping only when he felt the reassuring strength of a tree at his back. One Kiba was more than enough thank you very much, and he definitely did not want to get in the way of this jutsu.
"Alright then, let's get this over with so that rotten thief doesn't get too far ahead of us! Gatsuuga no jutsu!"
That had been far too easy. The poor Chuunins never knew what hit them, which had allowed him and the two ANBU to kill them before they even had a chance to react. He had requested that the ANBU leave at least one alive so that he, Lee, and Tenten could take the shinobi back to Konoha with them for questioning.
Of the five Sound-nin, one had survived the attack, but she was severely injured, so that she wouldn't be able to put up a fight when she was carted off to Konoha. Hopefully she would have some good information in her otherwise Gai would have carried her for two days for nothing.
When they returned to where they had left Lee and Tenten they found two silent and brooding eighteen year-olds. Gai sighed; he left them alone for half an hour and came back to this. Hopefully it would pass; otherwise he was going to spend the next two days fighting the urge to shake them until they snapped out of it. He just wished he knew what had happened while he was gone, it took a lot to crush Rock Lee's spirits and Tenten wasn't exactly the silent type either.
He looked from the unconscious girl under his arm to the as-good-as-comatose Chuunins sitting on the forest floor.
This was going to be a fun weekend.
"Thank you for your assistance Midori-chan, Kenta-kun, we'll be alright from here, so you can return to your squad now, perhaps one of Tsunade's messengers has already been and gone?"
"It was nice working with you Gai-san." The ANBU in white, Kenta, said. "Sorry we can't help you back to Konoha with that."
"Don't worry about us," Gai replied, depositing the Sound-nin on the ground with a soft thump. He winked at the ANBU before continuing. "We have Konoha's very own Green Beast, eh Lee-kun?"
Lee jumped a bit, but nodded. "Yes Gai-sensei." He said in a monotone, but he got to his feet, pulling himself up using a low tree branch. He dusted his hands off and bowed to the two ANBU. "Thank you for helping us."
Taking her cue from Lee, Tenten also jumped to her feet to bow to the elite shinobi. "What you said was true, ANBU-san. My balance is off; it was kind of you to help Gai-sensei when we couldn't."
"It's Kenta, and don't mention it, just glad we could be of assistance. Good luck on your journey home. Let's go Midori, before it gets too late." Kenta said, his face still hidden behind his dog's mask. The other ANBU, wearing black and a cat mask, nodded to them, bowed to Gai, and then they were gone.
Gai blinked. "I'll never get used to that." He muttered to himself before turning to grin at his students, who just stared blankly back. "Now, what's gotten you two so down?"
"Nothing Gai-sensei, we were just talking." Tenten said, giving the Sound-nin at the Jounin's feet a once over. "She for Ibiki-san?"
"Hmm? Oh, yes. Hopefully she'll know something new or useful, I think Ibiki is getting rather fed up; he hasn't been able to get much out of any of the captured Sound shinobi as far as I know. I can imagine that is rather frustrating for an interrogation master like him." He shrugged. "If not, Tsunade should be able to put her to good use rebuilding the district that got destroyed last week."
At Lee and Tenten's blank looks he scratched the back of his head nervously. "Heh. I forgot you two didn't know about that. Kenta told me about it after we dealt with the Sound-nins. Apparently something got through the Eastern defenses, as far as he knew it was one of Orochimaru's giant snakes. Anyway, it crushed an eastern section of the wall and part of the town; prisoners are being put to work to rebuild it. I wouldn't worry too much about it, most of the villagers got out of the area before it was destroyed, and no one was killed."
He bent down to pick the unconscious kunoichi up again and straightened up with her under one arm. "Well then, shall we go?"
a/n: I'm having fun, can you tell? I had to cut it down to only four scenes again because I made them longer than usual. This will probably be the way it is for a while, but no guarantees. I just keep on writing, and writing… Chapters will either be cut to fewer scenes, or will become longer. Not too much longer, but around 3400 words, as opposed to 2400. This one is 3000 and a bit… Yay me.
AvaStar: I know, isn't it? Well, here's the next chapter, hope it's as good as the last.
Unknown-Dreams: Updated! (obviously) I'm so mean to them all aren't I? I promise I won't pick on Sakura too much… -grins-
Snickers: Umm, I did… See the warning in the summary? Thanks though, I'm glad you like that part at least.
SNA: Well, he didn't do much in this bit, but he will, don't worry. I haven't forgotten about him . And yes, I do write "like a crazy thing" so don't worry about having to wait a while for updates! –grins- Thanks!