"You don't deserve the life that you would have lived if you stayed. This is for the best."

He was out of breath, had been for a long while now. He'd been running since the sun was up, and now the only things in the sky were the moon and the stars. But he needed to keep going. Several people were tailing him relentlessly even through the dense foliage of the forest. That was to be expected, you can't easily lose trained ninja on your trail after all. Just barely dodging a kunai thrown in his direction, he kept on running, strafing left and right, making sure that nothing would touch him, especially anything sharp.

He needed some rest, but he knew he wouldn't be getting any for a long while. At least, not a long rest. With a quick side-step, he dodged into the shadow of a very large tree and out of his pursuers line-of-sight. A hand-seal later, he sent an exact clone of himself, from his body, his figure, right down to the very tools he was equipped with, to continue the chase for him while he continued to hide and regained his breath. To say that he was tired would be more than an understatement. His muscles were on the verge of overloading and he knew it. Fortunately for him, this sort of predicament was all too common for shinobi. He reached for a pocket on his belt and took out a small pellet which quickly found its way into his mouth after he pulled away on his mask. Soon after he swallowed it, all the aches and pains in his entire body just faded away, eventually his body felt like it was ready for another chase.

It wasn't obvious because of his heavy cloak but in his arm was a bundle of cloth and while unwrapping said bundle, it started to move. As he removed the final layer, prominent spikes of blonde hair poked out of the sheets. With a soft yawn the smallish human still partially hidden under the sheets stretched out his small arms and once again went back to sleep. This caused his carrier to smile softly behind his mask and spare an affectionate ruffle to the tiny child's hair before very carefully repacking his cargo.

"That's right, just stay asleep, it'll make it easier for the both of us. But I have to compliment myself, using a silencing jutsu on you in case you wake up as well as a sound-proofing jutsu on your sheets was pure genius."

He took this time to mentally pat himself on the back. Just then, several near silent footsteps darted right past him. Immediately he was completely motionless and silent as his previous smile faded, not a muscle moved while he could hear the foot steps of his pursuers running past his location. Praying, to anyone or anything that could listen to his thoughts that no one would find him, he huddled the child closer to his chest as though the act could bring his voice closer to the heavens.

"He went that way! Split into three teams and circle around the target in a pincer! I will take the center! Kakashi, lead the Anbu squad and take the left flank! Anko, you take the chunnins and take the right flank!" the commander, with his own team, brought his hand up to finalize his command. Soundlessly, everyone went with their acting commanders to initiate their plan of capture. They all seemingly disappeared in countless puffs of smoke, but to the trained eye, it was merely the appearance of them all speeding away in different directions with trained swiftness.

Once the coast was clear, the figure hidden behind the tree relaxed his muscles. He slowly slipped down the bark of the tree and sat on the ground, surprisingly or not, without making a single sound. He wiped sweat off his brow just under his head protector. He couldn't make a sound yet, or he'd risk someone with sharp hearing among his pursuers backtracking and finding him.

He used this sparce breathing space to calculate his plan of action. It wouldn't be very ideal to simply run around like he had been doing all day. Most of the shinobi would be deployed to scout the ground as the trees make pursuit more difficult than it would be if it was in an open field. However, their numbers clearly diminish that disadvantage to nil. He could roam the treetops which would make his travel faster, but he could easily be spotted by anyone scouting there as well. It wouldn't be any different than a chase in an open field. Since neither the forest ground nor the tree tops were good ideas, then he was left with his last option. For some reason, this last idea brought a smile to his face.

"Underground."

While still cradling the blanketed child, he lifted his free hand and readied himself to strike the ground to initiate his technique. Swish! A soft, nearly inaudible sound caused him to stiffen a moment and the sudden movement in the background forced him to dodge forward into a roll in order to avoid being skewered by a –

"Snake?"

Only a few people in his mind registered when a snake came to mind. "Anko …"

The projectile, which was indeed as snake flew a good distance past his last position until it stopped and speedily went back to its source behind a bush as though it was being pulled back. A gruff looking woman with shoulder length hair jumped out of the grass not far from his position. Her dark outfit blended in with the night and he didn't notice her presence until the very last moment.

"Well … I didn't expect you to be the first one to find me," he smiled under his mask, which was obvious because of the way his eyes narrowed politely. He was replied to with a smile of her own as snakes danced along both of her arms that seemed to come out from her sleeves.

"You are really, really careless. You should be ashamed of yourself." He was about to refute her but a sudden charge of twin snakes from both of her hands made him jump onto a tree-branch just above him in order to avoid the attack. Dead leaves rustled as the reptiles impacted onto the bare ground until they retracted back along Anko's arms.

"That's not nice, you didn't even let me defend myself," he frowned, again somehow obvious under his mask because of the way his eye expressed his body language for him. How he played with the word 'defend' however, was lost on the kunoichi. She launched the snakes at the branch which the male easily evaded just like the previous attacks. As he was about to land on another branch, he was surprised to find that another snake was already headed his way. He twists his body in air, avoiding the venomous fangs that were bared his way and caught the branch as he missed his landing point and dangled there, eyeing his enemy. As her snakes again began to retract into her hands, he began assessing the situation again.

"She has range on her side, not to mention those snakes are poisonous, no doubt." He quickly dodges the series of snake-based attacks being launched at him, swinging from branch to branch and jumping from tree to tree around his attacker as she followed in pursuit, jumping along different trees in order to keep up while keeping her target on his feet by relentlessly attacking every moment she could afford to. "She sure has improved over the years even without her sensei, but she is still rather impatient." He couldn't help but silently compliment his pursuer, but he couldn't let the chase last too long or the others would catch up to him. "That would be bad if it came to that", he concluded.

After pushing off the last tree with a strong jump, he spares Anko a slight glance to see if she is in the right position for him to initiate his move. She was right behind him by a tree. "Perfect," he smiled. Anko didn't notice his change of expression until she was face to face with her intended target. Face to face with one deep brown eye, and one deep red eye with three abnormal marks, the marks of the sharingan.

Several minutes later, the group of chunnins who were supposedly under Anko's command followed in their missing commander's trail. They were already positioning themselves in order to initiate the planned pincer maneuver, but Anko had told them that she would just give the area another quick once-over just to be sure and to follow her if she didn't come back in five minutes. True to their words, five minutes later they were scouring the forest for their missing commander-in-charge.

"Over here! Quickly! Bring the medic-nin!" the anonymous ninja waved his hands furiously in the air to get everyone's attention.

The others quickly ran to the one who shouted while pointing behind a large tree. The sight behind the age-old wood sent chills running down their spines. Anko bloodily stood there unconscious, tied to the tree with her own snakes with the fangs being used to fasten her tightly in place. Along her shoulder was another snake, decapitated with its fangs sunken deeply into her shoulder.

Author's Notes:

This is chapter has been updated, changed, re-written, proofreaded, shreaded and butchered several times. I think as of this writing, this is the most correct version this chapter will ever see. As time goes along, there's a chance that I will combine this with the other prologue chapter (part 2 is currently in the works). My friend Juls helped me with countless corrections and suggestions which I honestly believe helped make this chapter much better than the first few versions I posted on ffnet.

Thanks, Juls.

Also, thanks to my 2 reviewers (as of this writing) and especially to Surarrin who is the author of the Naruto fanfiction, "An Alternate Path" which I heavily recommend to those who favor a fresh approach (meaning something that doesn't stick so closely to the canon that they might as well be welded together with bubblegum).