In the last chapter of this fine story, Sasuke and Kabuto arrived home, the curses were revealed to Orochimaru (aka Boss-sama), Sasuke did some reminiscing, and we found out what happened to Itachi and Kisame. (A.N.: snicker anyone else find this unbelievably funny?) Now we turn our attention to the village hidden in leaves, where some events of interest have taken place.
On that note...
The Mysterious Curse-nin! or Leaves Attract Water-Based Curses (with unnerving accuracy)
In the village of leaves there was chaos. A mysterious missing-nin had apparently taken down and kidnapped several of the village's more prominent clan heirs, and several of the nin sent after him had disappeared without a trace. Tsunade was worried as frantic clan heads harried her to locate the missing-nin, the heirs, and the nin that were sent after them. None of them knew that normality had waved good bye and headed for the hills as fast as a hungry Akimichi toward an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Shikamaru sighed as best he could in his current form, this was all too troublesome.
The trouble had all started when a missing-nin had tried to steal several scrolls pertaining to the Hyuuga clan. Hinata and Neji were the ones that caught up with him first...
FLASHBACK
Hyuuga Hinata and her cousin, Hyuuga Neji raced after a missing-nin from Cloud who had taken a scroll describing the beginning of the Hyuuga clan. Neji was particularly eager to kill the nin and take back the scroll, because Cloud was the reason his father was dead and although he had made his peace with the main house, he wasn't going to let this perfect opportunity for some revenge slip by. As they caught up with the nin, Neji, with byakugan active began to fight the him. The nin jumped back, pulled a bamboo flask out of his vest and threw the contention the two, Neji dodged but Hinata wasn't so lucky.
SPLASH! The contents of the flask hit Hinata and, to Neji's shock, she turned into a horse, no wait, scratch that, a dark blue, winged, unicorn. "What th-?" he was interrupted by another flask being emptied on him. Hinata could only watch in shock as Neji was turned into a bald eagle, his white eyes blending with the white feathers. While they were in shock, the nin got away.
Only to meet Sakura and Ino, who were training together.
"Hey you! What are you doing here?" Ino yelled as she and Sakura got into fighting stances.
"I don't have time for this." the nin mumbled as he pulled out another flask that he'd stolen off that dead monk out and splashed the two girls who, caught off guard by the unorthodox attack failed to dodge all the water. To the girls shock, they had turned into cats.
The scene had repeated itself several times, resulting in Choji, Shikamaru, Kiba, Lee, TenTen, and Iruka, as well as Ibiki and Anko, getting turned into various animals. Hinata was the only one to be changed into a mythological creature, and Shino had escaped unchanged.
"We need a plan." was Neji's comment. They had found that they could understand each other and Shino could understand them. Hell if they new why...(#1)
Iruka, who had been turned into a brown bear, nodded. "We shouldn't kill him. We need to interrogate him and find out if this is reversible."
"I'm looking forward to that." was Ibiki's comment. He and Anko had been turned into mountain lions.
"Can we even fight in these forms?" Sakura asked.
"Of course we can!" Lee, who had been turned into a squirrel, exclaimed. "With the power of youth guiding us, we shall prevail!"
Shikamaru, Choji, and Kiba, who had been respectively turned into a stag, a panda, and a wolf, just stared at the sight of a squirrel doing a 'good guy' pose.
TenTen, who had been turned into a tiger, ignored her teammate in favor of saying "Ooo kaaay, back to the subject, what's the plan?"
The plan turned out to have Kiba, Anko, and Ibiki track the nin, then for Neji, Iruka, Hinata, Lee, Ino, and Sakura to fight the nin aided by the trackers, then for Shikamaru use shadow bind on him when he was distracted and Ino to poses him while he was held still. Shino would then tie him up, Ino would release the shintenshin and the nin would be knocked out. Surprisingly enough, it went off with out a hitch until...
"Now what?"
END FLASHBACK
Which lead up to now.
"Isn't it obvious? We take him to the Hokage's tower and give a report. Let them figure out how to reverse this."
Thus the weirdest band to enter Konoha proper ever did so, hopping, and in some cases flying, over rooftops to the center of the village, and nearly giving an ANBU a heart attack when the group passed him. Hinata stopped and bowed an apology before catching up to her friends.
The ANBU blinked and commented "That's it. I'm retiring before I get killed, 'cause now I've seen everything!"
"What news?"
"Teams 1, 4, 5, and 7 report that no sign of nin in their sectors!"
"Team 3 found traces of fighting in their sector! Recent too!"
"Send Team 4 to help investigate!"
The Hokage's office was the center of furious activity, that is, until a panda walked in the window carrying the nin that had caused all the trouble in the first place. The assembled nin all stared at the sight, the stared some more as the panda was followed by an eagle, a wolf, two mountain lions, a squirrel, two cats, a stage, a tiger, a brown bear, a dark blue, winged, unicorn, Akamaru and Shino.
"Shino, what's with the menagerie?" Tsunade inquired as the panda tossed the missing nin to the floor.
"Hokage-sama, I am afraid to report that the 'menagerie' as you put it is in fact Konoha nin afflicted by an unknown water-based jutsu."
The shock that his words caused was indeed evident, as most nin in the room stared at Shino like he'd lost his mind. Neji seeing that they didn't believe Shino, flew right up to Tsunade's face and stared her in the eye while voicing the thought of, "Look what Shino said is true and if you don't believe him I'll close the tenketsu in your arm and do a heavenly spin in the middle of your floor!"
The rest of room who couldn't understand him just heard a large variety of screeches delivered at earsplitting volume. However Tsunade saw the white eyes, but before she could react a nin reached over to try to remove the eagle that was Neji and got the tenketsu in his arms sealed for his trouble. Shikamaru seeing that Neji had lost his head completely from the stress of the day quickly used his shadow bind on him, freezing Neji in mid air.
"Alright! We believe you!" Tsunade shouted "Now who's who, Shino?" she continued in a quieter voice
"Neji's the eagle, Shika's the stag, Hinata's the unicorn with wings, Kiba's the wolf, Lee's the squirrel, Ibiki and Anko are the mountain lions, Sakura and Ino are cats, Choji's the panda, Iruka's the bear, and Tenten's the tiger. (A.N.: finally gottem straight! yes!) I apologize for Neji's behavior, the stress of today got to him."
"Fine. Now," Tsunade turned to the rest of the nin in the room,"Call back the squadrons and go home and rest up. You all," She turned back to the cursed nin, "come with me I'll find someplace for you to camp until we can figure out how to change you back." She went to leave but remembered the nin "And somebody interrogate the missing nin, I want to find out what he did and for god's sake don't tell any one that you don't have to!"
