Hello everyone and welcome to this chapter. Now I would like to say that yes I kind of rushed through to get that last chapter out…but this time it was because I REALLY wanted a small chance of brining a few more people over to a charity marathon. I watch it each year that it goes on and even though I don't have a lot to give to it I want to do all that I can…plus it was funny to see. So, I hope all of you can forgive me for that. If not, well I am sorry but for once I don't feel bad about it. Anyways on to the chapter.
Chapter 76
~Guarded town; team 7~
A Naruto clone was calmly walking around the village when Team 10 appeared before him.
"That was fast. Did you guys already complete your mission?" Clone Naruto asked with a smirk.
"We found the black blood creatures but there were too many unknowns for us to do anything. Anyways we need to talk to team 7." Shikamaru tells the clone walking by him. Said clone just nodded and began to continue his walk but was stopped by Ino giving him a hug.
"H-hey what is this for Ino-chan?" the Naruto clone asked a bit surprised as he looked down at the girl holding onto the front of him.
"Hehe I have wanted to do this to see what happens for so long and now is the perfect time." Ino told him with a mischievous smirk. She then brought her face close to the Naruto clone who was now blushing. But instead of getting into his face she put her head right beside his. So, close that the clone could feel her hot breath on his ear.
"I-Ino-chan what are you doing?" Naruto asked still not pulling away from her.
"Hehe don't you worry about that." She told him blowing on his ear to tease him and gained a smirk when she felt a shiver run through his body. She then brought her head even closer to his ear and bite his ear just hard enough for him to feel a small amount of pain. Still the clone froze and then poofed out of existence. She then fell into a fit of giggles. "Either Naruto's clones are much less resilient than I thought or I just officially made a man die of embarrassment." Ino told herself fully planning on holding this moment over the blonde's head for a long time. She then left to catch up with her team and the real Naruto
+Meanwhile+
After leaving the clone Choji and Shikamaru walked to their 'base' which currently was their house in the town. When they got there only Sakura was in the house reading a book as she ate some food.
"Hey guys you came back a lot faster than we thought you would." Sakura tells them with a smile.
"Well they weren't all that hidden." Choji tells her simply.
"…troublesome. We were able to find them but they plan on destroying this town in a couple of hours. We couldn't attack them though due to being out numbered and having too many unknowns." Shikamaru tells her simply. "Do you know where the other two are? We need to go over a plan to take care of them." Shikamaru asks.
"Hai, Naruto is currently training in a field and Sai is working on his painting on the roof of some house, I think. I'll go collect them real quick" Sakura tells them putting her book away and quickly left the building. Meanwhile Choji calmly sat down in the chair she just left and unsealed a bag of chips and opened them with a smirk. He then looked up at Shikamaru.
"What? The journey made me hungry." Choji told him before focusing on the flavor of his chips.
"…sometimes his ability to eat no matter how stressful the time is amazes even me" Shikamaru mentally admitted. Not that he would ever verbally say it. After a minute or two of waiting Sakura came back with both of her teammates.
"Welcome back you guys." Naruto told them with a smirk before looking around. "but where is Ino-chan?" Naruto asks.
"Ino decided to stay and mess with the clone of you that we talked to…and what is wrong?" Shikamaru asks as Naruto tensed up and now had a large blush on his face.
"I-Ino-chan happened." Naruto told them simply and tried to control his blush. "Anyways you want to talk about a plan?"
"Yes…but now we must wait for Ino to get here. And judging from your reaction I'd assume it won't be long." Shikamaru told him.
"As accurate as ever!" Ino calls out happily wrapping her arms around Naruto.
"But wow Naruto I gotta say that I am surprised that you can die out of embarrassment." Ino told him with a giggle.
"What do you mean?" Sakura asked confused.
"Hehe well your teammate here just found out that his clones can actually die from embarrassment. I mean all I did was nibble on your ear a little bit…poor Naru is so sensitive." Ino told her with a wide smirk while cuddling into her boyfriend who yet again was blushing heavily as Sakura cracked up.
"Haha, you actually had a clone die of embarrassment" She said pointing at him.
"S-shut up" Naruto told her which had no power to stop either girl from laughing at him.
*cough* "Anyways!" Shikamaru said a bit louder. "Let's get started talking about the plan seeing as the enemy could be coming towards us right now!" Shikamaru tells them. "Troublesome blondes" he then muttered as everyone sat around the table.
"So what is your plan Shikamaru?" Naruto asks now that he wasn't the main focus of their conversation.
"From what we saw there is two people in control of a large amount of the black blood creatures. Both of these men seem to be researchers and not fighters. But it seems that a squad of ninja are protecting them. We don't know how strong these ninjas are but from looks alone I would expect a jonin and three chunin. From our observations all of this attacking force does not expect to meet much opposition in the next fight meaning that we have the upper hand." Shikamaru explains calmly pausing to make sure that everyone was paying attention to him still.
"Ok, and we should expect them within the next couple of hours." Naruto reaffirmed.
"Correct. But sadly, we don't know much about their plans and basic strength seeing as it was too dangerous for me to enter one of their minds. So, we need to assume each one of them is dangerous. But from basic observations the two controlling the creatures seem to be next to useless without their army." Ino adds in.
(AN: Well I love Microsoft. I probably spent an hour working on his plan and was happy with it. Finally I SAVED it and shut my computer down…apparently my computer decided to turn that work into dust…so if this doesn't make as much sense here I am sorry)
"Yes that is true. Now here is the plan that I have came up with. So, to start off Naruto you and Sai hold off the attacking black blood creatures with your clones and Sai's ink clones. Meanwhile you two will keep an eye on the fighting just in case any of the creatures are stronger than what our previous reports have informed us off. Meanwhile Sakura, Ino, and Choji will focus on the team of ninja and try to defeat them as fast as possible. Though I want this group to be careful seeing as like Ino has said we don't know their true strength or hidden abilities. Now while their fight is going on Naruto and Me will also keep an eye on this fight and enter the battle if needed while Sai covers fighting the creatures. While all of this is going on I will focus on my teams main goal of trying to collect at least one of the people controlling the creatures in order to get valuable information. Now I am well aware that this is more of a risky plan but the information that we could get from those men could be invaluable in possibly saving countless lives in the future." Shikamaru finally fully explains.
"Sounds like a logical plan." Sai says quickly agreeing. Meanwhile everyone else nodded their head in approval clearly all for the plan as well.
"Anyways enough talking let's go get prepared…after we finish eating of course." Choji tells them.
"Umm…wouldn't it be more important to just start preparing now?" Sakura asks with a sweat drop.
"No. It is ALWAYS important to finish your food." Choji tells her seriously.
*sigh* "We will get ready and Choji will come help as soon as he finishes" Ino tells the group.
"But-"
"Just trust me. It will be better for us in the long run." Ino tells him honestly. After all she knew that unless it was something VERY important Choji would want to finish eating. Or else he would complain to the person that forced him to do so for a long time. So, for this time where there were several other people that can get the preparation done without his help, he wasn't completely worried. After all Naruto could easily create enough clones to build up the defenses more AND keep the civilians protected. So, with the rest of the group simply accepted this and went their separate ways to prepare as much as they could before the attackers arrived.
+ Two hours later+
A few of Naruto's clones were lazily walking around when they heard a large group of people coming. So, one of them quickly popped out of existence spreading the information to the rest of the clones and the real Naruto instantly.
"They are coming!" Naruto called out to the rest of his team that were lazing about close to him. But as soon as Naruto said this; they all quickly got ready for the fight at hand and Sai pumped chakra into a large scroll he had instantly brining to life various ink animals and monsters that spread around the area. Meanwhile a good portion of the clones congregated around the animals as well but made sure to keep at least some of them guarding the rest of the village just in case something snuck around. Finally, for the towns people that were trying their hardest to protect their homes were armed with their various weapons behind the walls that were put up around the town.
"I really hope these ninjas know what they are doing." One of the villagers muttered as he glanced over the wall at the large group that were guarding them.
Within a few minutes after the first warning came up everyone could see the large group coming at them at a relatively fast pace. The group itself seemed to have all of the Daku were leading while no one was able to see the ninja or the two men seeing as they were lagging a bit behind of the Daku.
"Hahaha go on my creatures destroy this town!" One of the men yelled out happily.
"You know they can't actually understand what you are saying right?" the female ninja told the man.
"Heh, don't ruin our fun. Unlike you ninja we researchers don't get to feel overpowered very often." The other man answered her making all of the ninja roll their eyes.
"Just leave them to their fantasies…it will be less of a headache." The male ninja walking beside his leader told her.
*sigh* "I know but these idiots are so annoying." She told him quiet enough that only trained ninja ears could hear.
"Heh, big surprise these egg heads are annoying. Let's just hope that we don't have to do anything and get an easy mission to get praised for." the other female ninja says with a smirk. She thought imagining Orochimaru praising them when they got back to the base.
"True, but make sure that idea doesn't get into our heads too much. Chances are those fools got a few ninja to try and repel the Daku." The women in charge told them getting nods showing her team understood. Soon after they finished talking the Naruto clones and ink creatures charged at them from the village proving her thoughts were correct.
"What the hell are those things…no matter, attack my minions!" The first researcher ordered with the other soon following making the Daku speed up and begin to fight with the clones when they reached each other.
"Wow gotta say I didn't expect this town out in the middle of no where to be able to afford so many ninja." One of the researchers muttered.
"Because they didn't you fool. This is just a clone jutsu from one ninja. But it seems that one of them has an insane amount of chakra." The leader of the ninja team told him.
"Hmm, he would make a great Daku then…it's decided capture him alive so that he can be converted. Just imagine how much more of a reward we would get if we did." The first researcher said.
"…we will see how annoying he will be to catch." One of the ninja says simply. After all they knew nothing about this target seeing as he hasn't gotten a bounty yet.
_Konoha teams' perspective_
So far Naruto's clones and Sai's creations were for the most part winning the large battle. For while there were more of the daku than clones most of the creatures didn't seem all that strong. In fact, for the most part most of them seemed to be using a sloppy form of brawling as their style meaning Naruto's trained style far surpassed them. Still there were some losses on the clones' side but they were currently only minor. Something that Naruto took pride in as he watched the fight from the town's walls.
"Hmm it seems even dickless can be useful for some missions." Sai said in his normal bland voice.
"What did you say!?" Naruto growled at his teammate.
"Well, it seems like your usual tactic of spamming clones actually is doing something instead of just being a large waste of chakra like your history seems to show." Sai told him with a fake smile. "The book did say that a good way to make people happy is by giving them compliments when they do something good." Sai thought remembering one of his many books on being 'normal'.
"Grr, fuck you." Naruto growled at Sai turning his attention back to the fight in front of him.
"Hmm, it seems that yet again the reaction I receive isn't anywhere close to what the book said would happen…I need to find more research material." Sai thought while he drew more of his creatures just in case they were needed again.
Meanwhile Sakura, Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji were running far away from the battle going around the massive battle.
"I know that it is just a part of the plan but it feels bad avoiding a fight we know our friends are in." Choji mutters. Course he knew that it was just part of the job but it didn't make it feel any better. Course hearing his teammates caring nature come out again made Shikamaru have the slightest bit of a smirk on his face.
"Look at it this way, if we can get the people controlling the creatures, they hopefully will stop their attack." Shikamaru told him. Still, they couldn't talk for too long before they had to refocus seeing as they were coming closer to their targets. Soon enough they all were hidden in the forest as close as they dared to get to their targets still not noticed. With that said Sakura quickly did a hand signal to her team and all of them besides Shikamaru quickly rushed at the enemy ninja who quickly got over their surprise and quickly formed a triangle formation around the scientist.
"Whoa, what the hell?" one of the men said surprised by the sudden movement until he saw the Konoha team. "Oh, damn it they have more than just this blond guy here." Scared of the foreign ninja.
"Che, just keep the attack up on the village we will take care of them." The leader of the ninja told them calmly. She then unsheathed her blade and blocked a kunai from Sakura. With Choji attacking the male and Ino attacking the other women.
"G-good" the scientist muttered and tried to completely refocus on the Daku. But he still was clearly distracted by the fighting going on around him until he had to dodge a stray kunai that nearly hit his foot through basically sheer luck. "Ok fuck this." The man says and began to run away from the fighting ninja.
"Oy, the team says that they have them so just let them do their job. We have to make sure that we complete this mission to get our rewards." The scientist with a lab coat ordered his teammate.
"You can continue this if you want but I value my life more than my work." The plain clothed man told him before beginning to run off. But strangely enough after a few steps he froze with one foot in the air. "W-what the hell is going on!? Why can't I move?" the man asked freaking out. Meanwhile the man in the lab coat looked at him confused until he finally looked at the ground and noticed his shadow was strangely extremely long.
"What the fuck?" He muttered until he saw another black shadow slowly coming towards him. "Oh, for fuck sake. Can't you ninja actually do your job properly!" He yelled out before noticing that now that he noticed it the shadow sped up even more. "FUCK!" the man yells and began to run as fast as he could away from it as fast as he could.
"Damnit they had another team member." The women without a katana growls out and tried to run over to where the shadow clearly originated only for two kunai to sink into her legs. "Gah!" She cried out in pain as she stopped running.
"In case you forgot. I am your opponent." Ino tells the girl with a vicious smirk. "What luck, these ninja hardly even seem to be chunin. Especially to completely show her back to me without any defense plan at all." Ino thought happily. For while she was well aware of her own strengths and weaknesses, she at worked hard to brig all of her abilities up to an acceptable jonin level. While the women stood back up, she watched with a glare as the shadow connected with the now sweating man.
"Che, we will just have to kill that fool after taking care of you." The women told her quickly breathing out a ball of fire at Ino who jumped to the left to dodge.
"Shadow possession complete." Shikamaru muttered with a smirk he then stood up from his classic pose. He then walked back into the forest making both of the researchers walk into the forest as they tried desperately to break his jutsu's hold on them. While he did this the other sound ninja women's glare worsened seeing as she couldn't do anything to stop them.
"You bastards" She growled out trying to finish off Sakura as fast as she could to try and remedy her failing mission. But for now she instead could only watch as the two men moved closer and closer to the forest.
"come on you stupid ninjas you are supposed to protect us!" one of the men yelled at their group.
"You fuckers better come help us. I swear if you let us precious researcher die I am sure that Lord Orchimaru will have your hide." The other threatens. Still none of them could do anything as both men disappeared into the forest.
_Shikamaru_
After pulling both of the scientist into the forest a decent bit Shikamaru quickly canceled his technique and quickly tied up the two men so that they couldn't escape.
"Oh for fuck sake those damn ninja couldn't do one job." The man without a lab coat complained. "So, what do you want pineapple head?" he asked with a glare.
"Troublesome." Shikamaru muttered seeing as this guy was trying to act tough. "Well for starters if both of you would stop the attack on the town." He told the man simply.
"Oh sure I can do that but what's in it for me?" He asks with a smirk.
"…not dying" Shikamaru told him blandly then watched as both of the men paled but the smirk quickly came back.
"Ah ah ah, I know you bastards won't be k-killing us off that easy. You need us." He stated firmly.
"Oh we do?"
"Heh ya, I know your leaders are probably quaking in their boots about an unknown creature. So, they probably want all the information they can get their hands on. So, how about this. You guys get me set up all nice and comfy in a town and maybe then I'll be in the mood to let you know some things about snake face's plans." The man told him as confident as a tied-up person could be.
"You can't do that. As soon as he finds out Lord Orochimaru will send out every assassin he has to kill you." The other man told him.
"..these two really don't have any idea what ninjas actually do...or even a basic understanding of how military planning even works." Shikamaru thinks a bit surprised by this fact seeing as if these men really were supposed to be smart. Quickly deciding he was done with the men he knocks them both out and leaves their unconscious bodies to get back to the fight at hand.
~Battle~
"This was supposed to be an easy mission until you bastards came along." The male sound ninja complained as he hit Choji in the gut.
"Well you should have known that Konoha ninja will always protect the land of fire." Choji told them man proudly. "But sadly it seems that your time is up." Choji tells the man confusing him until he realized he couldn't move anymore. "Welcome back Shikamaru." Choji told his friend.
"Thank you for waiting." Shikamaru tells him standing a bit away from their fight.
"Heh, as if this would be enough to stop me." The man says with a cocky smirk then bit down hard on something in his mouth. A few moments later his muscles visibly bulged and all of his veins could be seen. "With this medicine I am stronger than I ever was before." The man said with a crazed smile as he began to struggle against Shikamaru's hold.
"So, what if you still can't move." Choji told him calmly before slamming his hands into the ground finishing his jutsu. Thus, causing a spike of earth to pierce through the sound ninja.
Meanwhile Sakura'S opponent quickly pulls out a strange weapon that looked to be a small dagger with holes in it. She then swung it at Sakura who dodges the attack and throws a punch at the woman. Sadly, as soon as she was about to make contact with the woman she found her hand to instead go straight through her.
"Hahaha, you are in for it now bitch. I didn't want to use this weapon but you left me no choice." The woman explains holding the weapon that now had obvious cracks around the holes.
*Flashback (sound ninja mentally)*
"Now remember Tatsuki this is still in its testing phase but this weapon is my newest creation. To use it you need to push wind chakra through the holes creating sound waves that mess with a human's senses enough so that they can no longer properly judge distances. Now use this ONLY when you absolutely need to seeing as the holes weaken the weapon considerably. In fact I imagine that you will only be able to use it maybe once or twice properly and if you block a regular kunai there is a chance that it might shatter. So, be VERY careful with this…but use it to come back to me ok?" A researcher explained to the women.
"Okay Nee-chan" Tatsuki says with a smile placing the blade in her weapon pack.
*Flashback end*
"Thank you Nee-san you really did save me" The women admitted watching as Sakura places her hand on her head for a minute.
"Now it is time for you to die!" she says with a wide smirk rushing at Sakura with a kunai ready to hit her heart. She got closer and closer until right when she was close enough to finish Sakura quickly closed her fist.
"Shanaro!" Sakura called out slamming her fist directly into the woman's stomach. An attack that had enough force to launch the woman into a stone several meters away from their battle area. Tatsuki tried to pull herself away from the stone she was now imbedded in only to feel immense pain from her abdomen.
*Cough Cough* "H-how?" Tatsuki asks after coughing up some blood
"Your strange device would have been deadly to most people but sadly you are fighting a medical ninja. It was all too easy for me to heal the damage did to me." Sakura told her honestly.
"Damn" Tasuki muttered as she felt her life slip away from internal blood loss. Finally, as for the last woman that was attacking Ino. In their fight Ino was doing all that she could to keep the fight at a stalemate.
"Heh, you weak girl how long can your defense hold up?" the woman asked with a smirk. For while she was only sweating a little bit while Ino was currently panting a decent bit. "This is the problem with ninja outside of the sound. All of you spend so much time focusing on teamwork and other shit like that instead of getting stronger yourself. Now you will pay for it." The woman told her with a vicious smirk.
"It may be true that I'm not the strongest but don't you dare look down at Konoha every again." Ino told the woman with a glare.
"Oh, and why not?"
"Because Konoha's useless tactic is finally ready to take care of you." Ino says with a smirk confusing the woman until she felt Sakura slam a fist into her head killing her quickly.
"phew, thank you Sakura-san" Ino told the girl with a smirk.
"No problem…but I training your taijutsu when we get back to the village." Sakura tells her seriously. After all she didn't want one of her friends to have such a glaring weakness if she could help it.
"H-hai" Ino mutters a bit afraid of what was to come. After all she heard of what Tsunade's training involved. They ended the talk about training when each one of them grouped back together.
"So, were you able to get the people controlling those creatures?" Ino asked seeing as Sai and Naruto were still working on defeating the daku.
*sigh* "It is troublesome but it seems that even if the people controlling them are incapacitated, they still follow their last order." Shikamaru explains.
"Anyways let's go help them finish them off." Choji tells the group with all of them besides Shikamaru agreeing.
"You guys finish off these creatures I am going to make sure those two scientists are secure." He tells the group who nods understanding the importance of keeping those two properly contained. So, while he walked back into the forest while the rest rushed towards the battle going on.
+Thirty minutes later+
The Konoha ninja made quick work of the daku now that they didn't have to worry about injuring any of their teammates or people they needed to capture. In fact, the scientist both were now awake but tied up in the building they were given. Sadly, they had to have their mouths gagged seeing as they seemed to have made it their goal to annoy the crap out of both teams. But they were leaving the more aggressive forms of information gathering until they were safely back in Konoha. Currently though these men were being guarded only by a few clones while the real members of the team were all standing in the center of town surrounded by a bunch of people.
"Thank you for defeating those creatures!" Mayor Havyer said with a large smile as he shook Shikamaru's hand.
"It isn't a problem sir. It's just part of the mission you gave us." Shikamaru told the man simply while the rest of the group shared the smirks that the rest of the town's people had on their faces.
"Still, we are grateful for all of you getting here before we were wiped out by those things. We will always be grateful of you Konoha ninja." The mayor tells them truthfully.
"Heh, not a problem. But as much as we would love to spend some more time with you guys celebrating, we really must take these two back to Konoha." Naruto tells them honestly. Course all of the villagers understood this and after a quick celebration both teams went back to their base and quickly packed up their equipment before getting some rest before their journey home.
+Next morning; in front of town+
Both teams woke up right as the sun rose and picked up the last bit of their gear and now stood in front of the town on the path towards Konoha.
"By ninja-sans thank you!" The group heard a young child call out to them as the rest of the town waved good bye to them making all of them feel proud of the fact their mission was such a success.
"Ok let's head home." Shikamaru tells the group with a small smirk on his face. He then began walking as the rest of the of the group begins to walk Naruto yet again summoned two clones that carried their captives like sacks of potatoes. A fact that led to both of them men being knocked out 'accidentally' several times as they completed the journey home.
~Konoha gates~
Finally, after about a full day's worth of travel they finally made it back to the village. Now they could have made it in the same time that it took them to reach the town but none of them wished to run full out without actually needing to.
"State your names and purpose" the guard ordered them at the gate like normal and they all quickly gave their basic information to be allowed in for well deserved rest. Meanwhile as soon as they fully stepped into Konoha two ANBU members took their captives without saying a single word and disappeared.
"Okay teams go home and get some well needed rest. We will meet back here at eight tomorrow morning to give our reports." Shikamaru told both groups getting nods as everyone visibly relaxed and went their separate ways.
And that is where I am going to end this chapter. Now I am happy that most of this mission turned out pretty decent in my opinion. But I will just say that yes I am well aware that the fighting parts of it were a bit lack luster. But that also has reason if you haven't assumed it already. Orochimaru really doesn't care about any of these troops because they are all cannon fodder. Meaning that the researchers, ninja, and daku he sends out are all expendable. So, while they were used for various researchers studies for various reasons and there for had special 'powers' none of it really mattered. So, why give any real importance to those characters that are meant to be little more than extremely minor characters…but the researchers will be used to give Konoha the basic information that I want them to have. Anyways I hope all of you enjoyed. Ja Ne.