Good Pacing is for Pussies, here's the whole Sasuke Retrieval Arc, Fuck You


Sasuke woke up with a startled gasp.

"Oh good, you're up." Said what was probably a Naruto shadow clone from next to him. Was he in hospital? Ah whatever.

"Hinata." He began.

"Taken." Naruto replied. "The Sound-nin ran off with her."

"Then what are we waiting here for?" Sasuke asked, already getting out of bed.

"Now you're up, nothing. Hokage's office, five minutes."

The clone popped.

Sasuke made it in three.


~5 Years Before Graduation

"Don't. Scream. Provided you want to live." A man's voice uttered.

Hinata squeaked, and held her tongue.

She felt her hands tied behind her back, and she was unceremoniously picked up and slung over the man's shoulder.

He took off running, running like a ninja, and she had no idea who he was or where they were going, and there were tears coming out of her eyes oh Kami someone please help me-

Her kidnapper slid to a stop, and she heard someone else drop in front of them.

"You got one?" One voice said.

"Got one. She left the party alone. Dumb bitch even left a doppelgänger in her place, they won't know she's missing for a while."

Hinata sobbed.

"Which one did you get?"

"Hiashi's eldest, like I told you."

"Sure she's the best choice?"

"It's only her and her sister who don't have the caged bird seal, and the younger isn't even three yet so she's well protected. This is our best shot."

"Hn. Good enough. A few days travel and we'll be back in Lightning, a few minutes surgery and we'll have her eyes out, and a few hours with T&I and she'll never try and escape."

"Heh. And after that it's only a few years before she's old enough to make us more."

Hinata choked. Her body was shaking, she couldn't even bring herself to struggle. This shouldn't be happening, not in Konoha, surely someone would come?

"Come on." The other's voice said. "Two minutes until the gap in the wall's watch, I'll take her and-" his voice cut off suddenly, with a gargle. Hinata heard something slump to the floor.

Her carrier tensed, turning rapidly. "Who was that? Show yourself!"

"Put Hinata down, and you may live." Came a calm voice, seemingly from all directions at once.

She recognised it immediately. "NEJI!" She screamed. "NEJI HELP-"

"Shut up." a knife came back to her throat. Her kidnapper was breathing heavily. He shouted out into the night, "Whoever the fuck you are, you come out now! Or I'll slit her throat!"

"I can see your brain through your skull." Neji's voice replied. It was the voice of someone trying very hard to remain calm. "I can throw a kunai before you can react and kill you in such a way that you don't even spasm. Put her down, or die."

"Like hell you will." There was a wild edge to her captor's voice. "You end my life this soon after that treaty gets signed? The whole of Lightning will be out for your head, and Konoha will have to hand it to us."

There was a long silence. Hinata felt her hopes plummet.

Then there was a quiet squelching noise. The knife fell away from her throat, and Hinata found herself plucked from the man's grip. There was another thud.

"You underestimate what I will sacrifice for my family." Neji intoned, calmly.

Hinata slumped into his arms, as he lifted her back a few steps and sat her down. A few seconds later there was a snap as her hands were freed, and then the bag was lifted up from her head.

If she'd had any strength in her limbs left, she'd have lost it upon seeing the two forms slumped on the floor in front of her, blood pooling around them.

She retched.

"Hey, hey, easy, look at me, look at me." Neji tilted her chin up, so her white eyes met his. "Are you alright?"

"I..." Hinata shook her head, "you killed him."

Neji nodded, slowly.

"But-" Neji was a ninja. Neji killed people. That hadn't really sunk in until now. "But the treaty-"

"Fuck the treaty." Neji snarled. "First job is keeping you safe."

He looked up, and sighed.

They were on a rooftop, Hinata realised, dimly, just as there was a blur and another man appeared on the roof next to them. She thought it was her father for a moment, but a muffled "dad." From Neji expelled that idea quickly.

"Uncle Hizashi!" She shouted. "Quick, the Lightning ninja, they-"

"Died." Hizashi interrupted, gravely. "And I'm afraid the rest is immaterial."

"I'm sorry. I-they were going to-" Neji was shaking, with rage or fear Hinata couldn't tell. "The Yamanaka. We could-"

"What is the meaning of this?" Hinata scrambled backwards, as the Raikage appeared on the roof, then the Hokage, then half a dozen other ninja. Neji crouched protectively in front of her as all the new arrivals took in the grisly scene.

"They tried to kidnap me!" Hinata shouted to them. "They said they would-"

"Outrageous!" The Raikage silenced her. "You have the nerve to make such accusations while stood over the bodies of my ninja? How-"

"Miss Hinata is a child, and is not the responsible party here." The Hokage's voice was cool, and still managed to cut across the much larger man's tirade. His lined face turned to Neji. "Jonin. Would you care to explain what happened?"

Neji winced and prepared to open his mouth, but his father beat him to it.

"Neji did not kill these men." Hizashi said, sorrowfully. "I did."


Present Day but three minutes later

"Send Itachi." Sasuke said, bursting through the door.

"Can't. He's bedridden." Tsunade didn't even look up.

"He wasn't-"

"After leaving the council room yesterday he promptly collapsed. That's what a week in a coma will do to you. Anyone else I'd say would be out of action for another week, so Itachi will take another day or so at least. Time we don't have."

Sasuke, panting for breath, took the time to actually look around. In the room with him was the Hokage, the two ANBU he could see, the ANBU he couldn't, Naruto, Shikimaru, and the guy with six arms from last night tied up in one corner.

"Oh hey, asshole." Sasuke glared.

"Pal you do not scare me as much as she does right now." The Sound ninja nodded towards Tsunade.

"Speak when spoken to, Kidomaru." The Hokage reprimanded. "Now, since we're all here, we can get going."

"Finally." Naruto remarked, through gritted teeth. His eyes were red, but Sasuke wasn't in the mood to try and calm him down.

"Sasuke." Tsunade addressed him. "Report."

"I left Naruto to track down Hinata, worrying that she was also under attack by the Sound forces." Sasuke recited dutifully. "My suspicions were proved correct. Three other Sound ninja were there with her: a redhead female, a fat ginger male and a white haired male. All young, late teens at most. The former two I could have handled, the latter was more difficult. He knocked me unconscious."

"Matches the description of the person Itachi fought during the chunin exams. Kimimaro." Tsunade mused. "Apparently capable of bone manipulation, some sort of bloodline limit."

Naruto continued the report. "Once me and Haku wrapped up with our two, I sent some clones off to back up Sasuke. They found him KOd with no sign of Hinata or the others."

"She took a mind awakening pill." Sasuke explained, grimacing. His eye bled a little. He ignored it, then looked at their captive. "Has he explained what they do?"

Kidomaru started chuckling, but was silenced by a look from Tsunade. "Yeah. He's been very forthcoming."

"You said you knew how to heal me, then sat there watching me bleed out." Kidomaru deadpanned.

"The remaining three Sound-nin all possess a second form, granting them several times their usual power." Tsunade ignored him completely. "Ten times, in the case of Kimimaro. And in the case of Hinata, apparently." She looked at Naruto and Sasuke. "Do I take from this that she has betrayed us?"

"No." The two boys echoed, then they looked at each other.

"Hinata's a good person." Naruto insisted. "And we were just talking yesterday about what she wanted. This isn't it. She's probably just tricking them for power, then she'll double cross them and come back."

"She's crazy." Sasuke allowed. "But betraying the village is what Neji did. She'd never let herself become like him."

Tsunade gave them both searching stares, but neither backed down. She sighed. "Very well. Present operating intel is that Hyuuga Hinata has been captured by rogue forces. Thanks to Kidomaru here, we know where she's being taken. I'm authorising a retrieval mission," she pointed, "And you three are going."

"We are?" Three slightly different tones of the same question from Naruto, Sasuke, and Shikimaru.

"Jirobo and Tayuya are relative in power to these two, so I know you can deal with them. More in depth dissections will be handed to you at the gate, as well as directions." Tsunade told them. "While I'd ordinarily send a jonin with their own squad, all the high level ninja are out on missions, show of competence after my recent election. The remaining ANBU and Uchiha police are needed in defence of the village. As much as I hate to say it, you're the most likely out of the few chunin we have left to pull a combat mission like this off. Plus the most likely to get Hinata to come back. Kami knows it worked on me...As chunin you're now qualified to do missions in command of genin squads. Is there anyone you want to take with you?"

"Choji, Ino." Shikimaru replied, immediately.

"Granted. You two?"

"Haku?"

"Not technically a ninja, so I can't."

Naruto pouted.

"Is Lee out of hospital yet?" Sasuke offered.

Tsunade nodded.

"Gimme."

"Done." She stared hard at each of them individually. "I promoted you all because I believed you were prepared for responsibilities like this. Was I wrong?"

"No, Hokage-sama." They chorused.

"Then get it done. You have ten minutes to get out of the village. Go."

They went.

"I thought she only promoted us because old man Hiruzen said so?" Naruto asked Sasuke on his way out.

"Rule six of powerful ninja." Sasuke sighed. "They love acting dumber than they really are."


"Hey, do you think maybe we should go to Konoha?" Temari offered, looking up from stroking Uzu.

"Why?" Remarked Kankuro, fiddling with a puppet.

"I don't know. Maybe they'll need help with fights or something."

"That's dumb." Kankuro replied. "How would we even get there on short notice? We're the old Kage's kids, we can't just leave without an escort. It's not like we have any reason to go, and if we went and someone was in trouble, they'd never send us to help. We just attacked their village."

"Yeah, fair enough. Don't know what I was thinking."

They went back to what they were doing.


Hours later

"Why is this thing so damn heavy?" Jirobo growled.

"You're not so light yourself." Tayuya shot across, angrily.

"Yeah, but you don't have to carry me!"

It was, Tayuya admitted, a heavy looking box. A black-purple cylindrical container about a metre in diameter, with a young girl slumped somewhere inside.

"Enough." Kimimaro silenced them. "They're catching up."

"They what-" Tayuya and Jirobo both turned round. In the distance behind them, there were orange dots amongst the trees.

"Shit." Tayuya snarled. "D'you think it was Kidomaru or the twins who told them our route?"

"Unimportant." Kimimaro stopped them getting into another argument. "Jirobo. You possess a technique that will let you trap them, yes?"

"Yeah." Jirobo nodded.

"Good." Kimimaro nodded. "Use it. We'll continue the mission. You slow them down, then regroup with us."

Tayuya frowned. "Hold on, does that mean I-"

"I will carry the casket." Kimimaro snarled.


Six ninja blurred through the woods.

"Shadow clones have caught sight of them!" Called Naruto to his allies. "Hey, Sasuke doesn't this remind you of something? Chasing an enemy through the woods, slowly bearing down on them..."

"We chased Gaara literally under three weeks ago." Sasuke shot back. "You shouldn't be reminiscing!"

"Course, you were a bit less useful back then." Naruto continued, oblivious. "Legless, and all."

"I wasn't-"

"Clones have popped!" Naruto interrupted, eyes widening. "Two, three-crap, all of them! Bullets or something!"

In front of them, the trees abruptly ended, as they fell into a clearing that looked like it had been cleared deliberately about ten seconds earlier (which it had).

The Hinata retrieval team landed in a power ranger pose on the ground.

On the other end of the clearing was the fat one. Jirobo, according to their notes. He grinned when he saw them, and slapped his palms to the ground.

"Stop him!" Shouted Sasuke, already blitzing forwards, but he was too late. A dome of earth rose up to encompass the group, catching Sasuke's flying kick with minimal effort. Almost immediately all daylight was cut off from the group.

Sasuke helpfully called upon some fire release chakra and lit up a flame in his palm.

"Showoff." Choji huffed.

"He's so talented~" Ino swooned.

Sasuke ignored both. "Naruto?"

"On it." The blond summoned a shadow clone, and they cupped each other's hands. Blue energy coalesced.

"Rasengan!" He declared when the spinning ball had formed, running forwards and slamming it into the mud wall.

It drilled through with ease...then fell apart, leaving a small hole that quickly repaired itself.

"Impressive." Ino drawled.

"I swear this doesn't usually happen." Naruto blinked and shook his hand in confusion.

"That's what they all say." The kunoichi sighed.

"Hey, does anyone else feel that?" Shikimaru offered, in what Sasuke knew had to be a really big hint. Sharingan active, (stop fucking bleeding dammit) he scanned their prison.

"Yeah, I feel it." Ino shuddered a little. "It's tiring."

"I can see it." Sasuke added. "He's still putting his power into it. It's...draining our chakra. No more rasengan, Naruto, it'll just drain you faster."

"Oh no," bemoaned Shikimaru, boredly, "if only we had someone with really high destructive potential who didn't need to use chakra."

Everyone turned their heads.

Rock Lee's eyes were glinting.

"Sasuke! You have already shown us your fire. But allow me to demonstrate my fire. The fires..."


Five seconds earlier

Jirobo grinned. This was infinitely better than carrying the coffin. All he had to do was sit and wait for-

The entire dome exploded, chunks of stone flying everywhere and revealing the a glowing boy with a stupid haircut screaming "OF MY YOUTH!"

Jirobo stared.

"Aight let's go go go!" The Kyuubi yelled, and just like that five of the genin had blown right past Jirobo. He glowered at his one remaining opponent. If I can't stop them, the least I can do is put this loser into the dirt and go after them.

He was put off from his usual reckless assault, however, by his foe's appearance. The boy's skin had gone red, his eyes white, and his hair was straight up like a fucking super saiyan. This wasn't some chakra technique, that wouldn't have broken the dome. This kid was dangerous.

"YOSH!" The Konoha shinobi declared. "I AM LEE! TODAY WILL BE MY DRAMATIC RETURN TO FULL DUTY AFTER MY DEFEAT DURING THE CHUNIN EXAMS, AS I DEFEAT YOU IN DEFENSE OF MY FRIENDS! COME, FACE ME! THIRD GATE...OPEN!"

Jirobo gulped, as the maelstrom around the boy increased. He channeled more power into his cursemark, feeling his body grow and his skin turn red. "Alright then, mister dramatic return...I AM JIROBO OF THE HIDDEN SOUND! COME AT ME!"

The following battle could be accurately described as two kids with superhuman strength beating the shit out of each other.


Tayuya looked behind herself, impulsively, before continuing to follow Kimimaro, who had sped up significantly now they had lost Jirobo.

Then she blinked, and looked again. "Oh you've got to be kidding me..." she coughed. "Uh, Kimimaro?"

"What." He deadpanned, from beneath the coffin.

"They're after us again."

"Oh for-" Kimimaro's head whipped round. There was...one less ninja approaching.

"Perfect." Kimimaro adjusted the coffin. "Tayuya. You know what to do."

"But-" she gulped. "Wouldn't it be best for us to work together against them?"

"It would have been better for you and Jirobo to team up." Kimimaro replied. "Which I would have advised, if I'd known he would fail so utterly alone. The same is not true of us. You would only get in my way."

She shivered.

"As it stands, the best case scenario is for you to entangle as many as you can, deal with them, and come back while I kill the others. Go."

"Right." She grimaced. Picking a suitable tree, she drew her flute, and began to play.


"Genjutsu!" Sasuke called out, seeing the chakra weaving through the air. "It's the redhead!"

"Use wind release!" Naruto advised. "It really screws with Sound genjutsu, I've done it before!"

"None of us have wind release!" Countered Choji.

Sasuke sighed. "Well we can't exactly rely on someone from hidden Sand showing up out of nowhere. Me and Naruto can take this one, if you want to-"

"No." Shikimaru held his hand out. "We'll stop her. You two go ahead."

Naruto looked at him. "You sure? We could just-"

"Our mission is to retrieve Hinata." Shikimaru replied, with a wry smile. "Hinata needs you two. Go. Ino-Shika-Cho can handle this."

There were some whoops from the Nara's teammates.

"Aww look, a sane and fully functional team. I'm tearing up." Sasuke remarked.

Then Tayuya was right in front of them.

"Buffeting wind!" Led Naruto, launching a gale through the woods that caused a massive racket and ruined whatever melody Tayuya was playing at the time. She had summoned three massive white golem things, two of which were disoriented by the attack, but one managed to take a swipe at the two teammates trying to get past it. The punch was blocked by a massive spherical, Choji-resembling projectile. "Kick their asses, Naruto!" Shouted the Akimichi.

"I'll buy you dinner later!" The Uzumaki shot back with a smile, continuing on his way.

Team Asuma all landed next to each other, facing their threat.

Tayuya flicked some hair out of her face and glared at them. "You three have caught me in a nasty mood."

She began playing her flute again, and the golems came back to life, bearing down on them. Ino and Choji tensed, but Shikimaru just laughed easily. "You know, your teammate Kidomaru spilled all sorts of beans on how the mighty 'sound four' work. Seems to me that you're a serious threat as a group, but kinda hopeless alone. So you should probably surrender."

Black marks began to drift across Tayuya's body. "Interesting theory." She grinned over at them. "Fancy testing it?"

Shikimaru sighed. "Such a drag...well, if I have to." He turned backwards. "Guys; blossoming lotus formation. Let's show her what teamwork really looks like."


The trees parted before Kimimaro, and he made a strong jump to get as far as he could into the clearing before him. A wide circle of plain grass interrupting the otherwise perfect tree cover; rumoured to be where a stray tailed beast bomb had landed during the nine tails' attack on Konoha.

It was also a sign that he was close; a kilometre or so north of here was the valley of the End, and a bit further north than that was Orochimaru's present location. Unfortunately, he was out of time.

Deciding it was a good a place as any to finally kill his pursuers, Kimimaro sighed, stopped, and planted the heavy coffin in the grass. It was starting to take in smoke, which was bad, Kami knows what the girl would do if she woke up and found him bisecting her teammates. Speaking of whom, the Uchiha and the Kyuubi had both just jumped down into the grassy arena after him, and seeing his stillness, were approaching slowly.

He drew a bone blade from within his sleeve, and awaited them.

He'd expected a speech.

"Give Hinata back." Said Naruto.

"No." Replied Kimimaro.

"Well, looks like diplomacy has failed." Naruto shrugged his shoulders.

"A shame." Sasuke agreed. "Let's sick him."

They started running.

Kimimaro fell into stance, awaiting them.

And then everyone stopped.

Behind Kimimaro, the box lay still, all previous ethereal glowing had stopped. All that could be heard was a rhythmic tapping from begin.

It fell into a regular tempo, rapping on the top of the box from the inside. It paused. There was a breath.

Then, muffled, "some-"

And the coffin exploded- "BODY ONCE TOLD ME THE WORLD WAS GONNA ROLL ME-" Hyuuga Hinata burst from the top of the box, leaping into the air and shouting at the top of her lungs.

Then everyone started moving very fast.


Everyone loves cliffhanger endings. Especially authors. No, I don't intend to go too far into the side characters' fights, I doubt you're in much suspense as to who will win. The most important issue is that the Sand Siblings aren't showing up to save the day. Don't know why they did in the original, but they aren't here.

Also, more flashbacks! We all love those.

Next week...nah I ain't tellin you shit.