"Where did you get this?" asked Sakura. Her voice was soft, she had knelt down to look at the boy face to face.
The boy looked nervous, and on edge. His clothing and face were grimy, and his dark brown hair appeared to be covered in dust. As if he had been hiding in the dirt.
The boy handed the hitai-aite to Sakura, leaning closer to speak.
"I can't talk here, I'm sorry. Meet me at Hotaru Bridge at dawn tomorrow, I can tell you more then."
With those shaky words, the boy scurried back down the alley and into darkness.
Sakura gulped, looking at Sasuke. She looked over the black headband. There were specks of blood on the metal part, and a tear on the fabric, like a kunai mark.
"This really doesn't look good." she said facing Sasuke. She studied his face. It was expressionless, like usual, except for a slight crinkle of concern in his brow. His eyes were staring at her hands, one onyx, one violet. It reminded Sakura that he had the gifts of the rinnegan and sharingan at his disposal.
"Sasuke, tell me, if you can sense Naruto's chakra, why not use a space time jutsu to get to him?"
Sasuke looked away from her, his eyes scanning the street where they stood.
"I expended the majority of my rinnegan in the past months on various occasions. Plus,"
He sighed, "Naruto's chakra is more clear the closer I am to it, like something you see in front of you. Theoretically, the closer I am to it, the easier it should be to get to it. But...I don't feel that yet."
Sakura nodded, trying to understand. "So he's not here, but he was?"
"I sense his chakra somewhere in or around the Village Hidden in the Valley, but it's not clear exactly where yet. It's there though." replied Sasuke.
That didn't exactly sound reassuring.
"We should meet back up with Kakashi-sensei, he'll want to hear about this." suggested Sakura.
"Right." replied Sasuke.
Sasuke and Sakura started walking back to the inn. It was dark and had started to snow. Both were lost in their own thoughts. As they walked the single road back to where they were staying. Lights flickered off in the homes they passed by. The wind had stopped and the ice and snow beneath them crunched under every step.
Sasuke was analyzing it all. The chakra signature they had all been following, it was getting wispier and wispier. A flickering candle in the breeze. The hitai-aite, something Naruto wouldn't have been eager to part with. The silent villagers, the child… He had seemed on edge.
People were lying. At least that woman was. Something was at play here, they couldn't leave. But if Naruto's chakra was disappearing… That could mean something very serious. Like death. That kid had better tell them everything tomorrow. He hoped it would provide a lead.
When they finally arrived at the inn, Kakashi was waiting. He sat outside the doors, nose deep in a volume of Icha Icha Paradise. Sasuke couldn't help but grimace in distaste. Sakura spoke first.
"I think we have a lead," she stated. "But you're not going to like it."
Kakashi looked up and closed his book, sliding it beneath his vest.
"That's funny, because I have a lead too, although it's rather inconclusive."
Sakura retrieved the hitai-ate from her pouch and handed it to Kakashi.
"Nobody claimed to have seen Naruto, not even once. We were about to head back to you, but a boy appeared, he seemed scared, and gave us this. He told us he could tell us more tomorrow at Hotaru Bridge."
"The villagers are obviously lying." added Sasuke. "This whole place could be involved for all we know."
"Well," said Kakashi. "When I was eating dinner, the cook mentioned seeing Naruto about a week ago. Said he was lost, that he couldn't find his way out."
"I don't think that really helps much… Sasuke still senses Naruto's chakra closer to the Hidden Valley Village."
Kakashi contemplated for a moment. It seems Naruto had been here, but was now somewhere else. It was now unclear if he had gone there willingly. The bloodied head band told him probably not. And if the villagers were hiding something….
"Sasuke, I want you to go on ahead. Trace Naruto's signature. Sakura and I can stay here and meet this boy. Perhaps we can get someone to confess. We'll catch up with you after that."
"Kakashi, is it really a good idea for any of us to split us up? I mean," Sakura blushed slightly as she spoke.
"It looks like someone took down Naruto, Naruto, of all people. Wouldn't our combined abilities be better?"
"I think Kakashi's right." Sasuke agreed.
"We can meet in the next village in two days' time. That gives you guys more time to catch a lead and for me to find Naruto. These people know Naruto contains the nine-tails. He could be being used in some way right now. I don't think any of us want to be too late."
"Sounds like a plan then," said Kakashi. "Let's go in for the night, we can go our separate ways at daybreak."
…
Sasuke was up before then. The moon still sparkled in the sky, but he could also hear birds chirping. It was very early. Naruto's signature hadn't changed, but it still flickered every so often. Sasuke left a note on Kakashi's door explaining that he was leaving early to avoid being seen.
...
All he had to do was wait there for a while until dawn, and then he could meet the shinobi at the bridge.
As he made his way over the bridge, he heard his name being called.
"Gin!" he stopped in his tracks.
"Uncle?"
The boy turned to the voice. His heart pounded in his chest. They had caught him. His uncle was loyal to thosepeople. He was as good as dead.
"What are you doing up so early?"
Gin smiled at his uncle, trying to mask his terror at being recognized.
"Oh grandmother just wanted me to get some stuff done at the shop."
His uncle raised an eyebrow, but just shook his head.
"That lady works you too hard."
Gin just nodded. "But she's family.." he just had to end the conversation quickly.
"She's probably waiting for me now, see you uncle."
Gin hastily walked away, leaving his uncle by himself.
What Gin couldn't see, was the face he made when his nephew had left.
…
Sasuke was focused. He only worried about going forward, following the chakra that was slowly beginning dim.
This is definitely not good. He thought.
Naruto if you….
He chose not to think about it. This was not the way it was going to end, Sasuke would make sure of that.
He could feel his rinnegan strengthening a bit more everyday, regenerating itself.
If Naruto could just wait a little longer, this could become much simpler.
The sky was beginning to lighten. Soon, Kakashi and Sakura would be meeting that boy at Hotaru Bridge. Then they would follow after him.
CRACK
It was sudden. The ground shook and a huge crevice opened up beneath Sasuke's feet. He jumped up just in time, watching trees and earth fall into the void. He looked behind him, but no one was there.
He looked down, he had snagged an old fashioned trip wire on his angle.
The tear in the ground began to lengthen, making its way to a larger tree with dark markings on it. A summoning diagram.
When it fell into the void, 4 black-clad shinobi emerged.
"Going somewhere?" one ninja asked. His hair was yellow, like Naruto's, but his eyes were beady and the murkiest shade of brown.
Sasuke thought about how to play this. Clearly these nin had no trouble trying to kill him, he could return the brutal force, but they also probably had some of the answers to Sasuke's questions.
He looked at them, four nin, holding kunai and nothing else apparent.
Sasuke didn't bother to answer. He knew these were most likely the culprits of the attacks and Naruto's disappearance.
Sasuke unsheathed his katana, moving forward at lightning speed. His blade struck the blonde first, slashing across his chest in one fell swoop. He collapsed, to the horror of his comrades.
Another one came at him. Quickly. He was shaky, but managed to get under Sasuke's katana. Sasuke brought it down, and the man placed his palm on the blade.
"Kieru no jutsu!"
Sasuke's blade disappeared into nothing. Despite being surprised, Sasuke reacted instantly.
"Chidori!"
Sasuke drove his hand through two of the remaining men. They fell like sacks of potatoes.
One more remained out of the four. It was a woman. Her hands were shaking as they held on to two homemade looking kunai, but her eyes were steeled.
Sasuke didn't bother killing her instantly. Instead, he activated his sharingan, and threw her into a genjutsu.
Suddenly the woods behind them faded into a thick fog as the faint sound of crows faded into the distance. The air became hot, and everything was tinted in red.
The woman looked all around her, as if looking for somewhere to escape from.
Suddenly she was sinking into the earth.
"Who are you?" Sasuke asked.
The girl continued to pry at her feet, trying to get free.
Sasuke grabbed the collar of her cloak, bringing her face close to hers.
"Who are you, why are you after me?"
The girl laughed.
"After you? We want nothing to do with you."
Sasuke scowled.
"What do you want? Who do you work for?"
The woman was now sunk to her shoulders. She had given up on trying.
"We want what we deserve, we work for greatness."
"Don't speak in riddles, tell the truth or your life ends here!"
The woman only continued to smirk.
"You Konoha shinobi are all the same, so confident in your own strength."
And with that, she melted into the earth.
Sasuke attempted to change the scenery to find her again, but she had disappeared from the dream.
When Sasuke returned to the real world, her and the bodies of her partners were gone. The only proof of the fight left was the seal on the tree, even the broken earth was gone.
Sasuke approached the seal. It didn't look familiar.
Sasuke was about to continue on his route when he realized something.
Naruto's signature was almost gone.
...
The morning was chilly. Sakura could see her breath clearly, and her freshly washed hair was slightly stiff. Kakashi, on her left, was surprisingly not nose-deep in one of his books. He was alert, as was she, for a pale boy with dark brown hair.
The bridge they were meeting at, at this time of year, was quite beautiful. The crimson red of the paint stood out against the white backdrop of snow. The frozen pond surrounding it glistened under the early sun, and the entire wooded area was muffled and silent. Sakura hoped this was isolated enough for their meeting. It had dawned on her last night that this could be a trap, but the risk of not showing up was too great.
Suddenly, the bushes ruffled. Sakura mindlessly gripped a poison laced kunai. From the frozen fauna emerged the boy. Nose pink from the cold.
He approached them quietly but quickly, so close Kakashi and Sakura both had to look down.
He made a side glance left and right, then began speaking low.
"My name is Gin. I saw who took your friend. I was with him."
Kakashi's eyes went dark. "So somebody did take him."
Sakura felt a knot tie itself in her stomach, dread was creeping in. This just continued to look worse and worse.
"Your friend, I met him on his third day here. He entered my grandmother's shop looking for a map. She recognized him immediately as the Hero of the Hidden Leaf."
Gin sighed, looking down at his fingers.
"Most of the village you see...they're blinded by their emotions. There's a group of shinobi, well they claim to be shinobi, I don't know who they are, they only wear black, they've been terrorizing these lands in secret. They've brainwashed half the people here. They come promising recognition and power in exchange for ancient jutsus and scrolls and anything valuable we have. They take whatever they want, whoeverthey want."
Sakura knelt down to the boy, holding his shaking hand.
"And your grandmother, she told them about Naruto?"
Gin nodded. "My grandfather and mother served in the war, they died. Nobody cared. Nobody even toldus. She's angry, she-she's confused. These people are scary, you-you don't want to be on their bad side."
Kakashi was at a loss for words. All this chaos only several days away from the Hidden Leaf. How long until this group made its way to the outskirts of Konoha? He wondered if Sasuke had already run into this group. He wondered what kind of power they had to be able to take Naruto down.
"My grandmother, she alerted my uncle, who in turn, told these shinobi. They call themselves the Kuroi honō. They attacked him early, on a morning like this, I had asked him to spar with me."
So Gin had been the trap. A boy eager to learn the ways of a ninja. The way to Naruto's heart. He must have reminded Naruto of Konohamaru, of himself maybe even.
Gin remembered the morning well, and so he told these two friends of Naruto about that day, his whole body weighted in guilt as he spoke.
"We had just finished basic fighting stance, when they showed up."
Gin remembered Naruto hadn't even had time to react. It was the shinobi's secret technique, appearance and disappearance. Not a trace of chakra.
Still, Naruto was immediately on a good defensive.
He blocked a kick by one of the five shinobi. Then dodged a punch from another. They were fast, and the third came with a move that almost looked like a black chidori.
Naruto skidded to the left, backing into a tree left of the clearing they had been practicing in. He didn't recognize these shinobi. No headband, no words spoken, no familiar jutsu.
Kurama had a bad feeling about this. Naruto cloaked himself in golden chakra, generating a rasengan in his palm before aiming in at an oncoming ninja. An invisible shield hit it. The rasengan only left a slight crack. Naruto was preparing to create a bigger one when a sixth shinobi descended upon him. This one with a seal in hand.
Naruto moved away, but the ninja arm stretched like one of Orochimaru's limbs. He placed the seal on Naruto's cloak.
Naruto turned to Gin.
"Gin! Get out of here!" But, as if he could see Gin's guilty face, his own face melted into recognition, and a little betrayal and shock.
"Shōkan no hantai no wariai!" shouted the sixth shinobi. The seal glowed a brilliant gold, and Naruto's cloak faded into nothing. Naruto dropped to the ground, breathing hard, before he was tackled. The second shinobi, a girl with indigo hair, brought the blunt end of her kunai to Naruto's head. The force created a resounding crack. The kunai slid forward, slicing into Naruto's headband, it untied itself and slid to the ground.
The third, a man with hair as golden as Naruto's turned to Gin.
Naruto was still under their grip even as the man spoke.
"We won't forget your family's loyalty to us Yamakara Gin." His muddy eyes drilled into Gin's.
And with that, the shinobi and their new prisoner faded into the shadows they had come from.
When Gin finished his story, Sakura and Kakashi were looking at each other fearfully.
Sakura stood up. "I've never heard of any of those jutsu."
Kakashi nodded in agreement. "Or that seal, it sounded like it suppressed the nine-tails and maybe even Naruto's own chakra. We should get out of here and meet up with Sasuke, this is important information."
Sakura nodded and turned back to Gin.
"Thank you Gin, we won't forget you did this for us." Gin's eyes went wide for a second before he nodded nervously.
"All I ask is if you find Naruto, you look for someone else too, another prisoner."
"What is his name?" asked Kakashi.
"Hoshi, Yamakara Hoshi. He's my older brother. He's probably the one who created that seal."