Team Gai was making good speed. They had abruptly left the road along the coast to head to the north directly towards Konoha. Neji was keeping the rear and closing their formation, flashing his Byakugan on and off to watch for any pursuers. Lee was guiding them, forcing the four of them to maintain an excruciating pace.
Tenten was already failing every tenth step, Neji was covered in a layer of sweat and even Lee was breathing hard.
Naruto had the distinct impression someone had placed hot pieces of coal under the soles of his feet and stabbed him in his legs.
The blond's heart stopped when something barreled in Lee out of the sky with a shrieking sound that was all nails scraping against a blackboard. Naruto felt his balance get shook by the noise and fell from the branch he was leaping from, falling to the ground.
"Enemy attack!" Neji bellowed from somewhere above and behind.
Naruto righted himself as best as he could, sliding down a tree trunk, chakra burning both his sandals and the bark, before bouncing off it in an attempt to break his fall and landing in a roll.
The blond instantly flung an explosive tag as high up as he could, willingly butchering the priming sequence and the chakra influx.
The improvised flare gave Naruto enough light to see Lee struggling weakly against something large and beastly. He recoiled at the sight, fear gripping his heart like ice-cold fingers at the otherworldly shape that was assaulting the older genin. The vaguely humanoid form, with arms too long and taloned feet, looked like a nightmare made real and Naruto pushed on his feet to get away from it. That was before the smell of blood whipped his nose, breaking him out of his fearful trance. Naruto growled, his fear of the monster erased by fear for his comrade and lunged forwards, a primal roar escaping his throat. His kunai was drawn, chakra grinding along the blade in a surge of cutting wind.
Before he could swing at whatever it was that had assaulted Lee, the thing kicked the blond square in the chest before it jumped up and scaled a tree, launching a mind-piercing shriek that made the blond see double. Naruto, stumbling back from the hit, felt too late his foot being caught in a root and stumbled. He heard someone cry out Lee's name, realized belatedly that it was him and righted himself.
Neji and Tenten seemingly appeared in front of him, the tired girl peppering their monstrous enemy with dozen of her weapons. The thing howled again and Naruto felt like he was under a bell as it rang.
The blond vomited, not seeing Tenten's weapons veering off course as if repulsed by a shock wave. Neji was on his knees, hurling, while Tenten simply crumbled. The beast produced something akin to laughter, high up in its tree. It was a high pitched, breathless sound.
"You got Kidoumaru but you won't get me, little genins."
Naruto shot a shuriken out of pure reflexes, guiding himself with the voice. The cutting star whirled with a whine, wind chakra escaping messily from its blades. The beast shifted from its tree to another as the sound of a branch falling came to the blond's ears.
"That's it, struggle. I love nothing more than when the prey does that."
The Uzumaki fished for another shuriken but the opponent - he still wasn't clear on if the thing attacking them was even human - jumped high and opened what looked like wings, obscuring what little light they had from the starry sky. Before Naruto could even think of throwing his weapon, the thing flew away, leaving him stumped.
Slowly, on all four, he crawled towards the others, his vision gradually returning to normal as the seconds passed. Neji was kneeling next to Tenten, who seemed knocked out and Lee was holding a hand to his neck and looked pale, even in the dark of the night.
"W-what the hell was that," asked the blond, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps, "that thing?"
Neji looked back, veins bulging and pulsing around his temples. Naruto recoiled: the Hyuuga looked furious.
"I don't know and I don't care. It attacks with sound, I saw it, it concentrates chakra on its throat before each of his shouts." The boy barked harshly. "Now I know I have to look up."
"Dat wash a bat," Lee said with a slur. "A wery wery big bat." He added before falling to his knees, his eyes wide and his breathing short. "I don't feel sho good. Wery shleepy in fact."
Neji eyed his teammate and Naruto saw worry paints itself on his face.
"What's his problem?" The blond whispered.
"He lost a good chunk of his chakra. Of what was left, given how much we ran."
"How is Tenten?"
"K.O. I can't see anything wrong so she should wake up soon."
"What do we do?"
Neji eyed Lee and Tenten alternatively, his mind churning to reach a solution. "We need to move." The Hyuuga stopped Naruto with a raised hand. "Think. If we stay here, we take the risk of it bringing reinforcements."
The blond nodded. It was a good point but if they kept moving, the thing would attack again.
"Do you have any chakra pill?" He asked the Hyuuga, who shook his head.
"Fucking damn it!" Neji cursed. "No, I don't because it was supposed to be a boring C-rank, not war."
Naruto chuckled at hearing the older boy, usually prim and proper, loses his cool. "Well, I don't either, but right now, you're our only way to negate the enemy's flight approach." The blond analyzed before he crossed his fingers, four shadow clones appearing.
"What are you doing?"
Naruto grinned weakly. "What I do best." Neji threw him a glare and Naruto's grin widened. "Confuse the shit out of people." One clone transformed as Neji, another as Lee, replicating his wound and a third as Tenten.
Naruto, the real one, took Lee on his back while one of his replicas took Tenten. "We run on the ground. We'll be a bit slower but it should leave you time to detect the Fugly." The blond gestured to his shadow cones and each took an explosive tag out of a pouch. "And of course, we prepare a surprise for it."
Neji nodded. It was as good as it would get. The rag-tag team started to run while the replicas took to the trees. Naruto looked up at best as he could with Lee on his shoulders.
The night was going to be a long one.
The strange enemy attacked again, dispelling Naruto's clones without falling for the trap and plunging like some nightmarish hawk on the tired genins. The blond had time to alert his comrades and they were ready for the assault. The bat-like pursuer tried to get to Neji but only managed to leave an ugly gash along Neji's arm, earning a Juuken strike in the process. Still feeling wobbly, Tenten tried once again to pepper the beast with kunai and shuriken but her aim was off and the blades only grazed its left wings, eliciting no reaction.
It flew away before the fight could truly begin and Naruto once again produced four replicas to act as decoys. They had been seen through somehow but they were still the first line of defence and had played their main role: alerting Naruto of incoming danger.
The blond and Tenten bandaged Neji's arm as best as they could and the exhausted group began to run again. They all agreed they couldn't stop, for fear of possible enemy reinforcements.
The enemy ninja attacked three more times, always somehow pinpointing which group was the clones and which was the real genins. Several shrieking sound attacks knocked Tenten out and toppled Neji over, which the monster exploited to steal what little chakra the Hyuuga had left in a gruesome display of maw and teeth.
Naruto was on his last leg himself. Creating clones after clones after clones and running in the dark for hours while fending off the beastly pursuer was taking its toll on him. The blond had thought their last hour had come in the last attack but for some reason, the bat had once again allowed them to live a little longer, to run a little longer, to get a little closer to Konoha.
The enemy shinobi was playing with them much like a cat would play with a mouse.
Naruto looked at Team Gai. Tenten was once again out of it, Lee couldn't recover fast enough, too exhausted to replenish his chakra reserves and Neji was blinking hard to stay conscious. He felt himself sway and leaned against a tree. His body was like lead and his muscles were sore. His throat was dry and tight and he wanted to cry from tiredness.
He wanted to lie down and just sleep.
Pathetic.
They were going to die. Naruto choked on a sob and breathed raggedly. They were going to die, so close to their goal, he could feel it, yet they were going to fall here. And whatever nefarious plot was brewing would bear fruits and harm the village, Fire Country even. He was going to die on his first C-rank mission, sucked dry by an overgrown, freaky bat monster.
Weak.
Naruto gritted his teeth. The blond felt his fist tighten and before he could stop himself, he punched the tree in a surge of red hot anger.
He wasn't afraid anymore, he realized. Or maybe he was but bitterness and fury prevailed within him. It was boiling in his guts like some sort of vile potion in a witch' cauldron. He was angry at the ridiculous thing that was killing them, angry that it would rob him of the opportunity to see his Jiji again, and Asuma-Oji and Konohamaru and Ibiki.
Naruto punched the tree once again and the bark caved under the shock. He scoffed.
Not on his watch.
Kill it.
He forced the fires of his anger to cool down and turn to ice. He needed to think. He needed to be smarter, he needed to be deviant. He was going to stop the monster. He would bloody his hands if necessary. He looked at Team Gai once again and his fist squeezed so hard that his nails bit into his palms.
No, not if necessary.
He was going to absolutely murder the shit out of that thing.
Yes. Good.
Now how to do that? Naruto quickly gathered what he knew about their enemy. It attacked with sound, could suck chakra away from its victims and could recognize his clones from real people. It was normally an impossible feat. Except it apparently wasn't but then how? How was that monster able to tell them apart, especially under a transformation jutsu and in the dark of the night?
Naruto's eyes widened after a minute of reflection. Of course.
"Neji," pleaded the blond. "I'm gonna need one last-ditch effort from you."
Kurokoumori was gliding high up in the sky. The balance was a bit delicate to maintain since the annoying genin girl had pierced the left wing of his flying apparatus but it was nothing he couldn't manage. With practised ease, he rolled and banked in the night sky, his overgrown ears listening to the world around him.
Kurokoumori frowned as he recognized the sounds of some diurnal animals. He had underestimated the time if those were awakening already. There was no time to be lost then, he had to finish the little genins and the reinforcements be damned. It was going to make concealing the crime scene tiresome but whatever.
He'd punish the slackers for coming too late. Right now, he couldn't allow the four ninjas to run further.
It was a shame, they were such fun toys to play with; he would regret them.
For five minutes maybe.
He focused on his sensing ability and found his preys in no time. He then nearly choked as there were fourteen chakra signatures that were all exactly the same.
Kurokoumori panicked for a second before he centred himself. It was obviously a trick, he had absorbed the chakra of two out of four and they should be too exhausted to replenish their reserves. It was kind of annoying for genins to be able to trump a sensory ability like his but then again he had decided he was done with the chase. He would simply kill them from afar with one of his Sonic Shriek.
Folding his wings, Kurokoumori dipped down on the genins and run through hand signs. Chakra accumulated in his throat, swirling and vibrating already, eager to be released. The man took a deep breath and opened his mouth wide. Kurokoumori played his own vocal cords like a harp.
Several waves of different frequencies mixed together in a deadly harmony escaped his throat. It would be just enough to knock his preys out so he could stab them to death. It wouldn't do to use the version that liquefied internal organs. That would scream "shinobi" and Kurokoumori didn't want that.
Like planned, the genins fell to the ground, knocked out, ten of them disappearing in a puff of smoke. Something fluttered in the wind. Tags, full of chakra, hastily devised to fool his sensing ability. Astucious, Kurokoumori had to admit but far from enough. The man landed gently and climbed down a tree, folding his wings and storing them in the pack he was carrying on his back. Taking a kunai into his right hand, he approached the first genin.
Suddenly, his sensing ability was overwhelmed by a bright flash of chakra that bathed as far as he could feel. A resounding clap deafened him. Obviously, the tags, he chided himself.
And something hacked at him, piercing his left lung three times and his heart once before he could react.
Kurokoumori flailed his arms wildly and hit something. Blood was seeping in his mouth just as panic was clawing at his brain and he could listening to his heart beating haphazardly. He spat blood, his blood. What was happening? How? Who? Something hacked at him again, messily and pain flared as Kurokoumori felt his right arm fall, severed. Then his throat was opened, and his mouth and his cheeks and the piece of cloth he had covering his eyes, to enhance his focus on his sensory ability, fell.
Just as a kunai whirring with badly controlled wind chakra stabbed his brain, Kurokoumori saw the blond genin.
The boy was bleeding from his ears.
He had destroyed his own ear-drums to resist his attack.
Then all lights went out and life left him with a gurgling sound.
AN: *pant pant* Right on time, yes! *Pheew* Leave a review?
AN2: Before you say "but why didn't the bad guy try to suck Naruto dry first tho, he should have sensed the fact that he has more chakra!"
Well, you're entirely right and I just realized it. My bad. Remember I'm writing as I go as fast as possible so I'm bound to make some logical mistakes.