Naruto paused. "Uh, you guys go on ahead. I've got to... uh... I'll catch up."
"What!?" Sakura demanded. "We have to catch those three Sand ninja. Where are you going?"
"I've got to... you know, go." Naruto emphasised.
The kunoichi rolled her eyes. "Oh for god's sake. I suppose the last thing we need is for you to wet yourself. Try to catch up when you're done."
Shino said nothing as they jumped onwards after the three Sound genin and Uchiha Sasuke. His silence said everything that needed to be said.
"I know," Sakura whined. "But Kakashi-sensei just says that the adversity is good for me when I complain about them."
.oOo.
"Where's the Uchiha?" Kankuro wondered, as the elder two of the Sand Siblings paused, Gaara hanging limp between them. "He was right behind us!"
An oddly shaped shuriken flickered through the air, parting several of the almost invisible strings connecting the puppet master to his puppet. Temari was surprised to see that the throwing weapon was shaped somewhat like a duck in flight. "Don't worry about Uchiha," a grim voice said from behind them and they jerked around to see that a new ninja was looking down at them from a low branch.
The angle made it hard to see what he looked like - the cape around his shoulders and the long peak over his face didn't help. "Worry yourselves about me."
"Deal with this nutcase," Temari ordered, taking Gaara's full weight and heading further into the woods as Kankuro loosed Karasu.
"Deal with me?" the ninja asked, his voice contemptuous. "Who the hell do you think you're dealing with?" One fist crashed against Kankuro's face and he half spun, crashing back against a tree.
Damn, but he's fast, the puppeteer thought. Let's see him deal with this though. A dozen poisoned darts ripped out of his costume, perforating the air where the caped ninja had been standing, betraying that 'Kankuro' was not the ninja but the puppet. Failing to strike the target, who stepped out of the Sand ninja's line of sight and was gone before Kankuro could shift the wrappings enough to see for himself.
"Where are you!" Kankuro shouted. "Coward!"
His reply was two more duckarangs carving through more strings. It would be hard to control the puppet now. Not impossible, there was redundancy built into the design...
.oOo.
"Who could have done this?" Sakura asked as she stared at Kankuro.
The Sand puppeteer was spreadeagled between two trees by the strings of his own puppet that lay, wrecked to the point that she doubted it could ever be repaired, on the ground in easy view of the boy.
Shikamaru frowned and pointed at where the strings around Kankuro's wrists were pinned to branches above his head by familiar looking kunai.
Sakura dropped to the ground to examine the kunai pinning the ankle strings to exposed roots. "They're his!" she gasped, running one finger across the duckarang's distinctive curves before darting on past Kankuro, Shikamaru following patiently behind her.
"You could at least have let me down," Kankuro mumbled half-heartedly.
.oOo.
"Okay..." Shikamaru drawled as he looked at the force of Sound ninja. "Something tells me that you guys aren't going to be too troublesome."
The nearest of the Sound ninja, tied securely to a tree with long cords groaned around the apple (pierced by an arrow) that had been jammed into his mouth. He really didn't care much at this point. He figured he'd gotten off lightly compared to the ninja who'd been pounded from every conceivable direction by arrows with padding wrapped around heavy weights.
The arrow that had exploded into a net to catch two of the other ninja might seem less dangerous on the face of it - any ninja who couldn't get out of a simple net didn't deserve the name. Unfortunately, this net was practically coated with itching powder and as a result of their struggles to deal with that, the two were now inextricably entangled... and quite unable to deal with the itching.
That left the goop that had covered one unlucky ninja's face - and was apparently laced with some sort of hallucinogenic; the arrow that had apparently been a sealed live chicken (which didn't sound too bad until you saw it in action); the network of wires linked to more raiton tags than he'd ever seen in his life...
The list went on and on. He really would appreciate a change of subject matter for his thoughts. Although jamming those arrows up every orifice of that damned archer would probably make him feel better.
Shikamaru picked up one of the arrows that had buried itself in the ground and examined it. Yep, flashbang. And from the smell, there had been some smokescreens laid here. "Let's play word association," he said to the ninja. "First word is: orange."
The Sound ninja groaned again.
.oOo.
Two arrows whipped past Temari and her burden. "Missed!" she shouted triumphantly.
The explosives in the arrowheads detonated in contact with the trees ahead of her, shattering the trunks low down and dropping several tonnes of wood into Temari's path. The sheer sound of the explosions hammered at her ears and had almost as much of a contribution to her halt.
"I don't ever miss, lady," the orange clad maniac with the bow called down to her.
Temari dumped Gaara's deadweight - she didn't need anything slowing her down right now - and whipped out her battlefan. "Then we have something in common," she said, and unleashed the wind to deflect another arrow. "Does everyone in this loser village rely on second-rate weapons?" she asked. "I'm not complaining, but it's not like any of you have actually been a challenge so far."
"Hey, Duck-boy," the Orange Arrow shouted enthusiastically. "Let's get dangerous."
Duck-Nin shook his head. "You're not as funny as you think that you are."
"We need to wake him up," Duck-nin advised, not even out of breath it would seem. Then again, it had been the Orange Arrow who was doing all the running around.
"Okay, how do we do that?" the ninja archer asked. "He's up to his ass in giant tanuki."
Duck-nin reached into his utility belt and produced a small vial. "Smelling salts," he said coolly. "Refit one of your arrows -"
"Hey, do I tell you how to run around with a stick up your butt?" the Orange Arrow demanded, snatching the vial. "Don't try to tell me how to do my own schtick, you freak."
Duck-nin glared at him. "I'll keep him busy."
.oOo.
Sakura's jaw dropped as she and Shino eyed the devestation. According to the maps she'd studied at the Academy, there were no clearings of this size in this part of the forest. At a guess, those maps would now need to be updated to account for today's devestation
"Hey, what happened to Gaara?" Naruto asked as he arrived suddenly. "Did you do that to him Sakura?"
"Don't be an idiot," she snapped back. "We just got here." She picked up an arrow. "See if you can look underneath the underneath for once, Naruto. Or just see what's in front of you. Who do you think would scatter arrows everywhere like this?"
"That jerk Orange Arrow?" Naruto asked innocently. "Do you think he got squashed? Ouch! What did you do that for, Sakura?"
"Did I miss the fight?" asked Sasuke, dropping from the trees. "I lost the trail a way back, took me a while to figure out where I was."
Shino shook his head and picked up a duckarang, offering it to Sakura. The kunoichi looked at it, flipped it in her hand and then threw it (fairly slowly) at Sasuke, who fell over backwards as his efforts to keep from being perforated overbalanced him. The duck-shaped kunai whistled over his head and embedded itself in a tree trunk.
"DuckNin and Orange Arrow beat Gaara!" she wailed. "That's so amazing! I wish I'd seen it, it must have been really cool."
Sasuke looked at the batarang and tried to pull it out of the tree. When he failed he turned back to look at Sakura with an impressed look on his face. "You're pretty good with these, Sakura. Are you sure you aren't secretly Duck-Nin?"
"Duh," Naruto pointed out. "Duck-Nin's a guy. You'd know if you were ever around when he showed up." His eyes narrowed suspiciously. Sasuke never was around when Duck-Nin appeared... could that mean... He compared his mental image of Duck-Nin: dark, brooding, badass with a stick up his butt, with the playboy Uchiha. Nah.
Sasuke relaxed slightly as he saw what was almost suspcion in Naruto's eyes fade away. Not that it was likely that Naruto would deduce his secret identity - hah, more likely that Naruto was secretly the Orange Arrow. Although... had he ever seen them together? Well, yes, but the Orange Arrow was a master of Kage Bunshin so he could have faked it.
Naruto picked up an arrow and threw it, dartlike, in the direction of the fallen Gaara. It spiraled uselessly and fell towards the floor, eliciting a pout from the blond.
The last loyal Uchiha shook his head slightly. There was such a thing as being too paranoid.