NARUTO: The Village Doused In Rain
© NARUTO/ Mashashi Kishimoto
Scroll Six: "Odd jobs: Followers at the Forest...!"
Ena and her team woke up at the brink of dawn, harrying the fact that their day from hell was about to begin. When they reached the crossing bridge that brought it's travelers to the forest, it seemed like almost forever until Kakashi finally arrived.
"Yo," he waved, "sorry I'm late. A black cat crossed my path and I had to take the long route here..."
"A likely statement," Katone snapped, irritable at the fact that she could've been able to save herself some sleep.
"You seem lively, Katone, would you like me to add another little something on your to-do list?" the elite Shinobi closed his one visible eye and supposedly smiled acrimoniously.
Kiri gave Katone a flustered look and Ena forced her into a light bow by shoving her head down. "She- she didn't mean that, Uncle Kaka-er, I mean, Kakashi-sensei. Katone-chan's just not a morning person!"
He snorted and Ena frowned angrily. She could tell he was getting a kick out of all this "total command" jargon.
"Very well then," the silver-haired Jonin collected himself. "Here's your full list of tasks for the day."
Handing it to his relative, Ena's disposition gloomed. "What the hell is all this?!"
"Your tasks for…"
"Yeah, I know that!" the black-haired Kunoichi bellowed. "But what is with the content?! Picking vegetables for Old Lady Mami, baby sitting the street performer's monkeys, cleaning the Hokage's office windows, and pulling weeds from the Konoha academy lawn?! You've got to be kidding me! This is all rookie shit! Where are all the exciting missions where you can escort people and protect them from assassins?!"
Kakashi tousled her hair and quietly replied, "Everyone has to start somewhere, Ena. Just cooperate, take it slow, and have fun."
Grumbling, the female shinobi of higher skill agreed and nodded to her comrades. They were then gone in a heart beat, running with the wind.
Their sensei sighed. "Don't overdo it…"
...
The gathering of tomatoes, leeks, and cabbage was fairly simple, but the nursing of the monkeys was proving to be difficult. Kiri had a strong hatred towards the tailed primates and was not resisting the urge to maul them to death.
Katone restrained her by the arms, while Ena kept the monkeys at a distance.
"Let me go!" Kiri roared, flailing madly. "Let me at those beasts!"
Ena sweatdropped as she held the trio of mammals in her arms. "Hey, we're supposed to watch over the clients not kill them!"
And after this episode, the next wasn't so pleasant either.
The Okinawi Candy shop heir was drying off the washed windows when Kiri tipped over the water bucket and toppled it down on top of Katone's head. She slipped on the soapy liquid below her and began to teeter to and fro. Noticing her distress, Ena clamped onto her falling friends arm and nearly fell down four stories herself, if it weren't for Kiri hanging onto her torso, that is.
Finally at the last task of the afternoon, squad number thirteen vigorously removed every last weed from the Konoha education premises and was completely sedated by the last plucked root. They laid out on the grass, wiping beads of sweat from their brow, and staring up at the vast azure sky; hints of orange, pink, red could be seen on the horizon line, signifying the night to come.
Ena yawned loudly and closed her strained hazel-green eyes. "Man, I'm bushed. How 'bout we call it a day and head home?"
"The best idea you've had all day," Katone mocked, as ruthlessly as ever.
"Stupid monkeys…thinking they were better than me…I ought've shoved those icky banana peals right down their throats," Kiri thought outloud, grudging against the fact that she failed to exact harm on the primates.
Chuckling and getting to her feet, Ena brushed off the stray blades of grass from her clothes and said, "On that note, I think I'll head over to the assignment center and…"
She paused.
Her two kin were staring at her baffeledly, as if she were a being from another planet.
Quickly attempting to sort out the situation, the black-haired female shinobi stammered, "N-no! What I really mean is, um, I'm off to bed, cause I'm sooo tired and can barely summon an ounce of chakra! Yeah, that's right! I can barely stand!"
Raising their brows in suspicion, Katone and Kiri watched as their peculiar team mate as she waved goodbye and vanished into the heart of the village.
"Ena's acting weird again," Kiri commented, scowling.
"Shall we follow her?" Katone suggested
The fiery-eyed Kunoichi nodded slowly. "Let's."
...
The mission was extremely dangerous, it was A-rank. The target was an insane rogue Shinobi who has just recently wiped out an entire village--which had been populated with over 20 thousand people and ninja alike. He specialized in a technique called the "Bloody Death Jutsu", which, with the swipe of a hand, could slice up thirty people at once.
The curse mark was burning and Ena knew that she could let no distractions cloud her judgment tonight; she would have to kill swiftly, silently, and coldly.
Again, her target area was the cliché Koi Forest, that faced the northern part of the Konoha village. Her victim--preferably known as Kenju Goamon--was on the run from Anbu Black Ops from every village and heading towards Konohagakure; leading to his immediate termination.
Kenju's appearance was horrid: greasy, slicked back, dark hair, cold, vicious, yellow eyes, and stains of blood that caked his hands with evidence of his mass murdering. As Ena stared at his profile, it sent shivers down her spine. This man was like all of the rest: a cruel hearted monster with no appreciation for other human lives, despite his. And in difference to this, the black-haired Kunoichi vowed to punish him.
At the base of a tree with rotted roots, sat an ominous shadow of a person wheezing uncontrollably; he was out of breath from running for hundreds of miles, probably.
Ena gulped and stated, "Kenju Goamon, I presume?"
He said nothing and continued to struggle for breath.
"My name is Hatake Ena," she pursued. "I have come to end your miserable existence."
Kenju croaked and growled a coarse, "You have, have you?"
And without warning, he leaped up and flung over a dozen shuriken and kunai at the female Shinobi, following it up with senbon, or acupuncture needles, and a letter bomb.
Ena rapidly deflected all of the flying projectiles with her trusty lucky Kunai and barely made it out of the area in time to dodge the fiery explosion of the letter bomb. Before she could even take a breath, Kenju was all over her, trying to inflict his Bloody Death Jutsu upon her, all the while randomly attacking with a sharp katana he kept at his belt.
Frustrated with fighting such an equally skilled foe, he kick tripped the black-haired Kunoichi and aimed for her face. The blade of the sword just grazed her forehead as she bent backwards into a handstand and then backflipped out of range. A stream of blood trickled down from the cut and down the tip of her nose.
Kenju smiled. "I'm starting to like you more and more… especially the taste of your blood…" he licked the tainted katana. "… It's flavored with the sweet essence of strength and fear."
Gagging at the sight, Ena shot, "Sick bastard! That can be considered as sexual harassment, you know!"
The mass murderer chuckled. "I'm going to enjoy killing you."
"Not before I do you in first!" and as Ena performed the hand signals that would allow her to own the Chidori technique, an agonizing throb struck from her cursed bicep.
Falling to her knees, the strain grew more painful as the fang marks began to creep up her shoulder and dawn an unseemly string of tattoos on her skin. Her internal chakra flow was contracting and numbing her body into an immobile state.
Subsequently, two voices sounded from behind calling, "Ena!!"
Turning her head slightly, she gasped. Katone and Kiri were heading towards her, unknowing of the huge threat that Kenju held towards their well-being.
Forcing the pain back and enduring the curse mark, Ena unleashed the Sharingan eyes and screamed, "Don't come near here, you guys! This maniac will tear you to shreds! STAY BACK, DAMMIT!"
Ignorantly, their footsteps continued to come closer, all the while Kenju prepared himself for a blood bath of a feast. Having no choice, Ena, once again, tried the Chidori attack... and it succeeded. Her right hand began to spark violently and screech with the voices of a thousand birds.
Getting to her feet and charging forward, Ena cried, "CHIDORI! TECHNIQUE OF ONE THOUSAND BIRDS!"
But in her blind fury, her accuracy was left in vain and Kenju managed to dodge a fatal blow, and, instead, lost an arm in sacrifice. He gave an ear piercing scream, all the while lashing out at the black-haired Kunoichi, managing to effect a large "snap" from her left leg... he had broken it.
Ena stumbled backwards and landed hard on her back. She could not exert any more energy and her pain was becoming familiar to her.
Kenju was still writhing on the ground, coloring it with his crimson blood. He glared at Ena, who was barely conscious, and began to drag himself towards her, pulling out his katana from his belt. As he prepared to strike, vines crawled around his torso, holding him down, and from the shadows of the thicket came forth Ena's kin, with determination in their eyes.
"Hey didn't your mother ever teach you that it isn't fair to beat up on someone who's down for the count?" sneered Kiri, holding her hands in the "tori" or bird hand signal; it enabled her Kissing Rose Jutsu to remain in effect over long periods of time. What was her "Kissing Rose Jutsu"? Well it only allowed her to manipulate the plants around her, including the roots and vines, is all.
Katone snickered. "That was really lame, Kiri. I so don't know you."
The firey-eyed Kunoichi blushed sheepishly and stammered, "Sh-shut up! Now, how about we show this guy what happens when he messes with our squad?"
The Okinawi Candy shop heir smiled from ear to ear and began to dish out her signature Jutsu. "Art of confusion: Sweet Dreams Jutsu!"
And in a split second, Kenju's body was frozen, as if time and the universe had stopped revolving for him.
But as Kiri and Katone went to deal the death blow, a kunai whizzed passed their heads and struck the murderous ninja in the temple, undoing the two Kunoichi's jutsu and killing him instantly.
Ena had managed to remain perceptive in order to view this moment, and pursed her lips into a
strict line. "Uchiha-kun…" she growled
The raven-haired Genin made his entrance and sarcastically spat, "Who's undefeatable now, Ena? Seems to me like you're going to continue to lose your touch as long as you rely on others to come and save the day."
The assassinating female shinobi strainfully got to her feet and used the trunk of a tree for support. Blood continued to trail down from the wound on her forehead and her leg was swelling horribly. She truly was a mess.
"I don't need your help!" Ena yelled self-defensively. "And anyway, why were you here in the first place, Sasuke?! Better yet, why are you always around when I'm on my secret missions?!"
Kiri and Katone stood confusedly, not understanding what was going on. However by the fact that Ena did not use an honorific at the end of Sasuke's name and called him informally by his first meant that she was pretty ticked off and serious.
The lone wolf said nothing and walked over to the black-haired Kunoichi. He took her arm and slung it across his shoulder. He then clamped on to her opposite side and voila. A human crutch.
Fuming, she bellowed, "Answer me!"
Finally, Sasuke replied, "I'll tell you later, after you take care of your injuries."
"Ahem!" Katone stomped her foot, craving attention. "What about us? We want to know what's going on, too, right, Kiri?"
"Right," the braided shinobi nodded, a bit flustered by the presence of Sasuke.
Ena sighed, seeing how the gig was up. "Okay, fine. I'll tell you."
And as the four Genin marched through the Koi Forest under the semi-crescent moon, Ena told her story, all the while confessing about her handicap: the curse mark.
...
Unbeknownst, Kenju's body was slowly being devoured and a pair of slitted eyes glared at his patheticness.
"Sometimes," the owner of the eyes hissed, "you have to further your plan on your own terms…"
And as the behemoth of a snake continued to crunch on Kenju's bloodied corpse, its summoner shivered in great anticipation at the thought of how close he had been to Sasuke…how close he had been to making him his pawn
'It wasn't meant to be tonight…but very soon, my fangs will sink into one of the most prestigious shinobi of his time… His life shall be mine.'
...
Do not patronize me... these deadly missions I must do on my own.
The title is pretty self explanitory this time around... Ena didn't want her friends to fall into harm's way so she evaded them with lies... Well, up until now that is. Her secret's out... However, Sasuke is no different. ;3 Orochimaru has made his presence clear now, hasn't he?
Oh, and "Kenju Goamon"... haha, yeah about that... It's another name that I borrowed from someone I held a grudge against. However, that was back in middle school and I've always wanted to apologize to the real person for a while... Maybe someday. w'' (I hope.) I'd be nice to laugh with him about the "war" we had back in that day! lol
Well, enough of my ranting. Please review if you want. Next chapter is the beginning of a hard-core plot revelation! Whoot!