Ok. Well, fortunately, and surprisingly, I'm starting this chapter in both my "creative mode" (You can tell what mode I'm in by my spelling and ideas to move the plot) and only a few days after I finished the last one. As for the exact date, I don't care to find out. So, here we go
The story continues:
The gang of Ninjas and Anthros resumed running through the vertical road that they thought would lead them to the clearing were they'd set up camp in silence. Tails and Cream had not caught up, but Hinata was in eye sight of the runners infront.
"Hinata!" Naruto yelled as he decreased speed to match Hinata's location .
"Where have you been? I was starting to get worried," He said with a slight frown.
"I was w-with……Tails-s-san a-an-d…….Cream-san….They told m-me t-to go o-on a….ahead a-and I-I…….I-it was h-hard to keep u-up…….Sorry…."
She answered. I'll bight, lowly and full of stuttering.
"So they're alright?" Naruto asked after a thought.
"Y-yes.."
"And you're alright," He said.
"Ye-…..I th-think s-so" She responded not knowing where this was going.
"Then there's nothing to be sorry about! You did fine Hinata; I was just worried is all," He said with a big, fox-like grin.
Hinata gasped, probably from a mixture of holding her breath for that little conversation, the sinking in of the fact that Naruto was worried about her, and just plain exhaustion.
She started to slow down in the same way Cream did.
"Hm? Hinata?" Naruto said, who wasn't far ahead. He heard her deep breaths followed by gasps.
"Hinata, were really close now, so if your so exhausted, I could carry you if you want." He said with concern.
'Naruto-kun carrying Hinata? Me? I….I have to refuse….I have to show him I can make it on my own!' She thought and then hesitantly said,
"Um….Na-Naruto-kun……I th-think…I….I…Can m-make it….on-my-own." She said in all of stuttering, pausing, and blurting thing out really fast.
"But you look exhausted! I'm fine with carrying you," He said trying to convince her.
She just stayed quiet.
Hinata was marinating inside. Her face was dark with blush. 'Why does he have to make refusing so hard? But I have to! Are you sure? This is Naruto carrying you. Naruto! But Wouldn't it be better if I impressed him? Look at him! Through all of this he didn't even break a sweat! Finishing a stupid running track wont impress him,' She mentally debated.
"Hinata…." He started.
"Naruto-kun….I…I really d-don't want to…..be a b-burden!" She said with determination written on her face. If this wasn't going to impress Naruto, then she'd do it for herself. Despite the aching pain in her legs and the sweat running down her face in a downpour, she kept on and spead up. She was gaining on the forward runners now.
'Wow. She really doesn't want to hold anyone back. Sakura could learn a lot from her. Maybe I could too!' He thought as he ran towards them.
TIME SKIP!
Tails and Cream reaching the campsite.
As Tails, still carrying Cream, neared the campsite, he felt some movement from Cream.
"Huh?...Wha?...T-Tails?!" She said softly at first. She had fallen asleep and forgot their little "meeting". If only for a moment.
"Hey Cream, G'morning!" Tails said nonchalantly.
"Ummm. Why are you carrying me……Bridal style?" Cream asked.
"Well….You were tired of running and I found out that Amy loaded up your backpack with stuff she didn't want to hold on to. So I threw your backpack into the bushes a little while back, and carried you the rest of the way. You fell asleep." Tails answered.
"Oh ok." Cream said right before she kissed him on the cheek.
"Thanks" She said.
"N-no problem" Stammered Tails who was starting to blush.
By this time, they had reached the entrance of the clearing. Tails let Cream down and he was about to pitch a tent for them, when he saw three tents already pitched a little bit away.
He neared the tent, recognizing the one on the right being Sonics. Completely blue. The one on the right was orange and yellow and it had a bowl of ramin on the side facing him. He guessed this was Naruto's, judging by how it matched his clothes and his asking about the stuff. He could see now that he was just talking about noodle soup. He'd never heard of the word "ramin" but he knew they had it. The middle tent confused him, though.
It was dark blue and had Sasuke's insignia on it. The same one he wore on the back of his jacket. He knew this was probably Sasuke's, but if they were all going to pitch their own tents, why only three? They weren't working on any more.
"Hmm…. Where do you think they are, Cream?" But no one answered him. He looked around him but she wasn't there.
"Cream?" He continued to look around and laid eyes on a patch of flowers. In it, were Cream, skipping around, and Hinata picking flowers, smelling them, and putting them in a pouch at her waist.
As he was looking at this, Naruto came up behind him.
"Ohayo! Tails!"
"Oh, Naruto. Hey where is everyone?" He asked while turning to Naruto.
"Right, uh, Sasuke went to go look for fire wood and Sakura followed him. Kakashi is in the middle tent, being a pervert 'n reading his books. Sonic went to go fish and Amy's with him. And Hinata and Cream are over there in the flower patch." Naruto said.
"Well, fishing'll probably take a few hours. Want to go explore the ruins? Not many people have seen 'em yet." Tails asked. The ruins were the only real reason he suggested this camp ground.
"Sure, why not? Not like there's much to do around here."
Just then, Sonic walked out of the foliage, carrying a large bag of what seemed to be fish.
"Hey, Tails. I need someone to help me clean and gut these fish. Amy wont touch 'em!"
Tails looked back at Naruto.
"You go on ahead, I'll catch up." He said. Naruto smiled and nodded.
He ran into the trees only to comeback a few seconds later.
"Where did you say the ruins were again?" He asked Tails with a big, toothy grin, his eyes closed, and his hand on the back of his head.
TIMESKIP.
The village had a huge wall, he could see, all around it. It was partially surrounded by mountains on one side. He scaled the mountain with several chakra enhanced jumps. When he got to the top, reality dawned on him.
The village was grouped as follows: There were many rows stretching from one side of the village to the other. At the side Naruto was looking, there was a main area in the center, right in front of the ridge he was standing on. Exactly where the Hokage tower would be.
He stared out at this exact copy of Konoha. On the far end was a huge gate he knew he had passed in and out of to many times to count.
"What the?!" He eventually yelled. He pumped chakra into his feet and started running through the air to where his apartment should have been. Sure enough, as he got there, the ruins of a two or three story building.
'This cant be real!' He yelled in his mind. He ran again to the ninja academy, passing the Hyuuga clan's compound. It looked completely decimated, but it's old style architecture could still be made out. The academy was completely gone. The only thing that stayed was a long dead tree with a rusty swing on the ground in front of it. The only tombstone that marked this building's place of death.
He ran back to the ridge where this truth dawned upon him. The Hokage's faces had been destroyed due to years of rain and wind. He sat there, trying to take it all in. But wind and rain had not only maimed the Hokage's monument. He fell through the still weakening rock, onto the hard surface below. This incredible discovery and surprise at the fall dulled his reaction time. He was knocked out.
Barely human eyes laid on him. Surrounding his unconscious body where many shadowed figures, with what looked like deformed parts of their body. The silence was only broken by the hiss of a snake.
They came closer, examining the seemingly dead Naruto. He lay in a circle of shining light that these figures dared not approach. Then, the crowd broke for to huge figures to come closer and look at him. These two had absolutely no fear of the light. They were what one could call human down to the waist, where their bodies thinned out into long serpent tails. The larger one looked at the slightly smaller one.
"Well, looksssss like you will have the pleassssure of killing him afssssterall." He said as his forked tongue rattled. He then threw his head back and laughed. The other one just smirked. The gleam of his large, white, snakelike fangs pierced the darkness.
"Tie him up!" He yelled, as one of the smaller figures stepped forward. He was clothed in black and purple and had a silver belt. His entire face was covered in a brown cloth, but no one would have paid attention to that. For instead of a left arm, he had a snake, head and all, dangling from his shoulder joint. This peon bowed.
"Yessss, Sssssassssuke-ssssama"
Then the duo started to laugh. The entire cliff roared with laughter.
"KYU KYU KYU KYU KYU!!!!!!"
Only Naruto stayed silent, on his little patch of light.
Didn't expect that, did you? Yup. Oruchimaru and evil Sasuke are alive and well. How? Find out next time.
Pulled a "planet of the apes" on all of you! I just wish I had made the whole chapter better. Any way, Tails will find out he's Naruto's brother soon. Will Naruto survive? Probably!
I just want to say I'm really sorry for the huge update time. My grandmother died half way through and that made me stop writing for a while. Been really hard on the family, you know? Summers almost here, so I should be updating more or less depending on how fun this summer is. I actually thought of stopping this fic after she died, but decided against it. Faithful authors for faithful readers, right?