Watching the wolf-like Siberian Husky, Sakumo, Naruto and I followed cautiously. After awhile, Naruto and I had gotten paranoid we had passed the village, or gone the wrong way or something, so I had summoned Sakumo - a trick I learned from Kakashi along time ago - then set out again. By now, Sakumo had Kakashi's, and my own, scent memorized; I'd had him since I was eight. In fact, he had been a present from Kakashi. Makes sense, right? Even though I had been really young, I had heard about Kakashi's father before and somehow decided to name the Husky after Kakashi's father, Sakumo.
Naruto was growing impatient, futzing around, pacing back and forth, as we watched the poor dog struggle. "C'mon! Let's hurry up!" He said, looking ready to pull his hair out.
Sakumo just turned, and growled at Naruto, a reflecting my frustration with the hyperactive blond. However, if a dog bit his head off, it wouldn't nearly be as bad, as it would be if I were to bite Naruto's head off.
"I want to see you sniff him out fox-boy." I grumbled, crossing my arms.
He shot me back a glare, for a just a brief second. He only stopped because Sakumo growled again.
"Sorry, just please hurry up." I asked, patting his head. He sighed, in his very human-like way, before sticking his nose in the air, then jumping off.
"Yes!" Naruto said triumphantly, as if he had found the scent himself.
Then we were off again, running as fast as we could, without passing our 'leader'. We were both extremely anxious at this point. It was taking us way too long to find Kakashi. How long had it taken him to get to the village? He'd been gone for quite awhile, so I'm guessing about a week, maybe two. Crap, at this rate, we were taking longer. If this took us any longer, we would probably be too late.
If anybody delayed us, even just one second, I'd probably strangle them.
Maybe I had jinxed us with that violent and murderous thought, maybe not, but either way, only about an hour later, we were attacked. Just our luck, right?
It was kind of strange, and out of nowhere. Usually we picked up that we were being followed about a minute or so before we were attacked. Not this time. It just came out of nowhere. Another thing; it wasn't an attack where the enemy pounces out of nowhere and just tries to kill you on the spot. Nope, that wasn't it. We were dragged apart.
"Let go of me!" I yelled, kicking and squirming against the grip on my wrist, only to have the grip tightened. "Naruto, Sakumo, run!" I screamed out to them, not wanting them to get caught either.
They both seemed to growl back, a 'no'; too busy fighting to actually respond. Sakumo was biting at the man holding my grip, while Naruto was smashing a few skulls, and taking a few blows himself. He got two of the goons down, before being tackled by another two.
"Just run you idiot!" I yelled again, turning to take a punch at my enemy. He took the blow straight in the face, and fell over. Immediately, I ran to Naruto's side, taking down one of our attackers, while the other worked at dragging my team-mate away.
Naruto pulled from his grip, cursing away, and took a nasty swing at the attacker. I could practically hear the guy's bone crunch under Naruto's knuckles. A smirk spread across my face as I watched him take down our enemies; we were winning!
"Nikki! Behind--" Naruto started to yell, but before he could finish, three more shinobis came to attack him. Two for me though. One grabbed my hair and pulled a kunai out, while the other grabbed my shoulders, yanking them back.
"These damn leaf shinobis just don't give up do they?" The one hissed, with a rough voice. Couldn't tell who was threatening me, and who was just restraining me.
I opened my mouth to scream, but immediately felt the razor tip of his kunai brush against my skin. "Not a good idea, silly girl." He chuckled.
I could barely see Naruto now, as the enemy ninjas dragged him off into the forest. As for my Sakumo, they were carrying him around - a make-shift muzzle around his snout - as if he didn't weight a good ninety-pounds. Crap! Crap! CRAP! If something happened to them, this was my fault! All my fault! Why the hell did Naruto have to follow me?!
Knowing the consequences, I took a deep breath in, and screamed as loud as I could. As I had hoped, it scared the living day lights out of the one holding my shoulders. At least I had my hands now. Without the slightest hesitation, I dug my nails into my captor's arms, until I felt the skin break, and felt the warm liquid ooze down my fingers.
Immediately, he let go and started swearing at me insanely. Quite a mouth he had. The other guy had recovered... slightly. He looked deaf to his comrades cursing. I spun around to face them, to find one was a big burly guy, while the other was a lanky, scrubby guy. They looked like typical TV bad guys! Gang members even! They weren't ninjas!
"You've got to be kidding me!" I snapped, frustrated a bunch of low-lives like these had caught me. Clenching my fist by my side, I watched as the small lanky guy came at me, his mouth wide open, in a silent scream. When he was inches away, I pulled my fist up, and smashed it against his cheek. He staggered to the side, and I flexed my fingers, wishing I had decided to wear my big bulky ring. Oh well.
After kneeing the big burly guy in the stomach - which probably hurt me, more then it hurt him - I turned and ran, crying out for Naruto and Sakumo. I had a feeling I was going to be followed, eventually, by the two attackers behind me, but by now Naruto and Sakumo could be anywhere. Hopefully my wolf realized he could just vanish. As for fox boy, maybe Kyyubi decided to kick in.
"Hurry up! She's getting away!" Oh no. My heart dropped, hearing them behind me. How'd they get up so fast? I hardly even got a head start.
"Where'd that bitch go? Gonna give her a taste of her own damn medicine."
Pushing away low tree branches and jumping over roots, I now ran in any direction, hoping Naruto could fend for himself. I had my own problem to worry about first. My gaze flickered upwards towards a good size tree branch coming into view, and an idea clicked in my head. As soon as I was close, I kneeled, then sprang up, grabbing a hold of the tree branch. Quickly, I pulled myself up, then shrunk back towards the center of the tree, hiding from view. I held my breath until I was sure the sound of stomping feet was far enough. Then my breathing was insanely heavy. My lungs were on fire, screaming practically.
I wanted to lie over and die right then and there, but there was still Naruto to worry about. "Damnit." I hissed, jumping down from the tree, and tracing back my steps. Of course, that was a failed attempt since I had been running blindly. I was heading nowhere. For all I knew, Naruto could be long gone, and I could have run out of our area of land completely.
Taking the risk, I yelled out again. "Naruto! Where are you?" Maybe that was giving away where I was, but I couldn't think of anything else to do.
"Yelling like that's not such a good idea, little brat."
Crap. Why? Why me? Why'd they have to be around every corner.
I stopped running, and spun around, looking around for the men that were after me. I was panting like a dog, ready to drop dead, again. A sitting duck, that's what I was. Quack, quack, come get me, quack!
The scrawny little guy came out, his cheek already bruising, and his arm stained a deep red. I smirked at the mess I had made this guy. Which in turn, only made him angrier. He crashed his knuckles against my face, then into my stomach almost immediately after words.
Two things happened then. First, it took the breath completely out of me, just wiped it all awhile. That's a very bizarre feeling. Just being completely breathless, not able to take any air in. Aside from that, it sends a person into a state of shock almost. I fell backwards, and landed flat on my back, still breathless. The side of my face was throbbing immensely, and I could already feel a slight warm drip crawling down my face. Well, that was the second thing that happened. Just the first.
The second thing that happened, left me completely dumb founded. As if I wasn't in a bad enough position already.
As my breath slowly came back to me, I had been waiting for another blow to come, some rude remark, something, anything! But nothing ever came. Pulling myself up, I turned to see why it was taking so long.
Instead of finding the two attackers ready to pounce, I was bewildered to see them both on the floor, out cold. The lanky guy looked like he had been knocked out with no effort at all. The other guy however definitely put up a fight, but he was out too. What had happened?
I was in a daze. I didn't know if it was from the fight, or maybe if it was just shock. Desperately trying to blink it away, I looked around me again, scanning everything, until my eyes locked on a figure standing over me.
"Guess I found you at a good time." He said, no expression on his face. "You're welcome."
"I didn't need help." I hissed, sitting up right, wiping away blood that flowed freely from my forehead. I didn't panic at how much blood I was gushing - okay, gushing might be putting it too dramatically - because it was to the forehead. That always happened. I was more worried about the jerk in front of me.
He rolled his eyes. "You're so stubborn. I don't even get a thank you."
"Why would I thank you?!" I snapped, glaring at him.
"I just saved you, didn't I?"
"Right, so you can just kill me later along with the rest of the people you once cared about!" I yelled, pulling myself up to my feet. Then I lunged at him, ready to punch him right in the kisser. How dare he! How dare he try and think just this one little deed could ever make amends for everything he had done! I guess he'd have to learn the hard way.