Konoha, 6 days earlier…
"Oh Gai, there is one other thing," began Tsunade. "This is your mission, make no mistake, but..." her tone seemed to shift with her eyes, checking left and right of the room as if to confirm completely that it really was just the two of them. "Given the sensitivity and danger of such a mission, I have made arrangements for an additional platoon of shinobi to be just inside the Land of Grass's border. There mission will be to back you up in case the enemy does in fact have some kind of ambush or quick reaction force waiting for your team. There presence is extremely classified Gai-but I believe their level will be appropriate to reinforce your efforts. Any questions?"
The Hokage's arched eyebrow implied that there shouldn't be. All Might Gai could do was raise his own monstrous brows in response. "No my lady, I believe I understand. Blinding her with one more monstrous shot of his gleaming teeth, the jonin spun on his heel and was gone.
Tsunade sighed in relief and closed her eyes. It would only be a minute before Shizune came in with another pile of paperwork to be signed, filed, and forgotten (the guilt of the betraying her master had effectively increased her efficiency at paperwork- an unfortunate side effect of the punishment). In the brief moment of solitude, Tsunade felt a sense of foreboding. She had done her best to play politics today, splitting hairs in order to make the best of a bad situation. She had betrayed her own instincts, and then given them a conciliation prize to placate her guilt. With any luck, the counselors and Danzo didn't know just how out of the loop she was really keeping them. Now, the only thing left to do was hope this new wager paid off.
Tsunade opened her eyes. They had threatened to take her off the table and she had responded by doubling down with two teams. She stood to win big, isolating the militant old coot and gaining a vital source of intelligence. She also now stood to lose eight shinobi. Sometimes, Tsunade truly loathed the position of Hokage.
1 hour 18 minutes following the ambush at the bridge between Heaven and Earth- Grass Country- 13km from Land of Fire Border.
The blur streaking toward the border was a physical manifestation of hate, a being of pure malevolence with but one goal. Damn you Gai, the Serpent Lord muttered inside his mind, your antics have cost me the day! Kabuto had better be ready to leave. Leaving Sasuke alone all this time- the Sannin gritted his teeth in total displeasure. The loss of even a single training day now would be irreplaceable; the time for the ritual was fast approaching. The clenched teeth began to grind. On top of that, I'm going to need to rest for a considerable time as well after that struggle. Had I not stopped him before he opened the 8th gate… Here Orochimaru shut his mind down. An immortal did not speculate upon his potential demise; it was simply to insulting to one's pride.
The loss of the sword as well was turning his mind red with rage. The Long Sword of the Heavens, Kusanagi, was irreplaceable, and combined with the wasted day… His mindless charge would be stopped only when he crashed into something. There would be no guarantee now of anyone's safety- he was going to erase everything that was Might Gai, his students, his village, everything. He'd rip them apart for representing what they did. For reminding him of what they had taken. What was his.
Deep within Orochimaru's psyche there might have been some old tie back to an actual reason; his displeasure might have been mirroring some original discontent of childhood now so long forgotten. But if there was a connection, he would have been the last one aware of it.
He was so caught in his own hate-fueled musings that the leader of the Sound was barely able to pinpoint the location of his chosen prey. There you are! His arrival leap was a release of sick black chakra that scarred and flattened the earth in a three meter radius. How many are there?! The rage and surprise were boiling just beneath the Snake's skin, causing his eyes to bulge and teeth to gnash. None of these are Gai's students!
Twelve minutes before,
To be sure, Kabuto was in a precarious position. His broken arm had been the beginning of what became a sudden vicious beating from several apparently enraged ninja that had left him bloodied, bruised, and considerably less cognizant of his surroundings. Only after suddenly being encircled in apparently living restraints did the medic-nin realize that most of his attackers had been the same individual.
"Naruto! Naruto! Stop pummeling him so I can secure him! Jeez!" The voice sounded like it preferred to be smooth and reasonable most of the time and not this wound up and hurried.
You've got to be kidding me?! Kabuto raged when the blood ceased flowing into his eyes. The restraints were made of wood that was growing straight out of the ground, freezing his position in a snapshot of a fall. His left knee was bent and just failing to touch the ground held in place by the living restraints that had snaked around his limbs. His right arm and been immobilized flat against his body while his broken left stuck out at a more gruesome angle, his arm somewhat backwards and fist pointing out. He wouldn't be able to heal it properly until free of the mokton technique. The First's secret jutsut? Who am I dealing with? How did they know where to find us? Kabuto's thoughts were racing again, searching for answers, but whether they had been dislodged by the blows or lost in his panic and rage, Kabuto just couldn't find them.
Twenty minutes before.
"Naruto would you slow down!" Tenzo hated yelling. Not only was it not in his nature, it violated several principals of being a shinobi- namely stealth. It was slightly ironic that the whole trouble had started with such a loud explosion in the direction of the bridge. Than Uzumaki Naruto had exclaimed he couldn't wait any longer and gone charging off toward the sound. Tenzo's medic-nin had been right behind him, but whether it was to rein her friend in or join him in his headlong charge the team leader couldn't say.
That had left him with just the silent, young ANBU spook staring deadpan at him. Tenzo hated the feel of the creep's eyes' on him. If only I had taken off with them as well, the jonin mourned internally;despite the effort he'd put into developing some limited sense of teamwork between his knew charges, the black ops captain was sure that Naruto still hated the emotionless replacement. No time to worry about that now.
"Sai! Get above the tree line and see what's going on! I'm going after Naruto and Sakura!"
With a chakra burst "Captain Yamato" sped after his two rogue charges, periphery vision just catching the ink bird leap off the scroll the young nin had scrawled upon.
Split-second artistic rendering with chakra infused ink, what other uncanny abilities are you capable of? Tenzo did not have time to ponder as he closed the gap with Sakura.
She was going all out, trying to match the pace of her blonde haired friend, but something more than chakra was driving the knuckle-headed ninja, now at least one hundred meters ahead and moving over the branches on all fours. Tenzo hated the situation. They had been acting as reinforcements for Team Gai on a classified S rank mission. One team infiltrating the Land of Grass to potentially ambush an Akatsuki spy was a hazardous mission, but the incurred risk of placing another team so close by…
Tenzo didn't like being the added incurred risk, he would have preferred to have been the main effort. He had an inkling that Lady Fifth would have preferred it that way too. And as much as he had disliked being sidelined, he knew Kakashi's wards downright hated it. Add into the mix a potential spy from Danzo's (supposedly defunct) Root organization that no one liked, and Tenzo was surprised his team hadn't broken down sooner. Now they were split up, screaming through the forest toward God only knew what without having first made contact with the main effort. This had disaster written all over it. Vainly Tenzo tried again to exercise some control over the situation. "Naru-"
Naruto heard his captain call out for him to slow down. Heard and didn't care. I should be there already! Don't tell me to slow down Captain! He would have spat the response back if it hadn't meant wasting air. He could also feel the Fox's chakra rising up and shooting through all his limbs- felt that and didn't care. Whatever got him closer to the action faster was just fine. Damnit granny! Keeping us back. Letting Lee and his team take the lead! You know only I can do this!! Deep inside, the Fox snickered.
"Naruto, please!" That was Sakura. For a moment, Naruto felt a slight twinge of remorse for moving out so suddenly, I should have warned her. The regret began to take life in his words. Turning his head back the young ninja could barely see the pink haired kunoichi trying to keep up with him. "Sorry Sakura, I'v-OOOF!"
The collision could have been more disastrous than it was. Naruto had had all four limbs firmly planted on the branch, and as such when the green clad figure slammed head-on into him he had plenty of extremities available to save himself with. Lacking anything remotely close to what a shinobi would consider "coordination," Naruto had to make use of every one. One hand caught the sudden offender, the other flailed helplessly in the air as the force of the collision pushed the surprised ninja free of the branch.
"Whaaa!" Naruto's yelp sounded as he felt himself going headfirst vertical toward the ground. Hooking his left leg around the branch with his heel, he retained just enough concentration to flood his right foot with an almost instinctual balance of chakra, sticking firmly to the bark. In this precarious position, the young jinkurri came face to face with one of his greatest opponents. "Bushy Brows? Hey, Bushy Brows…"
He was still in his precarious position when Sakura and Captain Yamato landed opposite of him on a nearby branch.
"Sakura!" he began as he pulled himself up finally, dragging the unconscious chunnin with him, "Its Bushy Brows! I think he hit his…" Sakura was beside him on the branch in an instant, examining their injured comrade.
Sakura knew Lee was in bad shape without Naruto even having to speak. For one thing, he was standing while unconscious. She had only seen this behavior in him once before, and she knew exactly what kind of treatment had been required to restore him then. Second, one pupil was massively dilated while the other was shrunk to a pinprick. That meant concussion. A bad one. And third, Lee was bleeding out a serious gash in his scalp.
"Naruto, help me lay him down," Sakura's voice was full of concern and authority as she began to pool chakra into her finger tips. "Naruto did you-,"
"I'm tryin Sakura , he just.. won't." Naruto's tugs had become incredibly more insistent on the completely dead faced chunnin, but Lee's legs refused to unlock; the taijutsu master stood as still as a statue as Naruto pulled futilely.
"Here, let me-" Sakura never had a chance to finish her sentence, the second her hand brushed Rock Lee's skull it was like a trigger was pulled, and Rock Lee was off like a shot again.
"He's heading back the way he came!" Naruto blurted out the obvious as he shot past his companions in hot pursuit. "Naruto wait! Naruto!" Sakura's cries however either failed to reach the Leaf-nin or failed to register as his orange jumpsuit was quickly lost from sight amongst the foliage.
"Wait Sakura!" Tenzo spoke up just as the kunoichi was about to launch her own pursuit of her two senseless friends.
"But Captain Yamato, Lee's hurt! And Naruto-"
"Sai's located Lee's likely destination. It seems he's so delirious he was just zigzagging through the woods! Follow me and will beat them there." The captain's voice was cool and quick, his eyes steady and reassuring, yet Tenzo could see only a small part of Sakura's doubt leave her eyes. "Trust me, Lee's teammates seem to be in worse shape."
That lie snapped the medic-nin's attention back to the mission, and Tenzo felt a brief moment of relief and guilt as he saw Sakura's eyes suddenly fill with purpose. In truth he had no idea just what the state of Lee's comrades were, but he would be damned if any more subordinates ran off on him. "Quickly than captain, let's not waste time."
Tenzo would have smiled if the situation weren't so dire. Kakashi did train some at least one serious shinobi after all.
Turning at roughly a fifteen degree angle from the path Naruto was chasing Lee, Tenzo adjusted his throat mike to contact his aerial observer once more. "Give me the current location of the target again Sai," he whispered low into the radio. A second later, two shinobi bounded off toward their comrades.
The impassive shinobi hovered above the tree-line watching the progress of his counterparts via the shaking of the tree leaves. The barely functioning Lee and (most likely) Naruto, were headed back to the point of origin in the same blind zigzag pattern Gai's protégé had made in an apparent attempt to locate reinforcements. The waving branches moving in a straight line no doubt signaled the more competent movements of Captain Yamato and the Haruno girl. The boy with no name wondered what they would find.
He would time his arrival at the likely point of conflict (a location approximately 6 kilometers away) with the last team to arrive. He had been lucky. It seemed that the apparently oblivious Lee's travels had mapped a clear (albeit nonlinear) path of still shaking trees to his point of origin. With any luck, the ninja known as Sai calculated, Orochimaru will be headed that way to. Whatever had happened in the vast crater several dozen kilometers to the north is over. I must fulfill my mission.
Naruto had no idea how Lee was navigating, let alone keeping balance at this point. Each jump was a brutal launch off one leg ending with a precarious landing on the other, only to thrust off again with the alternate, again in a seemingly completely random direction. "Bushy Brows, where are we going!!' Naruto yelled futilely at his unconscious guide. Wherever it was, they were going there fast. Naruto really hoped it wasn't nowhere. Just as he was about to risk stopping the insane escapade with force, the taijutsu specialist braked on a branch, seemed to look down… and then fell head first toward the ground.
Naruto didn't even have time to call out his friend's nickname as he leapt down after him. I'm to far away! Naruto realized as he saw the now completely unconscious Lee plummet downward. A sudden white and black blur shot out suddenly from a pile of leaves and twigs then, a sudden streak that signaled both intent and desperation. Naruto's crash landing was only a second behind Neji's breaking the fall of his teammate.
The fact that Neji wasn't even bothering to push Lee's inert body off his own alerted Naruto that something was really wrong with the jonin. No self respecting Hyugga would tolerate such an undignified position willingly.
"Neji, hang on…" Naruto pulled Lee's still frame off his counterpart and got a good look at the heavily breathing jonin.
Exhausted, was the word that flashed through the genin's mind as he took stock of Neji Hyugga's state. The normally immaculate black hair was tangled with twigs and leaves, mementos of his prior hiding spot, the white tunic soaked through with sweat and besmirched brown in dirt. If it was possible the pale skin had become even more ghostly in color. A medic-nin might have suspected that Neji had actually sustained a minor heart attack. Naruto knew only that his friend was in dire straights.
"Neji, you and Lee.. What hap-"
"Forget about that for now! Go help Tenten!" The response was a desperate snap that left the speaker breathless. Neji didn't know how he had energy left to speak, it had taken everything he had had a moment before to prevent Lee from cracking his skull open on the forest floor; now every action felt like a step closer to death. Moving on one leg would have been infuriating if it wasn't so exhausting at the moment. As it was, Neji found just enough strength to lift one hand and point feebly in the direction his eyes were begging Naruto to travel.
"Neji," Naruto's iteration of his friend's name was filled with concern and respect. Even now, Neji Hyuuga was still risking his life to protect his teammates. Naruto's eyes grew angry and hard. He was going to hurt whoever had done this to Lee and Neji; whoever was still apparently threatening Tenten. Be they Akatsuki, or Sound-nin, or Grass, someone was going to pay. No one got away with hurting Naruto Uzumaki's friends. They were just too important. With a growl, the demon-child shot away from his two injured companions, his chakra nearly boiling over out of his skin.
Neji let his hand finally drop and rolled his head to the left where Naruto had flopped Lee next to him. Rock Lee's eyes had finally closed but he was still breathing. What's more, Lee's simply features now bore a strangely curious half-smirk. The shallow cut across his nose received from Kabuto only made him look more ridiculous. The normally reserved Hyugga would have laughed if he had actually had the energy. Yes Lee, I do believe we have time to finally relax. Naruto's here now. Neji Hyugga felt a small smile on his own lips as his eyelids began to drift shut.