Sorry for taking so long with the update, I 'think' I've finally been able to work this new system out. That and my computer's so sloooow DX!
As I may or may not have mentioned in the previous chapter, I haven't written fiction for years so any helpful hints/etc would be great .
Annnnd on with the story!
Naruto sprinted to the main gate the following morning as fast as his groggy mind could handle. He was late, truly a student Kakashi. Temari and Neji were already waiting there and he skidded to a halt in front of them, spraying Neji with dust.
"Old granny said I had a mission with you two! I only read the letter she sent a moment ago, I was at the ramen bar when I got it last night and I must have been distracted cause I forgot I had it and only remembered to look this morning…"
While Naruto blabbered on, Neji brushed the dust off with as much dignity as he could while reining in the urge to thump the blonde, while Temari started to head through the gates, completely ignoring the blonde and the other's plight. Naruto was still chatting as he and Neji followed her.
They took to the trees and hurried quickly along, Naruto and Neji following Temari's lead. They had no idea what this mission entailed just that Gaara was somehow involved and probably had something to do with the war between Wind and Earth. Tsunade hadn't included any details in her letters, simply saying that Temari would fill them in.
They journeyed in relative silence with each contemplating what was in store for them; Temari wondering what would be the best way to gut the person behind all this, Neji searching his memory and knowledge for any links between the war and Gaara, and Naruto leaping determinedly on, knowing he would do anything to make sure his friend was brought home safely.
"We should camp here for the night," Temari said as the evening fast approached, jumping down from the tree branch and landing lightly, with Neji and Naruto following suit. The clearing was walled by high rising shrubs and trees. A little stream trickled gently nearby and everything was covered in moss and tiny wild flowers. Rays of light broke through the thick canopy, dappling the leafy floor with the gentle glow of evening. Motes of dust drifted lazily in the air and a bird chirped nearby.
"Wow!" Naruto ran to the most comfortably looking patch of moss and claimed it as his own by throwing himself down on it, only to find it had been covering some very jagged rocks.
"How picturesque." Neji said blandly, ignoring the blonde's shriek.
"It's like something out of a fairytale," Temari murmured, gazing around.
Neji set his bag down by a comfortable patch of moss and began to set up camp. Naruto, pouting as he rubbed fresh bruises, moved to another patch of moss and, finding it was safe, unpacked also.
"I'll get firewood and scout the area," Temari said before disappearing into the trees.
"Hey… Neji." Naruto said after a while.
"Hm?"
"What's this mission about?"
"I don't know."
"Really?!"
A nod.
"Huh." Silence, then… "Well what's rank's this mission?"
"…"
"Neji?" Poke.
The Hyuuga's eye twitched. "I don't know."
"Hey, Neji, Neji!"
Sigh. "What?"
"…Do you have any food?"
It was a good thing Temari chose that moment to return because Neji was on his feet, about the thump the blonde round the head for being such an idiot.
"The area looks fine, I brought firewood and also got some clean water from the stream. There was a clump of wild strawberries there too…"
"Strawberries?!" Naruto hurried over as she dropped the wood onto the floor, relieving her of the delicious fruit.
"Idiot," Neji muttered as he and Temari stared the fire and got a few tins of food out.
Twenty minutes and several tins of carrots later, the three found themselves sitting cross-legged around a fair sized fire, its soft glow dancing over their faces in the darkness. The sun had set surprisingly quickly and darkness had crept up on them fast.
"So, outline the mission for us," Neji asked as he placed another log in the flames.
Naruto leaned forward expectantly, his knee twitching with impatience.
"As you are probably aware, Earth declared war on the Wind country. No one is too sure of the details but in a meeting of diplomats to propose a peace treaty, something disastrous occurred." Temari shifted slightly on the rock she'd taken for a seat. "Anyway, words were said and war was declared. Although we have the desert as a natural fortification, a group of nin from Earth reached Suna. They were no match for Gaara of course. We interrogated the sole survivor for days but he revealed nothing. Eventually he bit his tongue and bled to death, the bastard," she added as an afterthought.
"So our mission is to find the one responsible for this attack?" Neji guessed.
"Yes… and no. Our main priority is finding Gaara-"
"Eh?! What do you mean by 'finding Gaara?!'" Naruto yelped, springing to his feet and upsetting a half eaten tin of carrots.
"It means how it sounds," Temari replied coolly, "our mission is to find Gaara. If we find the ones responsible along the way then all the better."
"What happened?" Neji asked as Naruto continued to splutter.
"No one's really sure, one day he just vanished. This was about a week after the attack. He was in his office when I delivered the morning report, nothing out of the ordinary, then when I came to find him at noon he'd gone. I searched everywhere but there was no trace of him. I asked everyone in Suna but no one could tell me a thing."
Naruto slowly sat, his brow crinkled with worry. "He can't have just vanished, I mean, this is Gaara we're talking about…"
"Was there anyone suspicious around?"
Temari regarded Neji for a moment. "As a matter of fact yes, and that's why I've asked for you, to be my backup. A day before Gaara disappeared, a strange woman was seen lingering near his office and home. At the time she wasn't confronted, what with all the fuss over the attack from the Earth nins. She didn't stand out particularly, just looked like a travelling merchant." Temari sighed, running a hand through her hair. "She vanished at the same time as Gaara and is the only lead we have…"
Neji gazed at her steadily. "Who is this woman?"
A humourless smirk twisted Temari's features. "We ran a check on her afterwards. The Kazekage's personal guard were keeping on eye on her, like they do to every foreigner who's gets near Gaara. Turns out she's a missing-nin, in the Bingo Book no less. Gets her kicks from torturing her victims apparently, though no one has survived to be able to say how she does this.
Naruto's eyes widened, a very unpleasant image of Gaara being strangled by some nameless jutsu coming to mind. "W-what?!"
"What's her name?" Neji probed.
"No one's really sure," Temari whispered dramatically, "she butchers anyone who gets in her way. Anyone who finds out her name finds themselves dead seconds later, or so it's said. She then vanishes without a trace, leaves no tranks to follow. They simply call her Shisou."
Temari extracted a copy of the Bingo Book and handed it to Neji. Naruto scooted closer to peer over his shoulder as he flicked through the book until he found the name.
"'Shadow of death.'" Neji murmured, reading the kanji above the picture of a young woman. She looked small, almost childlike, even in the picture, with large soft blue eyes and golden brown hair that was twisted up into a messy bun and held in place by what looked like two senbon needles. Her skin seemed a little pasty and her eyes dull, possibly no older than any of the ninja sitting around the fire. If this picture wasn't in the Bingo Book Neji would have considered her completely harmless.
"She's the one who got Gaara?" Naruto asked, eyeing Shisou's picture sceptically.
"Maybe. Kankurou recons she was a scout of sorts, but she's the only lead we have," Temari sighed.
"Don't underestimate her," Neji warned, "she wasn't put in the Bingo Book for no reason." He glanced down at the page before him. "Is she not the one who butchered an entire village because one of the local children working in the bakery dropped the bun she'd brought?"
"Apparently so."
Naruto's jaw hung open, hardly daring to believe what he was hearing. "She…she murdered an entire village… because a child dropped a roll?! How can someone do that?"
"Itachi had no qualms about mass murder, not only that it was his entire clan, save Sasuke, so why shouldn't Shisou be hesitant about killing a couple hundred strangers in a go?" Neji said quietly, throwing a log onto the slowly dying fire.
Silence followed this, the glow of the flames their only source of light, even the forest offered no sounds of life. Only the crackling of the fire could be heard.
"We should probably sleep, we have a long day ahead of us. We need to get to the Earth country boarder as quickly as we can and to where Shisou was last seen. We have to be careful though, if they see that I'm from Suna…"
"Don't worry Temari, I'll protect you with my life!" Naruto declared with much gusto, adopting a scary likeness to Lee. "You too Neji!"
"How comforting." It was hard to tell whether Neji was being sarcastic or not.
"I'll take the first watch, you guys get some sleep."
As Naruto and Neji settled down in their sleeping bags, Temari gazed into the flickering fire, hugging her knees. 'Please be safe, Gaara.'
ZZZ
It took several days of hard travel to reach the Earth County's boarder. The journey had been suspiciously easy, they'd met little resistance in the Waterfall Country and even less so once they crossed the boarder into Earth. This may be a result of the group donning nondescript civilian clothing. With their weapons and forehead protectors safely hidden away, they passed with relative ease... until they reached the mountains acting as a natural boarder for the country.
"Ahhh why?! Why the hell are there mountains here?! They're so steep!"
They'd already spent several hours scaling up a path that, apparently, was one of the best for foreigners who'd never been to Earth before. Said path disappeared into the clouds as the mountain continued to climb and didn't look to be levelling out any time soon. High winds whistled through the mountain ridges, whipping at their clothes and hair, every now and then hurling a rock at them.
"Stop complaining Naruto! You're a ninja, deal with it!" Temari snapped, adjusting her fan which was cleverly disguised in a bundle of straw. The stuff kept getting in her comfortably fitting kimono and irritating the skin of her back. It wasn't helping her mood.
Neji sighed as he felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. The clothes he'd 'borrowed' indefinitely from a merchant dozing by the side of the road were too big for him. Even with it tied securely at the waist, he still had to hitch it up over his shoulders every few steps. If he weren't a ninja, a jounin no less, his trousers would have tripped him up by now. To top it all off the material was poor. It made his skin itch like hell. His Hyuuga upbringing prevented him from becoming enraged with the offending articles that offering him minimal protection from the elements. He'd happily jump the next person he saw with comfortable looking clothes.
"Neeejiii! Temariii! These clothes are too tight-!"
The cry that followed carried over to the next mountain range as Neji jabbed Naruto in the chest, hard, his actions betraying his calm exterior.
"Anyway, we should be coming up to a village…" Temari consulted a map with many contours showing that the terrain was high above sea level and for the most part incredibly steep. Lakes of various sizes were dotted between ridges, and rivers cut through the mountains. There wasn't a lat of vegetation either and a large number of caves were also marked, though Temari doubted all of them showed on her map. "Ok, there's a tiny village 10 degrees west of our current position. If we take this route here-" she drew a finger over the map for the two boys to see "-then we should get there before nightfall."
"That's flatter than this path… isn't it?" Naruto asked as he eyed the chosen route, rubbing his aching chest. It would probably bruise.
"Um, Naruto… this route is much steeper than this one…" Temari said gently.
"You can map read, can't you?" Neji asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course I can! I… I was just testing your own map reading skills! I knew it was a much steeper route! Right! Onwards!" Naruto declaired loudly, marching off down the path.
"Naruto. You're going the wrong way," Neji smirked.
Temari gave an exasperated sigh, sidestepping a boulder that chose that moment to come crashing down the mountainside. This was going to be a very long mission if they didn't find Gaara soon.
How was that, any good? Reviews mean cookies 3
Oh, and before I forget, I'm going camping in Cornwall for about a week or so so I shall not update until sometime the week after next. I've got my fingers firmly crossed for fine weather, none of this rain we seem to be having at the moment digs out lucky shell... for luck xp.
333