Kage: Yo…again.

Twilight: Sorry once again…If anyone hasn't noticed, I redid the first chapter!

Kage: Sorry and a redo doesn't cut it, baka onna. You kept the readers waiting and on their toes for almost a year.

Twilight: Shut up, fleabag.

Kage: Make me, ningen.

Twilight: Fuck you, bastard.

Kage: …Meh…I'm bored with calling you names.

Twilight: VICTORY IS MINE!

Kage: Whatever.

Twilight: Geez, you're worse than Shikamaru. Do the disclaimer!

Kage: Yeah, yeah, don't get your tail in a knot. Dragon of Twilight does not own Naruto…thank Kami.

Twilight: WOOT, WOOT!

Chapter 2: The Mission

"Fuuuuuuck…"

Yukari scampered up a tree like a squirrel, narrowly avoiding the barrage of thin needles aimed with pinpoint accuracy and murderous intent at her vital points. They thudded loudly into the bark as she aimed for a particularly thickly leaved branch that seemed to offer some cover.

"Damn you, Keiji! 'A few bandits' my ass! Why, why did I let myself get sucked into this stupid missiOOON?!" Yukari was cut off mid-rant by a kunai whizzing by an inch from her nose just before she dove into her temporary hiding place.

You son of a bitch, Keiji! She thought viciously as she glared at the dark shadows flitting around the branches of the other trees. 'Small settlement of bandits.' Pft! Small settlement is right! It's a camp full of elite shinobi, ANBU, I think! They're probably from across the sea, from Kirigakure. They probably heard of the destroyed village and wanted to get the secrets from the bodies that were there!

It made sense. The bodies were years old, and the smell of rotting flesh had long been swept away by the wind, but someone would eventually informed Kirigakure about a seeming massacre of a hidden warrior village due to the fact that Ametsuchi traded regularly with the Land of Water, sharing news. It was how Yukari knew that the Land of Waves finished the Great Naruto Bridge, (why the hell they would name a bridge 'fishcake' she had no idea) that the Akatsuki had kidnapped Sunagakure's Kazekage for his bijuu, the Ichibi, and that Konohagakure's candidate for the Rokudaime Hokage was the jinchuuriki for the great Kyuubi no Kitsune.

Yukari carefully plucked a senbon out from the bark and slid it into her pocket, moving as smoothly as possible to hopefully draw less attention to her location. She knew it wouldn't be very hard to find her.

She had learned how to throw senbon, kunai, and make explosive tags from the scroll library of Keiji's Caravans, but she rarely used them on her missions, and as a consequence; didn't have a weapons pouch. She almost never had to deal with shinobi, only arrogant bandits and haughty daimyo samurai guards.

But now she was stuck with Kiri ANBU on her ass, which were famous for their ruthlessness and efficiency.

Yukari had slipped into their camp undetected by the few keeping watch, gotten the scroll, but had gotten caught when she had tripped a wire trap that sent kunai flying at her. She dodged them, but had also attracted the attention of the night watch. She'd managed to incapacitate all but one that was chasing her using a combination of really nasty thief tricks and paralysis smoke bombs.

It was extremely difficult, though; these were elites. And they were using techniques that she'd never seen before; switching their bodies with objects, teleporting with lightning speed, running up trees without using their hands, and leaping up to inhumanly high hights. They all also seemed to have more than one elemental ki! One had shot a fireball at her, and then tried to raise a stone wall in front of her right after. Even despite their strange abilities, she'd managed to lose all but one.

Unfortunately, the one on her tail seemed to have a particularly vicious streak, repeatedly allowing Yukari to find hiding places and forcing her out of them with a well-aimed kunai or senbon. She'd already gained a multitude of shallow slashes and painful punctures that weren't lethal, but extremely painful and irritating. And what was worse was the fact that he wouldn't get close enough for her to see him.

I am screeeewwwed. Yukari whined ineffectually in her head as she watched the flitting shadow come closer. If only I could get a clear view of him…

Unexpectedly, her chance came.

"You might as well come out of that tree and return the scroll, thief. Its pointless hiding."

The ANBU chasing her finally came to a stop directly below her; in the typical ANBU gear with a light jumpsuit and chest armor, complete with a sword that Yukari was sure was sharp enough to cleave her leg off. His white porcelain mask was decorated with blue swirls that made it look like a panther. The four wavy lines that served as the symbol for the Mist Village were carved into the forehead, and he wore a black cloak with a hood that closely resembled her own.

She could feel the arrogance practically oozing off of this guy.

Thus, his ego badly needed to be deflated.

"Oh, Why would I want to come out? It has a wonderful view up here." Yukari said flippantly, noting with wary delight as his shoulders stiffened angrily. This guy obviously was a great pursuit shinobi, but he had a loose hold on his emotions, despite being in the ANBU.

She could work with that.

This will work nicely...

"I'll make sure you die slowly when you get down." He hissed lowly, a gloved hand reaching up to grasp the hilt of his sword that jutted over his right shoulder. Yukari grinned down at him in a predatory fashion.

Get it moving…

"You're pretty moronic for an elite shinobi. That's even less a reason to come down, Kitty. I'm very fond of breathing, you see?"

Ten shuriken embedded themselves in the branch with loud 'chunck' sounds where she would have been, had she not quickly dropped down to a lower branch. She glanced up at the embedded projectiles from her safe position before looking disappointedly down at the seething hunter.

Almost there…need to buy a bit more time…

"Now, now. No need to get hasty and injure the poor, innocent tree. What did it ever do to you?"

Yukari could imagine the guy's eye twitching.

Almost…

"Return the scroll or you die where you stand!"

A little closer…

"I happen to be crouching, kitty."

Now!

"You die, now!" The ANBU roared, leaping forward with more than twice Yukari's normal speed, cleaving the smirking figure in the tree in two, smirking as her expression faded from confidence to shock—

—only for the clone to dissolve into black wisps of shadow, and for him to be unceremoniously knocked out by means of a neat chop to the neck by the real Yukari. She glanced expressionlessly down at his unconscious figure as he toppled to the ground—and her face split ito a wide, smug grin.

"Take that, bitch."

Later: far, far away from the ANBU camp…

Yukari slowly eased her poor, abused body into a sitting position to examine her wounds, and maybe later, the scroll.

Looking over her clothes, she gave an involuntary grimace; her hooded cloak was almost unusable because it was shredded so badly along the back, arms, and sides from where the various projectiles that had been hurled at her had nicked her. The edges of the cuts were soaked in blood from the long, shallow slices the kunai had carved into her skin. They didn't need much attention; just a quick slather of antibiotic cream did the job.

Her muscles ached horribly from running for twenty hours straight before sinking, exhausted, to the churned-up dirt where the caravans had pulled out. Night had fallen, and when she had gotten to where the caravans had been waiting, she was greeted with an empty road and wheel tracks going west, toward the coast.

The bastard had left her behind!

Yukari's fists clenched as she remembered the conclusion she came to.

Keiji knew about the Kiri hunters. He knew he was basically sending her on a suicide mission, from his point of view anyway. That's why he had tried so hard to get her to accept the mission, why he had looked so triumphant when she considered it. He had thought that she would be killed. Keiji had underestimated her.

Blood began dripping from the tiny half-moon cuts her fingernails left in her palms as her nails broke her skin. She hastily loosened her fists, shaking her hands to get she sting out. Yukari blinked at the dripping cuts before letting out a small sigh and cleaning the new wounds, licking away the blood. She welcomed the familiar coppery taste.

Yukari had no love for her profession as a thief or the caravans who taught her how to be one, but the fact that she was alone and had no home once again was hard for her to accept. But Yukari knew she was older, stronger. She would survive.

Yukari sighed and stripped off her cloak and shirt, leaving her in only the bandaging she used to bind her chest.

Carefully fishing around in one of the many pockets of her pants, Yukari pulled out a needle and a spool of simple black silk, casually stolen from a craft store, and began to sew up her simple black cloak for what felt like the thousandth time. She ignored the bloodstains; it wasn't like they could easily be seen.

Sewing helped clear her mind, and she began planning.

Ok…I don't have a lot of supplies, only a loaf of stale bread and a canteen that's about half-full. I've got the shuriken Kitty threw at me and that senbon, so weapons is a no…I also need a map, but I'll just follow the road until I get to a town and go from there. Hmm…I'll travel around for a while. I've always wanted to go to Konoha…So, it's decided. I'll sleep tonight near the road, follow the road in the morning, get a map, and stow away on a boat to the Water Count—

"Itai!" Yukari yelped as she pricked her finger with the needle. She quickly stuck her index finger in her mouth and glared malevolently at the needle, like it was the needle's fault her finger stung.

With her finger still in her mouth, Yukari reached into another pocket and pulled out the scroll to get a good look at what she went through to get. She didn't get a chance to look at it when she first grabbed it, so it was a complete shock to see how different it looked from normal scrolls.

For one, it was smaller. It was less than a fourth the size of a regular scroll, barely big enough to fit in the palm of her hand (which a actually very large for a female of seventeen) and it was black. There was no writing, no blank spot at all for writing a name; it was solid black. The edge was rimmed with silver, but other than that it looked totally plain.

Deep in her inspection of the scroll, Yukari didn't notice that she had taken her pricked finger out of her mouth and was using the injured finger to assist her other hand in holding the scroll open.

The warm wetness of blood running down Yukari's finger briefly distracted her, and she carefully shifted her finger and watched in a sort of quiet fascination as the blood rolled down her finger, leaving a crimson streak.

Without letting go of the scroll, she tilted her finger downward, so the blood flowed back down her finger, dripped off her fingertip—

—and directly onto the scroll.

Her world exploded.

Hehehe...I am evil.