Naruto woke up slowly. 'Nngh, what happened?' He wondered vaguely. His body was swaying back and forth which didn't help him wake up in the least. 'The last thing I remember… I was training with my clones after finishing the mission...' Naruto shifted his position, trying to feel what was beneath him; it felt like some sort of fabric, not the dirt or grass he was expecting. Nor was it like any sort of blanket he'd ever felt before. It felt oddly familiar for some reason, but the blonde couldn't remember why. A picture of Sasuke looking down at him from a tree branch popped into his head.
'Sasuke!' Naruto tried to bolt upright as if he'd been lying on his back.
"Whoa, there, Naruto," Kakashi soothed, barely catching the boy before he plummeted head-first to the ground.
"What happened?" Sakura exclaimed. "Is he alright?"
"He's fine," Kakashi answered. "It seems he was a little energetic when he woke up."
During this conversation, Naruto was righted, and very confused. He stared at his teammates wondering why they looked so… weird. A memory suddenly hit the boy and he whirled around to look at Kakashi. The tiny ninja's body didn't listen quite as well as he would have liked, but he managed to turn around quickly nonetheless.
Naruto's eyes met Kakashi's scrutinizing gaze. The blonde held did not glance away for several seconds before his brow crinkled in concentration. Kakashi studied the change in expression closely. Naruto tried to reason out some of the questions swirling in his head, but he had too many to simply pin one down.
Suddenly, Naruto began to feel sick to his stomach and dizzy. 'Ugh, what's wrong with me now?' He swayed then doubled over to keep himself from throwing up.
"Watch it!" He heard Sakura cry out. He could feel a pair of gentle hands on his body. Naruto, however, couldn't tell up from down. His body didn't seem to care what happened to it as he stayed tightly doubled over; almost as if landing on the hard ground almost two meters down was of no consequence. He soon felt the familiar fabric of the green ninja vest against his cheek. The fabric rubbed his face, making it seem like he was sliding sideways. When the rubbing stopped, Naruto figured he was lying down in Kakashi's arms. In Kakashi-sensei's arms… Stupid Itachi and his stupid jutsu.' He thought slowly, agitated with the situation.
"Are you sure he's okay?" Yamato asked dubious.
"He looks sick." Naruto heard Sai comment.
"That much is obvious, Sai." …Sakura.
Naruto was trying to focus on their conversation as much as possible in order to distract himself; to keep his stomach under control.
"I mean he looks just like you or I when we get sick."
"What are you getting at?" Judging from Kakashi's quick response, Naruto figured that Sakura was just about to unleash some of her strength on Sai.
"W-well," Sai wavered momentarily. "I've never seen a sick baby before, but I've been told that they cry a lot when they don't feel good." Naruto thought he could feel several pairs of eyes on him, but his stomach was making it hard to tell.
"You're right," Sakura agreed. "When a baby feels sick, they will usually cry."
"But he's not making a sound," Yamato observed.
"He may not be crying now," Kakashi organized his thoughts. "But he was crying quite a bit when we first found him."
"Oh, yeah," Yamato recalled blandly. "How could I forget?"
"That means," Sai reasoned, ignoring Yamato's comment. "Naruto's current behavior may simply be a product of the jutsu."
Kakashi nodded, "There is simply no way for us to know for sure."
Naruto's body began to loosen up; he no longer felt like throwing up and his muscle control was coming back. The young-man-turned-baby relaxed and opened his eyes to look at everyone.
"Looks like he feels better now," Sakura pointed out. "His muscles are not so tight anymore."
'Leave it to the med ninja to be the first one to point it out,' Yamato thought smiling.
"Anyway," Kakashi put in. "We'd better get going. Lady Tsunade should examine Naruto as soon as possible." The team started walking down the path again.
Naruto sat up, feeling less of the aftereffects now, and considered Kakashi's statement. 'Aw, man!' A series of whines and moans broke the air. 'You mean Tsunade-baa-chan is going to see me like this?' Naruto complained. 'I bet Pervy Sage will too… *sigh* I'm never gonna hear the end of this…'
"…I wonder if he's feeling sick again," Sai speculated.
Naruto glared at the artsy ninja, then gave it up with another sigh. 'I guess it's not your fault you can't understand me.' He looked at his tiny hands sullenly. 'It's all this dang jutsu's fault!' While staring at his stubby hands, he noticed that sleeves were covering his arms. Naruto glanced at the rest of his body. 'When did I get new clothes?' He wondered out loud. 'These clothes look just like mine,' the boy said to himself grinning.
A chuckle caught Naruto's attention. "It looks like he likes his new clothes," Sakura laughed.
Naruto beamed at the kunoichi while happy giggling noises filled the silence as the group continued to travel slowly towards Konoha. 'Of course I do, they're orange!' Naruto cooed happily.
After about ten minutes being carried, Naruto was so bored he felt like screaming. His team had been walking in silence, occasionally glancing or staring at him with various expressions. The tiny blonde was not the most patient of persons and began trying to come up with something to do, something to keep his mind occupied.
I wonder if I still have my chakra control. He thought to himself. Naruto closed his eyes and tried to form the hand sign, but his hands didn't feel right. The boy looked down at his tiny hands and realized that his hands were not cooperating.
'You have got to be kidding me!' Naruto exclaimed. Everyone turned in his direction but he ignored them. 'I can't even make hand-signs!' The baby-ninja continued, 'How am I supposed to practice chakra control if I can't make hand signs!'
"What's wrong now?" Yamato asked exasperated.
Instead of answering, Kakashi studied Naruto's expression closely. A few moments went by before his thoughts were interrupted.
"Do you think that I should carry him?" Sakura questioned her sensei.
Kakashi glanced up then and looked back down at the wide-eyed baby in his arms.
"I think Naruto would enjoy you holding him, Sakura," Sai put in before Kakashi could answer.
Sakura hesitated a moment then walked up to the person she still called her sensei and bent to look Naruto in the eye. "Do you mind if I carry you for a while, Naruto?" She asked gently. To everyone's surprise, Naruto ducked his head slightly and gave what could be interpreted as a small nod. Kakashi stared in surprise for a moment, then mentally shook his head; 'gather all the facts, don't jump to conclusions,' he reminded himself.
"I guess that's a 'yes,'" Yamato commented happily.
Sakura let a comforting smile cross her features as she reached for Naruto. Instinctively, the baby blonde reached his chubby arms back towards his teammate. Once he was nestled in Sakura's arms, Naruto clung to the loose folds of the kunoichi's shirt and closed his eyes.
"Finally, some peace and quit." Naruto barely registered Yamato's breath of relief before falling gently to sleep.
0o0o0
"Hey there, Tsunade!" A burly voice interrupted the still air in the Hokage's office. Tonton jerked, annoyed at being woken up.
"Jiraiya!" Shizune, who looked up from a pile of papers she and the Hokage were poring over on the desk, sounded surprised to see him.
"What are you doing here?" Tsunade queered. "You're supposed to be tailing the Akatsuki."
Jiraiya held up both hands in surrender. "I know, I know," the white-haired man peaked under one eyelid. "And that's exactly what I'm doing."
Statue stiffness saturated the air.
"…What!" Shizune was the first to locate her voice. "But, that…?" The med-nin took too long in finding her words and was interrupted.
"Who are we dealing with?" Tsunade demanded with quiet authority.
Letting his smile fall, Jiraiya relayed his most current information concerning Akatsuki then stated, "Actually, we're dealing with three problems. The first, of course, is that Itachi is close to Konoha." Tsunade nodded. "The second is Sasuke." Neither kunoichi bothered to hide their surprise.
Shizune's eyebrows stitched together. "What is Sasuke doing out here?"
"Tracking down Itachi," Tsunade stated absently, already deep in thought.
Jiraiya nodded. "Exactly."
Moments later Shizune's puzzled look returned. "If Sasuke is following Itachi…"
Tsunade glanced up from her laced hands and directed her question at Jiraiya. "Where is Itachi heading?"
Jiraiya nodded again. "That's why this is a problem. Itachi doesn't seem to have a destination; he just darts back and forth." The Sannin's expression sparked with another idea. "Almost as if he's keeping just out of someone's radar."
"Hmm," Tsunade mused. "The question is, who's?"
Two full minutes of silence followed as the ninja considered the possibilities.
Shizune decided it would be best to get back to Jiraiya's report and asked, "What is the third problem?"
"Isn't that obvious?" Jiraiya asked. Shizune glanced between the two Sannin who were staring back at her. 'Of course it's not obvious, that's why I asked,' the younger jonin thought, a bit annoyed.
Tsunade almost stifled a sigh. "Who is the person who cares about Sasuke the most?"
Shizune was bewildered by the seemingly-random question but answered anyway, "That would be Naruto."
"Yes," the Hokage continued patiently. "And what would happen if Naruto found out that Sasuke is so close to the village?"
Understanding bloomed across the med-nin's face.
A few seconds later a thought crossed her mind. "Um, then what are we going to do about the Konoha team that should be on their way back?" She knew that there was a team which had been assigned an escort mission and they'd be crossing the forest where Itachi and Sasuke were reported to be darting around. "They'll need to be informed about the situation as soon as possible."
"That's why this situation is such an issue." Tsunade paused in her explanation and Shizune patiently waited for her leader to finish. "Naruto is on that escort mission," she declared finally.
Shizune's eyes went wide as she processed the new information, and the possible implications.
"Should I go meet the team and warn them?" Jiraiya asked, apparently unaffected by the sudden news.
"Unfortunately, no," Tsunade said in an exasperated voice. "I have another task for you since you're here…" Tsunade rummaged in a draw for a roll of paper she had prepared. Finding what she was looking for, she presented the small scroll to the Sage, "I'd like you to complete this mission while you continue gathering information on the Akatsuki."
While reading the document, a playful smile twitched at the Sannin's lips. He glanced up, 'Good, they didn't notice,' he thought as he formulated how to word his next sentence. "So does this extra assignment come complete with a free visit to the nearest hot springs?" His gruff voice was smiling grandly.
Ms. Lady Sannin's eyes widened just a nanosecond before her instincts took over. Jiraiya dodged the air-born scroll before taking the hint, as well as his leave. "I'm off then!" He called cheerfully as he darted out of the room. 'Success!' He cheered silently, satisfied with the outcome of his little joke.
Jiraiya passed a flabbergasted ninja running toward Tsunade's office, "Lady Hokage!" He was calling loudly. The Toad Sage, noticing that man was from the communications department, became very interested in hearing his report, so the white-haired man slinked his way back down the hall towards the room he'd just escaped from.
"What's the problem?" Tsunade asked in her best Hokage voice. She was determined not to worry about Naruto and his teammates.
"We just received a communication from team Kakashi," the man said in a rush. "Here, the message specifically requested that it be delivered to you immediately."
The 'message' turned out to be one of Sai's ink-birds with Kanji scrawled across every available space updating them on the progress of the mission: "Please present this mission update to the Hokage immediately. We have successfully completed the assigned mission. We've run into some trouble. No back-up necessary as of yet. Kakashi-san has requested that Lady Tsunade and a trusted expert be ready to assess our situation upon our arrival. It is estimated that we return to Konoha late afternoon tomorrow."
"Tomorrow, huh," Tsunade mused.
"Why so late?" Shizune questioned. "Shouldn't they be back later this morning?"
"Hmm, Jiraiya, what do you think about all this?" The Hokage called out the door, blowing the man's cover. Shizune turned her head as the Sage came back in, slightly surprised that the white-haired Sannin hadn't already left to conduct some more of his 'research.' Tsunade handed the ink-bird to Jiraiya to review and waited.
"It's weird that they'd take the time to write a message saying they've run into trouble and yet specifically tell us not to send back-up," the Sannin reported seriously. "And the part about a 'trusted expert'; what kind of expert? And why point out that they must be trusted?"
"Hmm." Tsunade was inside her thoughts. She knew that Jiraiya had assessed the message vaguely because it was a code (and only voiced his assessment out loud because the Hokage had requested him to); Kakashi wanted whatever they were bringing to be kept quiet, and didn't want more than a select few to be made aware of it. The fact that a type of expert was never specified likely meant that they'd run into something that they'd never encountered before… One indisputable fact was that whatever 'it' was, it was slowing them down drastically. What on earth could it be…? It was almost maddening! Tsunade couldn't even attempt to figure out what might be going on since it was highly likely that team Kakashi was bringing 'it' (for lack of a better word and knowledge of the situation) back specifically so she could decide on what to do.
The worn-out leader leaned back in her chair, pressed her fingers to her forehead and moaned. "What is it Shikamaru likes to say?" She tiredly asked no one in particular.
"How troublesome," both Jiraiya and Shizune answered in unison.
0o0o0
Kisame walked a safe distance behind his partner. They had been dodging around with no apparent goal, and it was becoming aggravating. The Kiri Nin had tried a few times to get an answer out of Itachi, being as subtle as possible, but to no avail. It wasn't like he had expected an answer; though Kisame could usually figure out a good portion of the plan. This time, however, was proving to be darn near impossible to make any sense of their actions.
The shark-faced ninja didn't like being confused; a sensation he had been experiencing for the past four hours and counting. Usually Kisame kept himself from making too much conversation, but he was getting almost too annoyed to care.
"Itachi," Kisame called, once again attempting to shed some light on the situation, directly this time. The sharingan user made no acknowledgement and kept on walking, as per usual. "Are you going to tell me what we're doin'?" Itachi said nothing, showing no indication of hearing, let alone answering, his partner. "Tch," the Kiri nin muttered under his breath.
Kisame checked to see that their little tag-along was still in pursuit… He was. Just under one hour after Itachi had cast his experimental jutsu, he had sensed the jonin following them. Kisame knew that if a pursuer had caught his attention, then Itachi certainly had already noticed; which meant there was no need to alert the spy that his query was already aware of him by discussing said spy amongst themselves. The two Akatsuki members continued in silence.
After about 45 minutes of walking (yes, walking; not running, not leaping, walking), Kisame felt like his brain was going to cave in on itself. 'Why are we doing this again? That's right, he didn't TELL me!' The Akatsuki member fumed silently. He had been mulling over the situation in his head, but it made about as much sense as it did when they first headed out.
The nuke-nin no longer felt the need to check for the spy; he was sure the unknown ninja was out there. But he decided to locate their unwanted audience just to stave off the boredom for a few seconds. . . .
There; found him. Looking up, Kisame was surprised that Itachi was no longer in front of him. He glanced around, 'Oh, there he is. We're changing direction again?' Dodging back and forth didn't have any benefit whatsoever as far as Kisame could tell: they weren't avoiding anyone since someone had already begun tailing them; they didn't appear to be getting closer to any one village; they had simply let the jinchuuriki escape; they were not going after said jinchuuriki; they didn't seem to be doing anything at all except inexplicably changing direction at random.
Kisame just wasn't sure what they were doing, or sure of anything at the moment. No, strike that, he was absolutely sure that he had no idea what was going through the mind of that raven-haired Uchiha in front of him.
0o0o0
The sun was beginning to set beyond the forest and everything was turning a dusty gold. "Why don't we camp here for the night?" Kakashi suggested, which was followed by 'Alright' and 'Sure'. It had been several hours and, much to Yamato's relief, Naruto had stayed asleep the entire time. Sakura looked up at the golden fringe lining the leaves overhead then looked down at Naruto. The medical-nin's eyes widen slightly in pleasant surprise to discover that Naruto's hair was catching the last bit of sunlight and was glowing even more so than the environment. She smiled fondly as she stared for what seemed like minutes, memorizing this moment in time. Sakura could have stayed staring for as long as the sun permitted, but the sounds of her teammates setting up camp called her back to Earth.
Since Naruto was still asleep, she felt it would be ok for her to lean him against a close-by tree while she did her part setting up. The kunoichi located a suitable tree, set Naruto against it (never waking him), used some nearby stones to prop him up, and turned away to help her teammates.
0o0o0
Rustling and the sounds of movement woke him up. Naruto opened his eyes in time to see Sakura reaching what appeared to be their camp-site for the night and begin working with the others to set everything up and get ready for nightfall. The little blonde moved as to get up and put in his own share of the work, but his body wouldn't obey. 'What the…' Naruto wondered looking down at his body. Seeing his stubby little arms covered in black and orange clothe jogged his memory. 'Oh yeah,' Naruto slumped back against the rough surface behind him. 'Stupid Itachi cast a stupid jutsu on me' he muttered silently, annoyed. 'I don't think I'll get used to this...'
A few seconds went by as the unpredictable-ninja pondered what to do, then an almost silent rustle somewhere behind him caught his attention. He glanced at his teammates and, in a fraction of a second, realized that he was the only one who had heard the noise.
Naruto had a sudden thought, 'what if it's Sasuke?' he wondered. With no more thought on the matter, Naruto twisted and leaned away from the rocks propping him up and tried to stand.
Unfortunately, to Naruto's utter annoyment, his muscles could not comply and he toppled over. Naruto glanced over at his team worriedly. No one had noticed. 'If they see me, someone will probably come and get me,' Naruto thought frantically. 'Then I won't be able to go after Sasuke!' Naruto turned away from his busy friends, squirming and twisting and wiggling, but his muscles were not functioning the way they were supposed to. However, he was determined to go after the sound he had heard only seconds ago. 'Fine then!' He mentally cried, exasperated. 'If I can't walk, I'll crawl!'
Naruto wiggled until he had managed to push himself onto his hands and knees. Some part of his brain registered the undignified position he was forced to take but it was easily disregarded. Of all the things Naruto had been in his life, dignified was not one of them.
The pint-sized ninja managed to maneuver quickly and crawled his way towards the sound. 'Sasuke,' he thought determinedly. 'You won't get away from me this time, teme!'
A/N: (sis1) – First off, Thanks to new our reviewers LurvirsLuvvie, DoubleAron83, willam and jack and jake, and Miss Light Bright for reviewing! ^^ And thank you to all our reviewers for taking time to leave a message (Bookie, you still make us smile ^^). We have a second re-reviewer! All of your comments made us very happy and helped us plow through our writers block.
We have some sad news, we probably won't be able to write much in the immediate future due to school kicking back in, sis2 being sick, and family getting together for Easter so our next chapter probably won't be up for about a month or so. Sorry guys; but don't worry, we will definitely NOT be pulling a Kakashi. ='( I miss spring break already~~! Some good news is that we have a tentative outline and several scenes planned out, so writing shouldn't take all too long once we can actually sit down and get started.
Some of my own comments about The Strange Jutsu!; I wanted more action, but so far this fic seems to mostly deal with the psychological aspect of the characters.
(sis2) – Yeah, that's where I was heading…
(sis1) – I think now it's where we are heading (sis2 was the one who started us writing this fic. Thank you sis!). At first I thought it was going to be a bit boring, but I'm actually enjoying our fic, even without a lot of action. =] Hope you guys are as well; we've gotten several story-alert and favorite-story notices and it made us very, very happy ^_^ But our favorite ones are the notices that tell us we have a review! Reviews make us feel like our readers are committed to seeing our story through to the end and not just passing by. =^.^=
(sis1/2) – Pleeeeeaaasssee leave a review before you go clicking off into the sunset. We want to know how we're doing! Are we keeping the characters in character? Are there things we could improve on? Did something not make sense? Could there have been more explanation? Was it too wordy? Weird word choice? Do you have a plot or scene suggestions? Any other type of suggestions? We can't improve our writing if we don't get feedback. And if you have nothing to say, leave a review anyway ^.^ Random reviews make us feel good and we go back to re-read them for inspiration when we've got writers block.
See y'all when we get back!