A/N:
Whoo. Chapter three! I'm putting it out a bit early as some sort of reverse birthday present xD -is meh burfdae- YAYYYY.
Disclaimer: I hate writing these. Get the point? It means I don't own Naruto or any of its characters.
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Chapter Three: Doubt
The next morning, the first day of my freedom, I woke up at five.
Why?
Because I needed to whip my ass back into shape.
Seriously, I hadn't been able to train at all the past several months.
Every time I tried to practice my fighting technique, someone would rush in and stop me.
And obviously, I couldn't practice anything that involved chakra.
I had the bad feeling that I was going to suck.
I started off the day with a light jog to loosen up my muscles, and then stretching.
I figured that I should ease myself back into it.
Throwing weapons. Easy right? I'd been able to hit a target on its bulls-eye mid-fight previously.
Now, just standing, I was a little off the center mark. Not academy student bad, just bad for me…
When I was able to hit every target's bull's eye standing still, I worked on it while I was moving.
I growled in frustration when my throw completely missed the target.
"Nice." Kakashi called teasingly, suddenly appearing, as usual.
I made a face.
"Here, why don't you spar with me?" he grinned- I could only tell by his creased eye-, "No jutsus."
"Fine." I mumbled at him. I felt like a little helpless genin again.
He chuckled at my expression. "I'm still not going to go easy on you," he added.
I grinned softly, determined to hold my own against Kakashi.
Without warning, he made a lunge for me. I managed to twist out of the way in time.
I grabbed his wrist and threw him at the nearest tree. Of course, he maneuvered in the air and sprang off it lithely and made another move for me.
He feinted to the left, and when I reacted to protect that side, he managed to strike a hit from the right.
It was powerful enough to send me flying back a few yards. I managed to land gracefully, luckily. Not much harm done there.
After a few more minutes of this, I could practically hear my muscles screaming with exertion; they hadn't had this much exercise in the longest time.
I held my hand up to Kakashi, telling him to stop.
I dropped rigidly to the ground. I winced with the effort it took my muscles just to do that.
Kakashi had gotten away nearly unscathed. I had managed to hit him with one chakra-enhanced blow to the arm. Since then, it had been pretty useless. Talk about dead arms…
I sighed and motioned him over so I could look at it.
He rolled up his sleeve obediently as he stepped forward.
I probed it quickly.
"Fracture." I muttered. I smiled to myself, knowing I still had my super strength.
I quickly healed it, smiling again at the fact that I still had my medic abilities… those would probably have to be sharpened again too, though.
When I was done with Kakashi's arm, I stretched; no need to waste chakra when stretching can take care of some of it.
Done with that, I probed my muscles to see what was to be done.
A few had been torn slightly, and one had been over extended.
Sighing, I went to work mending them.
I noted, happily, that it didn't cause me fatigue like I'd been expecting. That meant I was just a little rusty with chakra control and techniques.
I mumbled a quick goodbye to Kakashi and left for home.
The rest of the week was mainly spent like this. The exception being I did make plans with my friends on some days. And I was improving greatly each day.
That was to be expected since I already had the skill and just needed to refine it.
My reflexes were returning a little bit slower, though. That frustrated me. A lot.
There was only about a week until the Akatsuki came.
Tsunade had decided not to make it obvious that we knew they were coming; that would give it away that someone had told.
They would just 'happen' to have some sort of meeting in the room of documents of the village's most powerful people. We weren't sure how many Akatsuki would be coming personally, but it couldn't hurt.
It wasn't for my benefit that she did this; it was the fact that the village basically had a spy inside of the Akatsuki.
Well, whatever the reason, I was grateful for it. It at least that meant he couldn't get killed for doing it.
When I woke up the next morning, I knew something wasn't right.
It was Tuesday, still about a week before the Akatsuki were supposed to come.
That didn't mean anything though.
One of the first things that I noticed was that it was still dark outside.
I rolled over to glance at the digital clock on my bedside table.
Three in the morning.
Odd that I had woken up… that wasn't a good sign.
Paired with my gut feeling, I could only imagine what could be happening.
Something I sensed even in sleep had woken me up.
I grabbed my phone and began dialing Kakashi immediately. When I held the receiver up to my ear, no sound.
The line was dead.
There was no way that could be a good sign.
I rolled out of bed, already alert. I squinted in the semi-dark room until my eyes adjusted some.
I grabbed my weapons pouch and a jacket that was lying on the ground.
I was halfway out the door when I froze.
I hadn't left a jacket on the floor of my room.
I tugged off the jacket that I realized now was too large for me.
It was a nondescript ninja grade jacket. It could be Naruto's for all I knew. He was always sneaking into my house at night for God-knows-what.
Still…
I sniffed it and froze.
I smelled like smoke and clay.
Deidara.
I allowed myself to think his name.
It didn't hurt as much as it normally did because I knew he was so close.
I dropped the jacket just inside the threshold of the room before slamming the door and springing fluidly to the buildings roof.
It certainly helped that there wasn't any kind of overhang on the outdoor hallway.
Sure enough, squinting into the darkened sky, I saw a lone bird circling.
Surely it was still too early for birds.
It looked like a normal sized bird, but it also seemed like it was too far away.
Without a second though, I bounded away at breakneck speed towards the Hokage tower.
I didn't bother with formality or doors, jumping in through the window.
"Tsunade-shisou," I panted.
She was at her desk, as usual.
Her eyes seemed glazed over.
Just great. She was fucking drunk! At three in the morning!
She looked at me.
"Shizune!" I called with annoyance.
She stumbled into the room a minute later, a tired expression on her face.
"She's drunk," I cried, "and the Akatsuki are here!"
Instantaneously, both Tsunade and Shizune were more alert.
"W-what?" Tsunade managed to croak out.
"The Akatsuki are here!"
She spared each of us a grave look. "Go alert any ninja, chuunin level or higher."
I nodded.
Shizune stuttered a 'hai'.
At once, we both rushed to wake up the ninjas of the village, alerting any others we saw on our way to do so.
Within minutes, the village was in high alert mode.
I gave myself a quick moment to scan the sky to spot the bird.
It was still there alright.
And it was heading straight towards the village.
It looked bulkier now; the best comparison I could make was a bird stuffing more into its backpack. I snorted at myself for even thinking that.
I knew I should head back to the Hokage's office and report status, but it was harder than I thought it would be to pry my eyes off of the bird.
It wasn't fair, nearly every other shinobi in this damn village was supposed to have their eyes glued to it. I had to look away.
I gave the airborne structure one more brief glace before sprinting back to Tsunade.
I managed to keep myself from glancing back every few seconds to see where Deidara- and the rest of the Akatsuki- was.
So was that their plan? Get inside the walls on Deidara's clay birds?
No. That was too obvious. Even if they did manage to get inside, the normally painless job of a raid would turn into a full blown massacre. That had to be a distraction.
That was good. That meant that I would probably get sent over there.
I mentally cursed my being a medic; I could very easily be told to heal the injured, instead of fight.
Really, it all depended on numbers, where I was needed. Because I'm a strong fighter I may be needed to fight. In that case, Ino would be taking a majority of the healing work.
With all reported, Tsunade sent me to prepare for the 'main' battle.
My heart raced. That meant the decoy.
Deidara.
Now my question was; where had that jacket come from?
Had Deidara already snuck in? Was it a warning?
Honestly, I didn't care, as long as it meant I got to see him.
I stopped by my apartment first- kicking the jacket towards a corner-, changing into my usual attire. I tucked some poisons and antidotes into my medic aprons pockets.
As prepared as I'd ever be, I headed out, locking my door behind me. Of course, if a lock stopped anyone, I shouldn't really worry about them, but habits will be habits and locking a door is like tying my shoes. Again, another bad comparison I'd made in my mind.
I rolled my eyes at myself.
Assuming that the 'main' forces would be gathering by Konoha's gate, that's where I went.
I was right, of course.
Right now, Naruto was probably surrounded by ANBU and jounin, in their attempt to protect him from Akatsuki. Naruto, no doubt, would be very pissed off at that. They'd do their best to see that Naruto wouldn't get to fight at all.
All of my friends were standing in a loose group.
I didn't bother to join them.
Ino, as expected, wasn't there. Medic duty.
Shikamaru wasn't there either. Chances were he was off planning strategy.
The others eyed me warily. Practically everyone knew what had gone on between me and Deidara.
Frankly, I didn't care.
I subtly shifted my weight so that my body was closed towards them, a silent 'don't talk to me'.
It was a good thing that I was nearly back up to my normal fighting standards; I'd stand no chance in battle against an Akatsuki if I weren't.
Still, my reflexes were a bit slower, and my punches were a bit weaker. I had managed to perfect throwing weapons again, though.
I gazed towards the bird expectantly. It was close.
At the moment, it was circling right out of weapon range, even from the rooftops.
From where I was, it was difficult to tell how many people were on the bird, but I think I counted four.
Damn, that must be crowded.
I remember how squashed it was with just me, Deidara, and Tobi.
I spotted Kakashi a few yards in front of me.
I trotted over to his side, "Any clue who's on it? It looks like four figures."
He didn't even glance at me as I approached; he felt my chakra signature.
"They're all masking their chakra enough that I can't identify them like that, but it appears- by physical features- that Itachi, Kisame, Deidara, and that orange masked one are on it." He gave me a sidelong glance, reading my reaction.
I forced my face to remain blank and detached. I nodded once. "How can you tell?" I wondered.
"Kisame because I can see blue hair. Itachi because black hair and logical pairing. Deidara, the bird and blonde hair. Tobi,"- the name Tobi came out unsure, testing- "because of the mask and logical pairing."
I nodded again.
"How do you plan to deal with this?" the older man asked.
I shrugged indifferently. "If I don't fight, I'd probably be killed anyway. I'm no longer a bargaining chip, so they will attack me."
That was somewhat true.
We both went back to quietly observing our future opponents.
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A/N: Whooo. It's getting goodddddddd...