3. Friend or Foe?

Naruto jumped from branch to branch moving swiftly through the forest all along the river. He had been at it for hours with no sign of any progress. It felt like he was going in circles. And to add to his problems he could somehow feel the presence of someone else, like someone or something was following him just out of sight. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. Fiddling in his belt pouch for his kunai knife to mark the tree his hand closed around nothing but open space. "Oh, this is just great!" He yelled to no-one but himself. His belt pouch must have opened while he was in the river letting all his ninja equipment fall out. "First that cliff, then this stupid river that just won't end and now all my gear is gone. Can't guy get a brake?" He asked the open air. What's the use? He thought. It's not like anybody is here to hear me.

He still couldn't shake the feeling that someone, or something, was watching him though. Maybe it was the sound of the flowing stream or the wind that played through the leaves of the treetops, but something felt strange about the place. I'm just being paranoid. He told himself. There's no-one here. But the light sound of breathing behind him confirmed the opposite. He felt a soft hand slip over his mouth and in an instant he had moved from the branch he had been standing on to another branch overhead. Naruto spun around in confusion. In front of him stood a girl, her right index finger pressed against her lips. She slowly crouched down and peeked through the leaves that were now surrounding them. Naruto just stared at her in confusion and shock. Not knowing what was going on at all he kept quiet as she told him to. As she had crouched down some of her wavy, coal black hair had fallen over her shoulder revealing a mark on her neck. It looked almost like the head of a dog, but before Naruto could get a better look she brushed her hair back again, covering the mark.

Curious about what she was doing, Naruto crouched down beside her and peeked through the thick wall of leaves as well. Below them, on the branch where Naruto had been standing earlier, there were now two men. Naruto recognized one of them as the scar faced leader of the group that had attacked his small party not too long ago. "You!" He whispered sharply revering to the men below them. He clenched his fists, ignoring the stinging pain the movement caused in his right arm. He was about to go down and confront them when he felt the girl's hand grip his shoulder. He turned to face her. She was shaking her head, and then she tapped her ear with her right index finger and pointed down towards the men. "No, listen." She seemed to be saying. Now that Naruto thought about it, it almost sounded like the two men were arguing about something. He turned his attention back to them.

"I'm telling you Buredo, she's not here. We should be moving on before she gets too far away." The bold headed henchman tried to convince his leader. They seem to be talking about the girl. Naruto thought. "And I told you not to argue with me, Kenonai. If I say she's here then we look here." A slightly irritated Buredo told his comrade. "If Tosho was still here we would have had no trouble finding her." Kenonai continued, not knowing that he was sailing onto dangerous waters with his leader. "I think it's a good thing Tosho is gone! I mean if he got beat up by a kid then he was surely not of much use!" Buredo snapped. Kenonai stepped back slightly as his leader's words knocked him off guard. "Well if you hadn't decided to attack that group of ninja, Tosho would still have been alive now!" Kenonai shot back at his leader. The atmosphere seemed to be getting quite heavy with anger. Buredo took a deep breath trying to calm down. Arguing wasn't going to help them. "Look, let's get back to the situation at hand. If the girl had been here earlier, she is certainly not here anymore. So here's what we do. We find the girl, take that amulet from her using any force necessary and then we use it to wipe out that hidden leaf village. Sound good?" He explained to his comrade. Kenonai nodded, not wanting to argue anymore. With that they set off again, searching for the girl hiding right above their heads.

The girl sighed with relief. "That was close." She said softly, standing up again. Naruto had never been so confused in his life as he stood up as well. "Wait a minute. What was that all about? Do they know you? And, and who are you anyway?" He nearly yelled out of frustration. "Quiet! Do you want them to hear us?!" She snapped at him in a whisper voice, her fern green eyes glaring at him. "To answer your questions, I know about as much about what just happened as you do. I think it's none of your business if they know me or not. And my name is Bara, Bara Okami." She answered him, turning to leave. "Well it's my business now, especially since those two attacked me and my friends not too long ago." Naruto stopped her. This Bara's attitude was beginning to irritate him. However, his last words seemed to catch her attention. "They attacked you? Why?" She asked as she turned around to face him again. Naruto grinned at her, adjusting his headband, which had thankfully stayed on his head and had not gotten lost in the river along with his ninja gear. "Sorry, I can't tell you that. Only elite ninja are allowed to have that information." He sort-of bragged. "A ninja you say?" She asked with a hint of sarcasm. Naruto nodded. "And I take it you were traveling with the other three ninja from the hidden leave village my village had hired to deliver a special package?" She continued, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. She didn't have time for this. But Naruto was looking at her with a shocked expression on his face. "Was there a tall looking grey-haired man who always wore a mask and a really irritating black-haired kid between them?" He asked. "Well I won't say he was irritating, but yes. How in the world did you know that?" Bara asked, now more interested than ever. "It's a long story, but right now I need to find them." Naruto continued.

"I'm afraid you're a little late, it was like two days ago that we saw them." She told him. "WHAT!?" Naruto yelled. "Two days! That's just great! They must be worried sick by now!" It looked like he was about to go nuts any second. Secretly he was wondering if Sakura was worried about him at all. Then he realized something. "Wait… How did you know about them?" He asked, suddenly almost completely calm. "As I told you earlier, my village had hired them to deliver a package." She answered, now she was the one who was confused. "So you're from the Bara no tsubomi village?" Naruto made sure. "Yes, isn't it obvious? My father even named me after it." She said, rolling her eyes again. "Great! That means you can show me the way. Once I'm there, finding my way home would be easy." Naruto said with a smile. "Um, that's not actually quite possible at the moment." Bara burst his bubble with a sheepish smile. "Why not?"

"Well, you see, the village had been attacked by water ninja the night we received the package. There were so many of them, they threatened to destroy the entire village if the chief didn't hand over the package. He refused and they killed him." Her eyes almost filled with tears as she spoke, but taking a deep breath, she continued. "He knew all would be lost if they got the amu… the package, so before the village was destroyed I was given the package and told to return it to the hidden leave village in till is was safe to return it to it's rightful place. It had gone smoothly for a while, but yesterday I found those two tracking me. Long story short, I have been running from them since, found you standing here in the middle no nowhere and you know the rest." She looked sad as she finished the story.

Naruto was stunned; this girl could possibly have lost everything and everyone she had ever loved. To think she doesn't even know if her loved ones are still alive. And all this about some stupid package. "I'm sorry about your chief. What's so special about this package anyway?" Naruto asked. Bara turned to look at him. "You mean you were delivering the package and you didn't even know what was inside it?" Bara asked shocked. "Well, no. I wanted to open it at one point, but Kakashi sensei wouldn't let me." He replied. "He's the tall man with the spiky, grey hair, right?" Bara made sure. Naruto nodded. "Well, let me put is this way, the package contained something that, if it came into the wrong hands, could destroy a lot of villages." She explained. Naruto scratched his head. "I still don't understand." "Never mind. Hey, you never told me your name." Bara said smiling at him. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki." He said. "Well it's a pleasure to meet you Naruto Uzumaki." Bara said still smiling. "It's getting dark. Wanna help me start up a fire?" Bara asked, watching the sun fall to the west. Naruto, feeling kind of chilly, nodded and they set out in search of firewood.

Later:

It was now completely dark but for the small circle around the fire. Bara had left to go find something in the woods and Naruto had been left to sit by the fire alone. As he sat there his thoughts wandered to Sakura. He wondered if she was okay, if she missed him, if she had anything to eat that day. Then he started to think if he had anything to eat that day. His rumbling tummy answered that question. How he would have loved to be sitting in his favorite ramen restaurant right now, eating a steaming bowl of ramen with Sakura sitting next to him. Yes, that would have been lovely. The mere thought of hot ramen made his mouth water. His thoughts were pulled back to reality as Bara stepped into the light of the fire.

She placed a leave filled with something gooey over the fire and handed Naruto some sort of root. "Here, eat this." Naruto looked at her skeptically. "Don't worry, it's not poisonous, it's a root from a Gibonoshita plant. I even washed it in the river." She said, taking a nibble out of her own root. Naruto eyed his root. "Well I guess you can't have ramen every day." He said with a sigh. Taking a small bite out of the root he nearly spat it out immediately. "Yuck! This tastes like the medicine grandma Tsunade once gave me." He complained, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "Yes, it's not the most luxurious food ever but at least it's something." Bara said laughing. "I have a question for you." She continued, taking small bites out of her root. "What is it?" "Why do you stick around, I mean you could leave any time you want, I'll even show you the way that leads roughly towards your village. Why do you stay here?" She asked. Naruto smiled at her and scratched his head. "That's easy, your village hired us to safely deliver the package right?" Bara nodded. "So, you see, it's sort of my mission now to ensure that package gets safely returned to our village. Besides, maybe it would impress Sakura if I could pull this off without Sasuke getting in the way." He explained. Bara gave him a teasing smile. "Sakura's the girl right?" Naruto nodded. "Sounds to me like somebody's got a crush." She teased him. "No, I don't! She's just a friend." He protested, but Bara wouldn't listen. "Don't even argue. You've talked yourself into a hole there and you're not gonna get out that easily." She said, slowly taking the leave, which had by now turned black, out of the fire.

"What's that for?" Naruto asked looking at it curiously. "It's for that." She said pointing at his right arm. "It'll slow any kind of infection and relieve some of the pain, but it's not a cure so you'll still have to let a medical-ninja take a look at it." Noticing the confused manner Naruto was looking at her she sighed. "Come on it's not like I wouldn't notice. That cut on your upper right arm and the wound on your lower right arm were probably caused in the same battle, yet the cut is healing a lot faster. Meaning the wound on your lower right arm had probably caught an infection or something. I have also noticed that you slightly flinch each time you make a quick movement or put a lot of strain on it, indicating the infection may have already been there for several days and has by now reached its later stage. The best we can do now is slow it down, but you are going to have to go to the hospital and have some one take a look at it. Otherwise you might lose that arm and that won't be so good if you were hoping to become a great ninja." She told him. He stared at his arm. Could it really be that bad?

Bara took the leave and Naruto's injured arm. Then she put it down over his wound as quickly, yet carefully as she could. A sudden burning pain shot up his arm as the gooey mixture covered his wound. He grinded his teeth, stopping the scream that was desperately trying to escape. Then, just as suddenly as it had came, the pain faded away. "Sorry about that, forgot to mention that it might sting a little." She apologized, binding the leave to his arm with some pieces of cloth. "There, all done." She told him. "Now, if you don't mind, I'll be going to sleep. And since you're gonna tag along I suggest you get some sleep as well." She said, finding a comfortable spot and lying down. Naruto, being tired himself, did the same. Bara smiled to herself. "Have nice dreams about (yawn) Sakura." She teased him before drifting off to sleep.