Naruto's head whipped around at the sound of the roar. A creature about twenty feet long, eight feet tall at the hip and maybe a thousand pounds was running at them accrossed the clearing. The body as pretty lightly built and it was running on it's hind legs only while it's forelimbs where shorter and ended in a four fingered hand with evil looking claws. The head was at the end of a rather long neck and was kinda delicate looking with its thin jaws and thin, pointy teeth. On it's head were a pair of large, ornate looking red crests.
The creature slid to a stop forty or so feet from the ninja an started growling at them as it flast them with it's claws and fangs. Naruto know better then to stick around when confronted with a threat of this caliber and quickly called for a retreat.
"Why run Naruto-san? here we have an excellent opprotunity to test the limi-" Lee's youth speech was enterupted by Naruto's fist being planted in his mouth.
"Idiot! run now, youthful boosting later!" Naruto yelled as he drug Lee away by the callor of his jumpsuit. The rest of the team soon followed suit, though a few thought that they could take this new challenger easily.
"Man theres just one of them" Kiba whined.
"Kiba if you just jinxed us I'm-" Hinata didn't get to finish her threat as more roaring signalled the arrival of three more of the creature in the clearing. Hinata didn't say anything as she glared at the back of Kiba's head with a fist clenched. The creatures seemed to bolster each other confidance as they formed a line an started making more aggressive advances on the retreating ninjas.
Just when it looked like the approaching predators were going too make a rush Acco arrived in a explosion of sound and vegetation, forcing them to backpedal or be caught in his jaws. The ninjas used this momentary distraction to slip into the forest undergrowth.
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A couple hours after the escape Acco located the ninjas in a nearby gully. The gully was to narrow for anything bigger then a large human to enter an had a freshwater spring in the back.
At the mouth of the cave Kakashi stood guard while he read his book. Acco let off a grunt as he walked out of the underbrush to let Kakashi known that he was coming.
"Any problems getting here?" Acco asked as he slumped down beside the mouth of the gully. Kakashi looked up for a moment to confirm the speaker before going back to his book.
"None, lucky for us that Naruto remembered this place."
"Humph, lucky for you that the humans built so many of these hidy holes" Acco stated as he made himself confirtable. "Go inside Kakashi, I'll keep watch for a while scence I can't enter" Kakashi nodded as he stood and entered the hideout while Acco started to doze off, But he keep one eye cracked and one nostril flared.
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Naruto yawned has he sat beside Hinata and Sakura around one of the fires that was cooking the meat they'd managed to collect before being driven from the kill. Sakura was occupied as she worked to make Naruto's arm and leg heal faster and Hinata was looking around the gully with interest.
"So how exactly did you know about this bolt hole Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked when she spotted what looked like a carving on a part of the wall. Naruto thought for a moment before he answered.
"Well it was a favorite of ours when me and pervy saga were here last time."
"Why was it a favorite of yours?" Sakura felt her curiousity perk as she looked around while she reapplied Naruto's bandages. Ever scense she'd got here Sakura had felt a connection to this place.
Well more like an unstoppable urge to go exploring. The Storm Islands seemed to be full of strang, exotic plants and animals that Sakura was having to work very hard not to go completely science geek at the moment. Almost loosing Naruto and nearly being eaten herself seemed to help curtail any rash action on the part of her geeky side.
Almost loosing Naruto also reinforced just how much the ramen eating fool ment to her. Sakura also started to notice that her feelings for Naruto were starting to change a little. She wasn't sure just what that ment yet but she wasn't to worried about it.
"Ya'll find out after we eat" Naruto said and no amount of whining from Sakura and Hinata could shake his resolve. Hinata and Sakura resorted to pouting as the meat sizzeled over the fire. Naruto would not give ground to the girls even when they added big, watery eyes and quivering lower lips. All the females present couldn't believe it, Naruto was resisting the infamous 'Puppy Eyes Jutsus' which was one of there most successful male-minipulation Jutsus in all of female kind short of downright seduction. Ino and Tenten began to make bets as to how long Naruto would hold out, and Kurenei had a bet going with Kakashi that Naruto would break before they finished eating.
Everyone was slightly distracted when the meat reached an acceptible level of doneness and started to fill their stomachs with tender protein goodness. Hinata and Sakura were in a funk. The Puppy Eyes had never failed them before. Naruto caught a glimps of Tenten receiving a wad of cash from Ino and he was sure that he had seen all the boys present taking notes of his counter technique as he finished his protion and stood up.
"Well? whos all coming with me?" he asked and was almost bowled over by Hinata and Sakura. Naruto could resist the chuckle as he pulled a flashlight from his pack started to head deeper into the gully. Most of the group followed after him and soon they found themselves at a deadend behind the spring. Naruto began to tap the moss covered wall with his flashlight.
"What cha looken' for Naruto?" Hinata asked.
"I'm-" just as he spoke the flashlight passed through the moss, "That" Naruto finished as he started to push and pull the moss out of the way. When the enterance was mostly clear Naruto flipped on his light and crawled into what looked like a small cave with the others close behind.
After a few meters of crawling the cave opened into a large caverin. As the rest crawled in Naruto flashed the light around looking for something.
When Naruto found what he was looking for he walked over to a lump sticking out of the wall, shifted through about four handsigns an started pumping chakra into the lump from his good left hand. the lump seemed to glow for a moment before the chakra was routed through a bunch of veins in the wall up to a group of smaller lumps around the roof that filled the caveren with bright light which momentarily blinded everyone but Naruto.
"Well?" Naruto asked while everyone tried to rub the spots out of their eyes. When they could finally see aguin they let out a collective gasped at what they saw.