Quote of the day: Take hope from the heart of man, and you make him a beast of prey.- Quida

I'll respond to reviews nest chapter.

Chapter 4: The Hounds are at your Heels

The Shikyokage sat as his desk as he silently read and signed the forms in front of him. A lot of leaders never like paper work, but he didn't really mind it. Paper work is just something that needs to get done. The door to his office opened causing his attention to change to the person entering. It was his daughter. She was not dressed in her training clothes. She was dressed in her, as she put it, normal clothes. She was dressed in some loose jeans and a red T-shirt that looked like she took it out of her blonde brother's closet. Her waist length blue hair was tied into a pony tail.

"Yuuga what a surprise, I hope you're not skipping out on your meditation." said the Shikyokage as he allowed himself to relax and lean back in his chair. Yuuga smiled, and walked up to her father and gave him a hug.

"Of course not Oto-san, we all finished meditating, not without the usual problems, but we finished none the less. So I came to ask if there was anything else that we need to do." Yuuga asked her father after she released him from her hug. Deciding to leave out the fact that her two idiot brothers decided to fighter right after.

The leader thought for a moment. His right hand came to his chin and began to run his fingers through his white beard.

"Not right now." said the Shikyokage.

"Alright then I guess I'll head out now." The leader's daughter said as she began to take her leave.

"Wait Yuuga, may I ask where you are going?" he called to her before she left.

"Why?"

"Does a father need a reason to know the whereabouts of his children?" a smile spread across his face.

"I guess. Well if you must know, Kisara and I are going to go check on our new friend."

The Shikyokage thought for a moment remembering who she was talking about.

"Ahh yes the one who came about seven months ago. She was in such bad shape when Zaku brought her here. It was also quite difficult removing that seal on her shoulder. Poor child she was in so much pain. Please send her my regards. And if she needs anything at all, she only needs to ask."

Yuuga gave her father a nod exited his office, to make her way to the hospital. She walked though the village on her way to met up with her friend do they could head to the hospital. Along the way she would greet everyone who would greet her, and stop every so often to chat with any of her other friends. Being the daughter of the village leader she was greeted by quite a lot of people. While chatting with one of the village elders she caught sight of her friend walking through the crowd. She politely excused herself and made her to her friends. She wasn't alone, walking at her side was her boyfriend. And in her arms was, as she liked to refer to him, their child sleeping soundly.

"Kisara!" she called out when she was close enough.

Kisara turned when she heard some calling her name. When she saw Yuuga she waved at her and waited her friend to reach her.

"What took you so long? Natsu and I were heading to hospital without you."

"Hi to you to Kisara. Natsu-san." Yuuga greet the two.

"Miyabita-san." Natsu answered as he stood next to Kisara arms folded, his extra appendage moving every so often behind him.

"Kisara when are you going to give me back my coat?" asked Natsu before they could start moving.

Kisara looked at him then at herself she was wearing it at the moment. The long black trench coat that would reach his ankles would drag on the floor when she would wear it.

"Now why would I do that?" Kisara questioned a playful smirk played across her lips.

"Because it belongs to me."

"I gave it to you."

"So?"

"So that means I can use it whenever I want, and since you're my boyfriend I have more of a right to use whatever I want." Natsu sighed, she was impossible.

"Besides" Kisara continued, walking up to him, "it lets me play with this." She reached behind Natsu and grabbed the very reason he wears his coat, his tail.

Natsu bit back a groan. His tail was more sensitive than he would like. And Kisara loved to play with it. She would always mention how she wishes she was born with a tail. Natsu hoped that he wouldn't embarrass himself, especially out in public, by purring. Thankfully Yuuga was getting impatient and interfered and freed him from Kisara's grasp. Natsu immediately wrapped his tail around his waist. Silently thanking Yuuga for the save.

"If you two are done now can we go now?" Yuuga asked.

Kisara frowned, Yuuga ruined her fun. But she was right they should be moving. So they continued to the hospital. A frown formed on Natsu's face as Yuuga and Kisara talked next to him, he didn't get his coat back. They reached the hospital and entered. The group already knew were their friend was staying and made their way there. They reached the door and opened it. A nurse was in the room marking some things on a chart, at their entrance she stopped.

"Well it looks like you have some company." said the nurse to the patient in the bed.

"No shit Sherlock. I'm not fuckin blind ya know." replied the patient.

The nurse's face showed that she was trying really hard not to lose her composure. She returned her attention to the chart marking a few more things before returning it back to the front of the bed and exited the room before she lost her cool. Natsu made the first move and walked to the window and took a seat. Yuuga and Kisara sat themselves on the sides of the bed.

"Hey, so how are ya doing." asked Yuuga

Her friend blew a strand of her maroon colored hair out of her face.

"What do you fuckin think? The sheets are itchy as hell. The bed is uncomfortable as hell. And the food fuckin tastes like crap. And this fuckin thing here won't give more than three shot of morphine an hour. And to top it all off my shoulder is fuckin killin me."

"Damn we asked how you were, not your life story." said Yuuga before her friend could continue.

A small noise changed the focus o the girls to Kisara. Her child was waking up. First came a yawn. Then golden slit eyes slowly opened taking in its new surroundings. Kisara shot her similarly hair colored friend an angry look.

"See what ya did? You woke Raion up."

"So, that over sized house cat sleeps too much anyways."

Kisara fumed and turned her head to Natsu who was staring outside completely ignoring what was going on in the room, his tail slowly swishing back and forth. Kisara's frown deepened as turned her attention back to Raion, who was now on the bed exploring and sniffing anything in front of him.

"He is not a house cat. He is a cub there is a difference ya know." Kisara explained to her friend.

"Well whatever he is keep him away from me." said Kisara's maroon haired friend as she pulled her legs away from the cub. Yuuga chuckled as she reached over to scratch Raion behind his ears. The cub purred and laid back down.

"Kisara I thought you would have remembered by now that Tayuya prefers "bats" over anything else." Yuuga stated, making air quotes before returning her attention to the cub, who was now on his back reaching out with his paws to try and catch Yuuga's fingers.

Yuuga's statement got the desired effect. Her friend turned her head, a small dust of pink colored her face, and did what any "proper" lady would do. She gave them the finger. Kisara and Yuuga fell into a fit of giggles. Natsu just sat at the window hoping that this visit would end soon, so he could go back and continue his training. Natsu turned his gaze to the marooned hair patient. He saw her thumb pressing the button for her morphine repeatedly. He let out a small chuckle.

"Damn thing won't give me my morphine." thought Tayuya as she frowned at her two friends.

Friends, she never had any true friends. She had to admit though, for two noisey, gossipy harpies they weren't half bad.

An extremely long crash of thunder pulled Naruto out of his fitful slumber. He cant really tell how long he was sleeping. The rain outside blocked out the sun, and kept the land in a state of perpetual darkness. He felt it mirrored him perfectly. A shiver wracked his body, the fire was now reduced to embers. He shivered again, he hugged himself trying to warm himself up, but it was also a futile attempt to comfort himself. He had nothing and no one now. Well it wasn't like he had anyone anyways. His thoughts drifted to the ones he called friends. Would they miss him? Would they be happy when they found out that he had run away? He thought this question as he thought of each of the people who knew him.

"Iruka-sensei, he would miss me. He was nice to me more than anyone. Kakashi-sensei, he never really cared for me, Sasuke was his favorite. Tsunade-baa-chan, she came back to the village because of me, she was like a mother or an older sister to me." Naruto's train of thought continued for a few more minutes thinking of who would miss him, until he got to the last three people.

"Sasuke, he would not miss me, just because we were on the same team doesn't mean he liked it. I considered him a brother. But brothers don't try to kill each other for reason as stupid as power. Sakura, she definitely wouldn't miss me, She always beat me, and made fun of me. Hinata," Naruto looked toward the entrance of the cave out into the rain, "I never got the chance to really get to know her. But she was always nice to me whenever we did talk. She was the only one who encouraged me before my fight with Neji in the Chunin exams. I wish she was here right now. She might know what to say to make me feel better."

"You best get moving kit. We've stayed to long here." the Kyuubi's voice brought him out of his thoughts.

Naruto didn't respond to the Kyuubi's statement. He knew he the Kyuubi was right. If the village did send hunter ninja after him they would be close by now. He stood up and stretched, he was almost completely dry now. But that wouldn't matter, the moment he would step out of the cave the rain would drench him to the bone. Naruto thought of what the Kyuubi had said to his before he went to sleep. In a way he was right. He had no one now. The Kyuubi was all he had left, no matter how much he hated to admit it. Naruto brought his hands in front of him and formed the seal for his most used jutsu.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu"

Instantly there was ten copies of himself standing before him. Each had the same look of sadness that the original had.

"All right you all know where I'm going, so if you see anyone coming after me try to slow them down."

With a nod from each of them they all ran out of the cave into the cold rain, head in different directions. The original walked to the mouth of the cave. The water fell like a waterfall at the entrance of the cave. Naruto reached into his pack and took out his map, he never really was all that good at reading maps but he knew some basic things. From what he could tell he would reach the Land of Fire border in about a day and a half, he then returned the map to his pack. Without anymore hesitation he ran into the rain-like diving into water he was soaked again-continuing his journey toward the Kusa no Kuni border. If his clones ran into any ninja that were following him they would try to slow them down, by either running or fighting, whatever the situation called for. Naruto jumped into the tree tops, the ground was muddy so it would leave to many footprints.

(With Kakashi)

Kakashi was kneeling and studying the remains of a fire inside of a cave. It looked as if it had been recently used, he couldn't really tell how long ago it was though. He could only hope that this was a cave that Naruto used. He was searching the cave along with his team minus Danzo's ninjas, they were scouting area surrounding the cave for any clue that may help the in their mission. A call from Kurenai brought him out of his musings.

"He was definitely here." she said as she showed him what she had found.

It was a half eaten field ration. That was definitely a Konoha ration, only Konoha had dark green wrapping on their rations. So Naruto passed through here. That didn't give them much time. If he manged to cross the border before they caught him it might take another three days to get permission to cross into Konoha's neighboring country. Before Kakashi could talk Danzo's three ninjas entered the cave.

"Hatake-sama we have found some tracks." Sousa said as rain dripped from her and her team onto the stone floor of the cave.

That the best news that Hinata heard all day. After her little outburst the day before she had been quiet the rest of the mission. She felt bad about hitting Kiba, but he deserved it. No one should be spoken mean of, especially Naruto.

"W-w-where are the t-tracks going?" she asked hoping that the tracks would lead them to her crush.

"The tracks split into several directions. We believe that he created clones in an attempt to lose us."

Hinata's hope fell a little more. Kakashi let out a sigh. Naruto was not going to make this easy. But Kakashi had planed for this.

"In what directions were they going?" asked Kakashi.

"They split into eleven different directions, some of the tracks go by ground others by tree. There are three sets that seem like they are going back to the village, so I believe we can ignore those."

"That leaves 8 tracks. There are 10 of use. We are going to have to split up in order to find Naruto. Alright does everyone everyone have their flares?" everyone in Kakashi's group nodded." If you find the real Naruto launch flares, hopefully more of use will be in the same area and we will come to assist. Sousa show use the tracks."

With a nod Sousa lead to the group to tracks pointing in the direction they were heading. Once everyone knew their path they followed the path set by Naruto and his clones. The rain made tracking the footprints on the ground extremely difficult. Hinata followed her set of tracks, she had ask to go it alone. She was surprise when Kurenai quite quickly. But she figured that time was of the essence and arguing would cause them to lose more precious time. Hinatas tracks started in the trees, but were going through the mud after about 100 yards. She desperately hope that her set of tracks would lead her to Naruto. Maybe she could convince him to return with her back to Konoha. She could only hope.

Sousa along with her one of her teammates Ryoushi were jumping trough the trees. This path was main in the tree tops, making tracking him harder then usual. Tracking trough the trees is about 5 times harder than tracking on the ground, and the rain increased the difficulty.

"We will not fail you Donzo-sama, I will find the Kyuubi and bring you back his head." thought Sousa as she and Ryoushi jumped from tree to tree.

Well here is the chapter. Sorry for the long wait. 2,878 words in the chapter. Next chapter the confrontation the the person you voted for. Only four people vote. Come on readers if you don't want the story decided by four people vote. Alright here is the next voting question. This one is straight forward.

How strong should I make the people from the Wasteland? (This in turn will also determine Naruto's strength) Poll end May 27

1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4

So one should 1 Waste equal 2 leaf ninja or what. you decide.

Now on to my rants there are possible spoilers to Naruto, Fullmetal Alchemist so if didn't read the latest chapters stop here and Review please. And vote.

First Naruto Like usual nothing is happening so I will talk about a previous chapters in chapter 490 Naruto finally recalls what happened to Hinata. That was something I was waiting for. Not a whole Oh Naruto realizes Hinata is love of his life thing, but he recalls what happened so that I feel is a step in the right direction. Also Kabuto finally confronts Madara and shows him the bodies of Pain. I say lame. Because in a universe like Naruto. there is always someway to bring people back to life. That pisses me off. It like Ha I killed you but there is some way came back. Also Kabuto shows him the body of someone that shocks Madara. OH big shock I guess you can't tell who is is. the only person Madara wouldn't expect. I won't say who but really come one.

Now Fullmetal; My cousin says that they are going to end it in the next chapter. I say no. Because there is way to much stuff happening to just end it in about 50 pages unless its a like 100+ page. So Father is losing his power and can't keep "god" inside him anymore. Roy is back and kicking ass, Riza better not die though, cause she is right there in the front with no way to defend herself. And Al. What the fuck. Al that work he did all the shit he has been through and he gives up his soul to give Ed his arm beck. It was a touching moment, but damn. When I thought they were going to kill Riza it was like a kick to the face, this was more like a slap to me. Al is cool but I till think Riza's death would suck more.

Ok that's all for now. So Review please. And go to my Profile and vote, if you don't want four people deciding the whole course of the story.

Well See Ya Squall Leonhart out.