Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of the associated characters, locations, jutsu, etc. The only thing I own is the plot of the story. If there is any plagiarism of any form it was completely unintentional.

We are coming to bring you home Naruto-kun.

The Konoha and Suna squad walked through the entrance of the village. Everything was just like a normal village, children playing and laughing, storekeepers trying to persuade people into buying, and the occasional restaurant emanating tantalizing scents. But there was something not quite right.

"Where are all the shinobi?" Sakura asked. Temari was about to answer when Kakashi stepped in.

"There have been rumors of ninja being kidnapped in the surrounding areas. No culprit has been identified and no bodies have been recovered. Right now the investigation is being undertaken by the Land of Rivers, since most of the victims were from their land. So to prevent any more casualties all of the shinobi were reassigned to other areas. Best we finish this quickly, we don't want to intervene in their investigation." They split up and walked through the town asking anyone if they had seen two men passing by. No one seemed to have seen them so Hinata decided to move on to the farming sector while the others stayed in the town. She had barely crossed a small fence when someone called to her.

"Excuse me sweetie but, I believe this letter is for you?" Hinata turned to face the person. She was an old woman, probably in her late 80's. She was holding a small envelope in her hand. She extended it to her and said, "a young man gave this to me and said that I had to hand it to someone with long and lavender colored hair. He also mentioned that you would have pale eyes." Hinata was confused but then something clicked in her head.

"What did this man look like?" The old woman closed her eyes and her face showed a concentrated expression.

"He had mask on, a fox mask, so I didn't see much of his face, but..." she once again started to think real hard. Hinata was inching closer and closer waiting for the answer.

"But?" Just then the old woman's face lit up and she clasped her hands in excitement.

"He had blue eyes! He had bright,sky blue eyes!" Hinata smiled at this and then bowed down.

"Arigato!" She then turned around and started to run towards the town. But in the middle of the way she stopped dead in her tracks and looked down at the letter. She kept staring at it for a minute. "If he wanted to communicate with us... Why would he leave a letter for me, why not give it to Kakashi? Is there something only I should know." She made up her mind and opened the letter. She clasped it with both hands and read through it.

November 31st

00:00

Golden Chest

A-31

She flipped the paper over but there was no more. She lowered the letter and looked at the sky. "What are you trying to tell me, Naruto-kun..." She stuffed the paper in her pocket and resumed her way into town.

There were two shinobis in black clothing hiding on the trees, ceremonial masks in the shape of animals covered their faces. They were carefully observing her every move."Finally, he has come out of hiding."

"Calm down, if we make a move now he might slip away again. Just suppress you chakra and keep quiet." Both of them jumped off the tree and started to follow Hinata from a distance. Hinata soon returned to the town but the others were not around so she decided to look around for them. She passed through the residential district when something caught her eye, a masked man war trying to rob a small satchel of coins from a young girl. He chased her through an alley and was closing in on her.

"Come on just give me the bag, no one has to get hurt." The little girl hugged the bag closely to her and tried to hind behind a dumpster.

"No! My granma needs medicine! Please mister, leave me alone!" She had started to cry and the other man just had an evil smirk in his face.

"And I need some booze, and perhaps some fun.." He extended his hand to try and grab her but a swift kick to the head pushed him to the other end of the alley. Hinata activated her byakugan and looked back at the child.

"Are you hurt?" The little girl was about to say something but then she started to scream. When Hinata looked back a big hand grabbed her and lifted her from the neck.

"Hmm, I think this one will be a lot more fun." He tried to unzip her jacket but Hinata kicked him away once more.

"Don't underestimate me!" She readied her stance for the gentle fist style and dashed forward. "Hakke Sanjūni Shō!*" She quickly delivered several swift but deadly hits towards her assailant's chakra points, the last hit she delivered with more force so he was pushed back and landed on a dumpster. Hinata relaxed and deactivated her byakugan. She walked back towards the small girl and bent down to her level.

"Are you all right?" The little girl nodded and crawled towards her.

"That man is always taking money from people. He says its for a good cause but he still scares me." Her voice began to break and some tears bean to fall.

"No, please don't cry. He can't hurt you anymore." Hinata embraced her and began stroking her head to try and calm her down. She stayed like that until she heard someone calling her name. The little girl got scared again and tried to hide under the dumpster but Hinata stopped her.

"Wait, don't be scared, They are my friends." She extended her hand and the little girl took it. Then her team appeared from within the streets and approached the alley. The first thing they noticed was the large man that lay unconscious in the dumpster. Sakura opened raised the lid to get a better look. Kakashi was the first to speak.

"What happened here Hinata?" She walked up to them still holding the hand of the little girl. "Who is she?" The girl hid behind Hinata started to play with her fingers.

"That man tried to rob her and also seemed to have the intentions of... Taking advantage." Kakashi grabbed the man by the collar and pulled him out of the dumpster.

"How odd, how come no one said anything? Everyone was just walking by as if nothing was happening. This is quite weird... Wait, what is this?" Kakashi was lifting the man's wrist. All over it were thick scars forming the kanji for "shadow". Sakura ran her fingers through the scars.

"What the hell! How can scars form such a precise shape!" Temari skimmed through his pockets and pulled out a small book. She opened it and her face suddenly shifted to a state of shock.

"Is this...," Kakashi took the book and looked through it himself. Every page had a picture of a shinobi, but not only from the Sand, there were pictures of ninja from every single hidden village. Some had red slashes through the whole page, like a bingo book.

"These are the shinobi that have gone missing! Every single one of them, from every single village!" Sakura took the book and started to flip through every page. When she reached a certain page she looked at it in disbelief and extended the book towards Kakashi.

"Kakashi, look..." Kakashi took the book and looked at it for a small while. He then lowered it and Hinata took it. He started to walk out but stopped and turned to look at the others.

"I guess this means we should be hurrying up, it seems we are not the only ones looking." When Hinata looked at the page there was a picture of Naruto from his days in Konoha. There was a message written in thick letters that read "Capture at once!"

* Eight Trigrams Thirty Two Palms