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.

Village Hidden in the Grass - Kusagakure

"Watch out!" Yelled Naruto as he saw the lightning that was quickly approaching. He started to form a rasengan to deflect it, but before it got any closer it was intercepted by something else, a rather large octopus tentacle.

"Octo-pops!"Naruto exclaimed happily as he saw the Hachibi's jinchuriki land in front of him.

"Hey, Naruto! I got the message you sent, though I didn't think this is what you meant. Bakayarō! Konoyarō!" He said as he turned around to meet his proteges, he raised his hands and started to wave them around as he continued to attempt to rap."Omoi, Samui, Karui. Why are you being such a bummer to me and my friends, you should be-"

"Stop it, Bee-sama! We have direct orders from Raikage-sama to capture Sasuke!" Samui said with slight annoyance in her voice. Bee froze in place for a couple of seconds before he slowly lowered his hands to his sides.

"I understand that brother wants to chain him down, but I refuse to let that happen. They are doing some extremely important, and I'm going along with them. So there is no reason for my brother to worry."

"Bee-sama, we have to follow our orders!" Karui said with determination while holding up her blade.

"I know. But good luck catching us, Bakayarō! Konoyarō!" He said just before all of the three jinchuriki disappeared in a large cloud of smoke.

"You know Karui, you should not have refused the O-nigiri I offered you this morning." Omoi said with a sigh as he sheathed his sword. "If you ate it you wouldn't have been hungry when we passed through Takigakure. Then we wouldn't have stopped to eat at that restaurant, which meant we would have arrived here much faster and we would have gotten to Sasuke before Bee-sama arrived. Now we'll go back to Kumo and we'll have to tell Raikage-sama that we failed, and he is going to be so mad that he will probably make us do something horrible. Like scrubbing off bird poo from the mansion's roof, or he will make us polish all of the weapons in the storage room, or maybe he will-"

"Shut up already!" Karui yelled as she slammed her fist dow on his head.

"Why did you hit me?" Omoi whined while rubbing the bump that had formed.

"Because you were being stupid again!" She yelled back.

"Stop it both of you! We have to keep on looking, they couldn't have gone far! We can still catch them in time." Samui said while walking away.

"You do realize this is Bee-sama we're talking about, right?" Omoi said while he followed her.

Border of Kusagakure

"Oh man, that was a close one! You came right in time, Bee!" Naruto said while jumping down from the sand platform he was previously in, the other jinchuriki followed soon after.

"You were taking too much time, yo! I've waiting in that alley since a long time ago! I got worried so I went to look for you. Bakayarō! Konoyarō!"

"Please, save the rhymes for someone else. We have more important matters to discuss." Gaara said while turning to look at him.

"You mentioned in your message some issue regarding the murdered Kirigakure council member. Is there something going on?"

"You're not going to believe this. You see, Sasuke managed to obtain the official information regarding the case. And the physical examination of the body guards showed very superficial injuries, not what you would expect from a violent assault in which a man was murdered." Naruto said.

"More so, they had chakra ropes binding their hands and feet, and they still had their weapons with them." Sasuke said calmly.

"I don't know much about robberies, brotha, but that doesn't sound like one. If you ask me that's more like an-"

"An assassination. Just... Just like what happened with my dad." Naruto said as he dropped his gaze to the ground. "Anyways, we have to get a move on if we want to get something done."

"What do you have in mind?" Bee asked.

"We'll go back to Kiri. We'll retrace the council member's steps, and we'll go on from there. And that's where we need your help. Out of all of us you are the only one that is not considered a murderous monster, and if we hurt someone else we could end up with our names on the very top of the bingo book. So if we run into trouble you are the only one of us that is allowed to fight back." Naruto responded while looking at Bee.

"It's going to take at least a week to get there, considering we are taking a wide berth to avoid Konoha." Gaara said.

"We'll have to stop as seldom as possible. That means absolutely NO ramen stops, Naruto, you go that?" Sasuke said with a menacing gaze.

"Yeah, yeah. No ramen, I got it. Let's just go, the sooner we get there the better."

Konohagakure

It was truly a beautiful day, the sun was shinning high above the clouds, not too bright not too dim, just enough so that the day had a bright feeling to it. The sounds of children laughing were mixing with the sweet smells of the various s dishes being prepared around her. And yet, Hinata knew that the world was anything but okay.

"How could father agree to this, he had so much respect for Yondaime-sama, I thought he would at least tolerate Naruto-kun. But now he is going to try to kill him..."

"Hinata!" She heard her name being called out, and as she turned around she saw her teammates approaching her, along with Kurenai-sensei.

"O-ohayou!*" She said with a small smile.

"Hey, we're going to go train right now, want to tag along? Kurenai-sensei said she can teach us how to see trough Genjutsu!" Kiba shouted in excitement while Akamaru was barking happily beside him.

"G-gomen, Kiba-kun, but I feel a little sick today."

"Really? You don't look sick, are you okay?" Kurenai said while walking towards her.

"I-I'll be fine, Kurenai-sensei. I just need to rest." Hinata responded while taking a small step back.

"This is no time to be resting, we have to train to get stronger so we can finally kill those jinchuriki. I heard that that Sasuke guy has a pretty strong genjutsu, not sure of what kind but I know it's nothing we can't handle."

"Kiba, do not underestimate them." Shino said. "Remember that they were the ones who took care of most of the Akatsuki, and also Sasuke was the one who killed Orochimaru."

"All the more reason to train, come on Hinata, one last chance!"

"G-gomen K-kiba-kun, but I really don't feel like training today."

"Suit yourself, come on Akamaru, race you to the training grounds!" Kiba said excitedly as he ran off with the large dog trailing after him.

"Well we better go as well, goodbye Hinata, I hope you feel better soon." Kurenai said with a smile as she and Shino walked away. And what both failed to see, was a lonely tear rolling down Hinata's cheek.

*Ohayou: Informal way to say "Hello"