Shirou had long since dropped the picnic basket and broken into a run, ignoring the confused shouts of Naruto as the small child tried to keep up with him.
He could smell it in the air, something had happened. The residual energy from both jutsu and high ranking magecraft lingered in the still forest. He tried to judge the time that had expired since the original castings. He would say it was somewhere in the ball park of twenty minutes. As he got closer and closer he could start to count the different signatures from the people that had been there; twenty in all, including Rin, Hinata and that tutor of theirs.
Though it wasn't until he was nearly on top of the sight that he smelled the more mundane if no less identifiable smells. The smell of smoke and the smell of blood.
Hakaku's body lay dead on the ground, his own blade telling Shirou exactly who had cut him. He had taken his own life, though that didn't explain much, it was apparent to Shirou.
Looking around, he couldn't find Rin or Hinata's bodies anyways. He started to scan the air in order to pick up the trail. He had to count on that the two of them were still alive.
"Shirou-san! Why did you just bolt off like that! You ruined the foo..." Naruto's words died as he came in on the spot. He looked over at the burned trees with confusion, and then he stared at Hakaku's dead body. "Why... why is Bastard-sensei bleeding?" Naruto said. He took a few slow steps towards the body. "Bastard-sensei. Bastard-sensei! Why isn't he saying anything? Why... why isn't Bastard-sensei moving?"
Shirou looked at the short blond child. Naruto was starting to shiver, his head shaking as he was being confronted with death for the first time.
Shirou closed the distance between himself and Naruto, quickly covering the younger boy's eyes. "Don't look at it, Naruto." He said, pulling Naruto away from the body.
"Shirou. What's going on? Why isn't Bastard-sensei yelling at us?" Naruto asked.
"He can't Naruto. He's dead." Shirou said, trying to keep his voice calm. He had a strong hand on Naruto's shoulders, stopping him from turning back around to look at the body. Naruto was bordering complete shock. "Naruto-kun. I need you to listen carefully. Something bad has happened, and I need you to go back to the village and tell everyone you can that Rin and Hinata-chan are in trouble."
"But... what are you going..." Naruto didn't even have time to finish the question.
Shirou had found the trail he had been looking for. Reinforcing his body to the absolute limit, he took off, moving at a speed that few could hope to match. He held to the trail of mystic energies left behind by whoever had attacked Rin and Hinata.
Years of training flowing through him, more than an entire life time. It steadied his breathing and removed all unnecessary thought from his mind. He felt it. A purpose. A call to battle. He was a sword, tempered in fire, sharpened to a fine edge, and it was now time for him to leave his sheath. He was being drawn to guard those under his protection, and to cut down all that stood in his way.
The group of Kumo ninja had been running at a steady pace for over a hour when they reached a large stream and the second in command called for a quick break so that the tired boys could get a drink. "Take five, people!" Daisuke shouted out to the group. Some of the younger ones looked a little unsteady on their feet at the moment, but even they knew better than to complain.
You didn't kidnap the daughters of a powerful clan right after signing a peace treaty and stick around for when the thing blew up in your face. Not only that, but their target was a clan of Konoha. The village had a reputation for the 'all for one and one for all' attitude. When word got out they would have somewhere in the hundreds of ninja on their asses. A lot of whom were considered to be very very vindictive. If they were caught, a quick death would be a blessing.
"Pathetic. The youth of today don't have any stamina." Reid grumbled as the older man stared over the group. He was absent mindedly rubbing his temple, and scratching at the bandages that covered his left eyes.
"Sir, Nura hasn't rejoined the group yet." Daisuke mumbled to the older man.
"Kid's deserted." Reid said in a mater of fact tone. "All the more reason for us to keep moving."
Daisuke's mouth twitched. "Well, can't say I'm surprised. We screened people for a bodyguard and escort job, not Black Ops. Most of these boys wouldn't be my first choices to bring on this kind of deal."
"A ninja should be open for when opportunity presents itself." Reid replied with a shrug.
Daisuke nodded. "Still, its a shame. His kind are hard to come by."
"His kind are a dime a dozen when compared to even a single pair of Byakugan eyes." Reid said, glancing back at the two tired up little girls. The older one was still glaring at him with a look that could make lesser men shiver. She didn't show any sign of fear, just indignant rage. "And that White Eyed Witch ain't normal even by their standards. I don't even know what to make of her. Haven't seen anything like it in all my years. Now I get why he thought she's possessed by some kind of demon. Its not even just her strange jutsus, the way she acts is unnatural. She killed one of our boys without a second thought. Even some senor ninja hesitate for a brief moment, but she didn't even break stride. She's some kind of mutant freak."
"You think she's a jinchūriki?" Daisuke asked, raising a nerves eyebrow. He had seen his fair share of what the human veils could do when pushed, and he would rather not be on the receiving end of it. Even if the girl was a child, you simply don't mess with jinchūriki unless you have a death wish.
"You think we would have been able to keep her down with just those sealing binds if she was? No, she's no jinchūriki, her chakra levels are high for a child, but not 'that' high. I don't know what she is." Reid said with a sharp shake of the head. "We need to keep moving. I don't know how long it will be before someone starts to wonder where we went. I'd rather be further away from Konoha than this before they release their hounds."
Daisuke grunted in agreement. "Alright everyone, form up! We're moving!" There were a few groans but everyone did start to form up.
Towards the back, were the two who had to carry the girls. "Come on, stop struggling you brat." The man who had been made to carry Rin said, as she tried to knee him in the face with her bound legs.
"Hurry it up, we need to get moving." The man holding Hinata said.
"Easy for you to say. This one hasn't stop squirming since we started." The first man replied.
"Fine, we'll switch if it means..." The second man's words stopped short as an arrow was logged in his throat. Before the first man even had time to react, a second arrow struck him between the eyes.
The both of them fell down dead, but not before the call went out. "Archers!"
Dozens of arrows flew from the forest in front of the group, raining down on the ninja who preceded to dodge or parry the in coming arrows.
"What the hell, was there an ambush waiting for us!?"
"How many of them are there?"
"Have to be at least six."
"No. There's only one." Reid said as he swatted one of the arrows out of the air with the back of his hand. "Come out of the trees boy. I know you're there!" He shouted, forming a few hand signs. "Lightning Release: Lightning Strike." A coil of electricity jumped from one of his hands, snaking its way through the air to smash into the tree line, kicking up dust as the explosion knocked down a few trees.
The remaining Kumo ninja were shocked as a small boy with bright pink hair walked out of the smoke. He held a compact bow in his right hand, though with his small body, it might as well been a long bow. A few of the more experienced ninja in their group noticed the strange lack of a quiver.
"It's just some brat kid." One of the Chunin said, pulling out a dagger. "I'll deal with him."
"Stop dumbass!" Reid shouted, but the young man went running in.
The boy didn't move a muscle, not until the dagger was already being thrust at him. His movements were smooth, pivoting his body out of the way as he raised his bow, slipping it around the young man's extended arm. Then, while the ninja's body was still extended out from the downwards thrust, the boy struck his bow, snapping the man's arm out straight before throwing him off balance to slam face first into the ground.
The hand on the top of the bow moved up and grabbed at something that wasn't there and in the blink of an eye and a small flash of blue light, a curved dagger formed in the boy's hand, one in a style that was unfamiliar to the ninja. Holding the dagger in a backhanded grip, he plunged it down into the base of his attacker's neck, severing the spin. Then he tossed the weapon into the air, catching it in a loose grip and flinging it across the field towards another target.
Even before the blade reached the man, the boy already had another arrow on the string, just like the dagger, the arrow appeared out of nowhere, with only a small flash of blue light.
The arrow was timed perfectly so that as the man swung up his sword to deflect the dagger that was aimed at his head, the arrow penetrated the gap in his white jounin breast plate around the right shoulder. The man's blade arm was rendered useless as a second arrow came straight for his head.
Reid stepped in, snatching the arrow out of the air with his bare hand before it could secure the kill. "Thanks." The man grunted, switching his sword to his inferior left hand as he tried to prepare himself for further attacks.
Reid didn't listen, he was focused on the boy, and on the arrow in his hand. He snapped the wood between his fingers and it dissolved into blue fragments of light. "What the hell?" He mumbled to himself.
The veteran had never seen any jutsu like this one before in his life. There had been no hand signs or use of scrolls. The boy seemed to be making the arrows out of chakra, but the chakra itself was unusual, much like the girl's.
The child continued his assault, notching three or even four arrows at a time and firing them with the kind of accuracy that one would expect from a jounin, not some preschooler. And while they continued to dodge the arrows or deflect them, the boy started to do something that was downright puzzling. He started to speak. The words seemed like nonsense, they weren't about anything or directed at anyone.
"Trace on. Begin projection. Ending resonance of possession experience. Processes, completed. All projections, standby." As he spoke, the air around him seemed to change. Sword appeared, suspended by invisible hands, just a few at first, but the number grew rapidly until they were hard to count. "Ceasing decompression, all projections successive fire!"
The swords shot through the air, moving faster than the arrows, and with the added weight behind them making they impossible to parry, the Kumo ninja had to dodge for their lives.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!" Daisuke shouted, slamming his hands against the ground and forming up a large wall between himself and the raining swords. His comrades moved in behind the wall in order to take up shelter from the onslaught of blades. The sound of the swords hitting the wall was similar to heavy rain against a tin roof as Daisuke had to continuously fuel the wall in order to stop it from breaking apart.
"Just hold on. He can't keep this up forever." Reid instructed his right hand man.
Daisuke never replied. A shadow appeared above them. The boy had ran through the storm of swords he had unleashed and jumped over the wall of compacted earth. He released an arrow that flew down and through Daisuke's head, killing the man.
Without Daisuke's chakra reinforcing it, the stone wall broke apart, half burying the ninja who had been trying to hide behind it, and leaving them again to try to fend of the swords.
"Monster. These kids are fucking monsters." Reid growled as he tried to keep out of the way of the swords. It wasn't until the number of blades suddenly dropped that he noticed where the boy was. He had moved past them all and was bending over the tied up girls, cutting their bonds. "Dammit!" He formed his hand signs again and launched another lightning strike at the boy, attempting to stop him, but it never reached.
"Wind Release: Wind Wall." A short pillar of high winds encircled the children, batting the lightning jutsu to the side.
When the wind died down, the White Eyed Witch was standing there, rubbing his wrists and casually rolling her elbows. "You're late." She said, presumably to the boy.
"Sorry, but maybe I would have been here sooner if you hadn't made me do all the cooking, Master." The boy said in his own slightly sarcastic tone.
"Just make sure you are more punctual next time. Making a girl wait isn't something you should make a habit of." The girl responded before turning a cold glare towards the Kumo ninja. The swords had stopped flying through the air and she now had their undivided attention. "Well, you all wanted to see what my eyes can do, right? Then let me show you!"
The remaining Kumo ninja all froze as twin golden suns appeared in the girl's white eyes. The unexpected Genjutsu style skill rooting them all to the spot. The girl started to make rapid hand signs. Rat. Snake. Tiger. "Earth Release: Earth Flow Wave!"
The ground around the children exploded in a sort of horizontal rock slide, with the jagged stones rushing towards the paralyzed ninja. Most of them quickly fought off the effects of the girl's eyes and managed to jump out of the way, but two of the remaining genin were hit head on and crushed to death, and the already injured jounin found himself jumping out of the way of the rocks only to fall victim to an arrow between the eyes.
After the attack was through, Reid looked over what remained of his men. Where he had started the day with four jounin, nine chunin, and three genin, he now was down to only two jounin and four chunin. After you took out the deserter, that left eight trained ninja all killed by two little kids. "Boys back home are going to laugh about this." He grumbled, wondering where down the line he had fucked up so royally. "How humiliating."