S-Rank Mission Request
Baki was trying to organize everything from the attack.
A messenger bird was send to the leaf village on an urgent call.
Meanwhile Deidara landed at Sasori.
"You're late, I told you not to keep me waiting," Sasori argued.
"This one was strong you know," Deidara responded.
"That's why I told you to be better prepare," Sasori said.
Kankaro arrived at the gate and saw that the boarder guards were on the ground dead as if attack.
Kankaro continued until finally he reached them.
"Wait!" Kankaro said.
Deidara and Sasori turned toward Kankaro who was looking at his little brother.
"Return Gaara to me," Kankaro ordered.
"Deidara go ahead, I'll handle this one," Sasori said.
Kankaro pulled out all three scrolls that were strapped to his back, and laid them out opened.
He summoned Black Ant, Crow, and a lizard like puppet known as Salamander.
Kankaro send Crow after Deidara but Sasori stopped it with a metal tail that came from his body.
That day at the leaf village Sakura and I were waiting for Kakashi who arrived late.
"Kakashi-sensei, you're late," I said, "You haven't change at all have you?"
"Give it a rest Naruto, you know Kakashi never was the type to be on time," Sakura said.
Kakashi wasn't listening as he noticed a carrier bird he recognized as one of the sand's fastest birds.
Meanwhile Minato was talking with Kuroda.
"Are you sure you want Naruto's team be my escort?" Kuroda asked.
"Its just a minor mission, just to get them started after Naruto and Sakura being 3 years off missions," Minato said, "Especially since Naruto was just promoted to specialize Jonin and needs to start working to earn his new rank."
"Okay but if there's more important mission that comes up I would understand if you give it to them," Kuroda said.
"Well if it does happen…I…have…a…back up…team," Minato stopped when he saw the sand village bird flying, "Something's wrong."
The bird landed at the messenger bird area.
"This is the sand village's fastest bird Takamaru," the ninja looking out said recognizing the bird, "Some one call in Kushina Namikaze!"
Kushina came in and saw the bird.
"I'll decode it and send it to my husband as soon as possible," Kushina said.
Meanwhile Sakura Kakashi and I were in the mission hall.
Tsunade was in charge of it as Minato for some reason decided to stay in his office.
"Escort Kuroda?" I asked.
"Minato thought you should refresh your teamwork on low rank missions," Tsunade explained, "You maybe a specialize Jonin now Naruto, and Sakura is a Chuunin, but you and Sakura haven't been on missions together for 2 ½ years
"Alright," I responded thinking, "At least its escorting Kuroda."
Minato appeared in a yellow flash right as Kakashi was about to get the information on the mission.
"Change of plans, Team Kakashi you're being send on a S-Rank assignment," Minato said, "Give Kuroda's escort mission to Ebisu's team."
"Minato what's wrong?" Tsunade asked knowing Minato wouldn't change his mind unless it was an emergency.
"I just got word from Kushina, the 5th Kazekage has been kidnapped by the Akatsukis," Minato explained.
"Gaara was kidnapped by the Akatsukis," I thought and responded, "What's our mission?"
Minato knew what was in my mind from my response.
"Go to the sand village, find out the situation, and help them out anyway you can," Minato ordered.
Back at the sand village Kankaro was collapsed to the ground from poison as all his puppets were destroyed.
"You're puppet's mechanisms and poisons were good, but not good enough against me," Sasori said.
"How did you know how my puppets work?" Kankaro asked.
"Because I was the one who created them," Sasori said.
"So wait you're the legendary puppetry genius Sasori of the Red Sand?" Kankaro responded.
"For my name to be known to a kid like you is my honor," Sasori said.
"You left the sand village over 20 years ago, why did you come back?" Kankaro asked.
"What's the point of me telling you when you're going to die," Sasori said.
At a tea shop on the way to the sand Temari was taking a break from her trip home when her cup cracked.
"I don't believe in this sort of thing but I have a bad feeling about this," Temari thought.
Meanwhile Kankaro was about to be attack when he used the head of Black ant to block the tail. Then he send Crow's arm with a blade that cut part of Sasori's mask off and grab it.
"Since you're striving to stop me I'll let you go, but that poison will kill you in 3 days," Sasori explained as his tail retreated into his cloak.
Sasori dragged off to find Deidara as Kankaro passed out. Moments later Kankaro was found by his backup.
Sakura Kakashi and I were leaving the leaf village ready for our mission when we ran into Jiriaya who just found out about Gaara.
"Going on a mission Naruto?" Jiriaya asked.
"Yeah, an important one too," I said.
"Minato, lord Kazekage…" Jiriaya said turning to Minato.
"I know team Kakashi is going to help the sand village out," Minato responded.
"You know the Akatsukis are after Naruto, right?" Jiriaya asked.
"I had no other choice," Minato said.
"Naruto come here," Jiriaya said.
I walked toward Jiriaya wandering what he wanted.
"Be careful around the Akatsukis," Jiriaya told me.
"I know, but I'm not going to let them have their way with Gaara," I responded.
"You may have gotten stronger Naruto, but don't allow you're feelings get the better out of you. Especially since you already had a tough past as it is," Jiriaya said, "Most importantly be careful with your power, you know the risk it has on others."
"I know," I responded.
Jiriaya turned to Kakashi after talking to me.
"If he use that power I told you about, make sure no allies are around him," Jiriaya said.
"I will," Kakashi responded.
We headed off leaving everyone behind.
As soon as we left the leaf village I caught on Temari's scent.
"I smell Temari, she's near," I said.
"She must be heading home, she might not know about Gaara," Sakura responded.
"Kakashi?" I asked.
"If she's returning to the sand village I don't see why we can't inform her," Kakashi said, "Naruto lead the way."
"Right!" I responded.
In the sand village the medical ninjas tried to help Kankaro.
"it's a new poison, if we don't find a cure soon he won't make it for another 2 or 3 days," the medical ninja said.
"I guess the best we can do is called on the elder siblings," Baki responded.
Meanwhile I track Temari down until finally we found her.
"Temari!" I shouted.
Temari turned as we landed behind her.
Sakura told her about the message and our mission.
"What? Gaara was kidnapped?" Temari responded and thought back to her cup cracking.
"It'll take three days to get to the sand," Kakashi said, "We need to hurry."
"Right, lets go," Temari agreed as we jumped off.
I thought back of how Gaara was suffering as much as I did in the past and that the Akatsuki are after him as well as me.
I started speeding up leaving my team behind.
"Naruto, because we need to hurry doesn't mean that we should split up as a team," Kakashi said.
"It had to be Gaara," I responded.
Kakashi Sakura and Temari look at me surprised.
"I'm the new nine-tail fox, which is why they're after me, that much I understand. They're after Gaara because he has a tailed beast sealed in him," Naruto said, "They can look at me as a monster all they want, but I can't stand the fact they're seeing Gaara as a monster because of the demon sealed in him. Not just them but he suffered much longer than I have because of the Shukaku sealed in him. That's why I want to save Gaara, so he wouldn't be alone again."
Temari look down and thanked me mentally as she knew how much Gaara changed.
In the sand village, Kankaro told Baki about Sasori when he was conscious for a short time.
Baki went to a hide out where an elderly woman name Chiyo and an elderly man name Ebisu was fishing over a pool.
"Hey sis, are you dead?" Ebisu asked.
"Nope I was playing possum," Chiyo said.
Baki came in to see them fishing.
"Elderly siblings I ask for your help," Baki said.
"There's a bound of books on the high shelf, there's nothing we can do now," Chiyo said.
"The Akatsuki took our Shukaku, if this is left alone something bad will happen," Baki explained.
"This is your generation deal with it," Ebisu said.
"We can't gather much information without your connections with the other villages," Baki said.
"We have no more connections in this world, except to see my little grandson Sasori again," Chiyo said.
"That's in our favor then," Baki said, "One of the members of the Akatsukis happens to be Sasori."
That was enough to persuade Chiyo.
Tsunade was looking at the news paper on the lottery at her office when her cup cracked.
She checked her lottery numbers and knew there was trouble as she won.
"Minato we need to send another team to help team Kakashi," Tsunade said.
"I'm one step ahead of you, I had a bad feeling too," Minato explained, "The good news is the team I have in mind is returning from a mission."
Chiyo checked over Kankaro's condition.
"Poison maybe my specialty but this is beyond my knowledge," Chiyo said.
"What should we do?" Baki asked.
"Well there's one other person with more knowledge of poison than me, the slug queen Tsunade," Chiyo said, "Couldn't you call her here now that you're allied with the leaf?"
"We already send a request for leaf shinobies, I don't know if she's amongst them, but if she's not most likely one of her older students are thanks to the medical ninja training program the fourth Hokage started there with Tsunade in charge," Baki explained.
"Medical Training Program with the slug queen in charge, then lets hope we get a good student of hers," Chiyo said, "I thought we started the same program a year after they did?"
"We did, and the leaf did help us get it going, but we soon had to do it on our own, and as you can tell we still lack in areas where the leaf's is strong in," Baki said.
We finally made it to the sand village and the guard told us about Kankaro.
"Kankaro is in the hospital?" Temari asked.
"Yes, he went after the enemy all by himself and got himself poison," the guard said.
"Let me take a look at him, I might be able to do something about it," Sakura said.
"That's right, Sakura spend 2½ years learning medical ninjutsu from the medical training program, and was Tsunade's personal student," I said.
We headed into the medical room with Sakura and Temari going first.
Chiyo look at Kakashi surprised.
"The white fang of the leaf," Chiyo said and jumped at Kakashi.
"Huh?" Kakashi responded.
"I'll get my revenge for my son," Chiyo shouted.
I blocked Chiyo's attack and summoned my tail to strike.
"A tail?" Chiyo thought.
"Hold on, I'm not who you think I am," Kakashi said.
"He's right, you know the white fang died years ago," Ebisu said.
"Oh, sorry then," Chiyo said laughing like nothing happened.
"Right now we need to stabalize Kankaro's condition," Sakura said.
Using liquid Sakura slowly extract most of Kankaro's poison from his body.
"I removed the poison so his life is no longer in immediate danger," Sakura said, "I still need to make an antidote in his system."
They got ready to make the antidote as I watch in amazement.
"You must be one of those students of the medical training program," Chiyo said, "Considering you're as good as the Slug Queen Tsunade."
"Well I was trained under her medical studies, and I was also her personal student for other things I needed work on that put me at a disadvantage over others I studied with," Sakura said.
"Others?" Chiyo asked.
"Yeah along with Hinata Hyuga and Ino Yamanaka," Sakura said, "Although they didn't need the training Lady Tsunade put me through."
In the leaf village Minato was meeting with the team he requested for.
"Your mission is to help team Kakashi with their mission," Minato said.
"Right!" Gai responded as it was his team consisting of Neji Tenten and Lee.
Neji worn a white robe with a black slash and cloth going down from his pants, black headband, and a bag like backpack.
Tenten worn a white shirt with red pants, a black headband, two small scrolls on her side with one huge scroll attach to her backpack.
Lee worn the same green spandex and red headband, but this time he worn a green ninja vest zipped up with it.
Gai dressed the same as well but his vest was zipped up as well.
"Lets get there in one day," Gai said.
"No half a day," Lee said.
"It takes three days to get to the sand," Neji said.
"By the way Neji, Tenten, Lee, I think you should know that after his return, Naruto proven himself ready to be promoted to at least specialize Jonin," Minato said, "You're going to be surprise by how much he grown."
Neji smiled hearing it as he was glad to hear about it.
After being promoted to Jonin, Hiashi rewarded Neji with a letter from his father explaining what happened that night Hizashi died.
Since then Neji has grown more relax and less cold hearted than he was before.
At the sand village greenhouse where they manage to grow some plants Sakura made 4 antidotes. 3 she kept for later, and one to give to Kankaro.
"By the way, do we have anything to track Gaara with?" I asked, "Something of the Akatsuki?"
"I have something," Kankaro spoke up, "Bring in my puppets."
They brought in what was left of Kankaro's puppets. Crow's hand still had the cloth with it.
I sniff the cloth memorizing the smell.
"Got it," I said.
Kankaro look at me as if he was looking at a ghost.
"Kankaro are you sure it was Sasori you faced?" Chiyo asked.
"He told me himself," Kankaro explained.
"Naruto, we got a message from the leaf," Kakashi said, "Lord Hokage send us some backup, Team Gai to be specific."
"Team Gai huh? I'll summon Shippo to go after them," I said.
Later Sakura gave Kankaro the antidote to drink.
He manage to drink all of it and relaxed.
I bit my thumb made some hand signs and slam my hand on the ground shouting, "Summoning Jutsu!"
Shippo appeared a little bit bigger than before but still the same.
"Shippo you still remember Neji's scent right?" I asked.
"Which one is Neji?" Shippo asked.
"The one with pale eyes, and long dark hair tied in a loose ponytail," I said.
"Oh yeah I know him," Shippo responded.
"Good, his team is coming and I need you to get them the place where this scent might be," I said showing the cloth.
Shippo sniffed it memorizing it.
Chiyo was surprised to see a two-tail fox with me as I explained to Shippo about Tenten Lee and Gai.
Kankaro was looking at me as I got ready to go.
"We should stay for the night and get a fresh start in the morning," Kakashi said.
"Right," Sakura and I responded.
"Naruto Uzumaki," Kankaro said.
I look at him wandering what he had to say.
"Please save my brother," Kankaro said.
"I'll bring him back," I said, "I owe him that much from the retrieval mission."
Meanwhile Chiyo took out two scrolls as she planned to go find Sasori.
The next day we got ready to go.
"I'm coming with you," Temari said.
"No Temari, stay here for now," Chiyo said, "I'll go instead."
She jumped down from the roof and landed on her feet.
"I want to see my little grandson again," Chiyo said.
Next Time: We headed off to fight the enemy and Chiyo fallowing. Shippo meets up with Neji and his team. Now we're heading off to the same place as the Akatsuki started extracting the Shukaku from Gaara. Soon enough both sides runs into familiar enemies. Who are we up against? Read To Find Out...