CHAPTER FOURTY-FOUR

INVASION

A moment of silence passed between the two groups. The only thing they could hear was the howling wind through the broken windows, and the sound of heavy footsteps ascending the stairs at a sedate pace. The doorknob to the front door of the loft turned slowly and the door was pushed open. In walked a man wearing a uniform similar to the others who had the group surrounded. He had a strong body build and was tall at about six feet. His dark brown hair had hints of gray that suggested that he was not as young as the other men, but had a lot more experience than the others. There was a scar running diagonally downwards on his left cheek, starting from the inner corner of his eye near his nose, and made its way towards his jaw line. He bore a no-nonsense expression and his eyes were cold and calculating.

When he entered the room, the men that were surrounding the group parted like the Red Sea, creating a path that would lead him to stand directly in from of them. As he walked forward his posture was straight and they could see his muscles tensing. He had his arms folded behind him. The sound of his heavy combat boots hitting the ground echoed in the silence, and came to halt as he stood directly in front of the group.

A man holding up a shield slowly shuffled over to the intimidating man, never once taking his eyes off of the group that stood in the middle of the living room. Shakily he pulled out a folder from his pants, and handed it to the man. "I-It's the file you a-asked for, s-s-sir," the lank man managed to get out, cowering back when the man turned his hard glare on him. The Sargent snatched the folder out of the younger man's hand in one swift movement, not saying a word.

The group watched as the man opened the folder and started to skim its contents. No one missed the subtle glances he would send in their direction. On the pages he was glancing at, there were their photos of all of them paper clipped to the upper left corner. They each had a few pages filled out with their information along with all the strange occurrences that happened while they were around, among other things. He closed the folder with a snap in his right hand. He folded his arms behind his back, and began to circle around the group. Every time he would walk in front of someone he would pause, and look them up and down. For some reason, he seemed to linger in front of Ren the longest.

"Did you think we wouldn't find you," he spoke with a smirk. "We've been watching you all for some time now."

"Hn," Sasuke grunted with a smirk of his own. The man with the graying hair snapped his head over to the dark haired boy with the odd hairstyle. He strode over to stand before the boy and looked him in the eyes, getting uncomfortably close. Itachi and Sakura, who were standing on either side of him, touched one of his arms, silently telling him not to do anything stupid.

The man looked Sasuke directly in the eyes, and glared. He would never admit it, but he didn't like the way the boy didn't show any reaction. Sasuke's face remained impassive as he seemed to stare right on through the man. Sasuke was not intimidated by the man in the least. Giving the boy one final glare, which only served to make the boy smile, the man turned on his heel and began walking around the group again.

"Mister what do you want from us," Naruto whined at the man, the first to get fed up with the silence and lack of communication. Everyone had to fight the urge to face palm. Leave it to Naruto to demand answers while they were all surrounded and being held at gunpoint. Though they had to admit, they were curious as to why they were being surrounded. It was all so unexpected. No one had thought they would be discovered, and they felt ashamed of themselves for not noticing that they were being watched.

Kakashi had to fight the urge to face palm a second time as he chanced a glance at the short ebony haired girl that was standing between him and the Inuzuka. He had remembered the series of questions she had once asked him when they first met.

"Who are you?" He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off. "You're Kakashi Hatake. I got that, I mean what are you? Are you even human? Can you turn back and forth from a cat to a human? Are you some type of alien race? A Humcat? Were-cat? Animagus?What if the government comes to take you away? What if they take me away too? What about the others, are they like you too? Do you guys have super powers, like super strength? Where do you come from? What planet are you from?" Kim fired of her questions in rapid succession, her eyes widening after every question, not giving Kakashi enough time to respond.

Kakashi clamped a firm hand over her mouth, effectively stopping anymore questions from coming out of her mouth. She still kept on talking even though her mouth was covered, then she finally quieted down when he gave her a look. He took a moment to gather his thoughts. He sighed once and turned to look at her.

"A ninja. Yes. I'm not really sure. Umm, no. What is that exactly? There haven't been any full moons lately. I don't know what that is. I highly doubt that. Yes. You could say that. The Elemental Nations. Earth. Now does that answer all of your questions?" Kim could only nod. She pulled his hand off of her mouth.

"Heh heh. Forget about the whole Humcat and Animagus thing," she said meekly, playing with a piece of hair in embarrassment. Her head snapped up. "Um. There is no country on earth called The Elemental Nations, and people can't turn into cats. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't happen. The only places that would happen are in comic books, or Si-Fi movies. Look I believe you. I try to look at life with an open mind, and judging from what you're wearing I can tell you're not from around here." She said motioning to his form. "Your name though... Kakashi... it kind of sounds Japanese."

Kakashi really wished he had taken her questions to heart, and hadn't written them off as dumb random questions. As a shinobi, he should have had made an escape plan if something like this had happened. He never expected for everything to turn out the way it did. He had thought that they would only have to wait a few more days for them to be able to get back to their home dimension. He never expected that they would have grown so attracted to everyone, and for the jutsu to take as long as it did to complete.

If nothing had happened when he had performed the jutsu, they would all be back in the Elemental Nations already. Though if that had been the case, would that mean Kim and Ren would be the only ones being surrounded and held at gunpoint by some military group? What would have happened to them? Would they have been alright? He should have thought everything out.

"What do we want from you," the Sargent echoed Naruto question, snapping Kakashi out of his thoughts in the process. "We want your powers-"

"You can't have our powers. You have to work for them, dattebayo," Naruto shouted in outrage. Everyone's eyes widened and their muscles tensed when they heard the click of the guns getting ready to fire. Hinata grabbed his arm, stopping him from doing anything stupid. The sunshine haired boy turned to look at her and gave her a small guilty smile while rubbing the back of his neck.

"Don't move or we'll shoot," one of the men shouted in warning to the group. Everyone gave them heated glares.

"What the fuck do you want from us," Kim shouted before she could get control of her mouth, but in the end it all came spilling out. "What do you want us to do? Be your little test subjects? Let you perform all your little experiments on us? Teach you what we know so you can abuse it?"

"You don't know what we would do," the man stated harshly, staring disdainfully at the girl with the sharp tongue. "Everyone would fear us, and we rule the world with that kind of power. It's all for the greater good. If I had your powers, imagine all the things I could do? I could rule this nation, and take out anyone who stands in my way," the man exclaimed with a wicked smile on his face.

"That is so messed up," Naruto growled out. "How could you say that? What about all the other people in the world?"

"Yeah," Jade piped in. "Aren't you part of the U.S. military? Isn't it your job to protect everyone?"

"I don't care what happens to them." The man started grinning. "I guess I should tell you a secret now. Might as well tell you all the truth now, right? I'm not a part of the army. I run an organization of assassins. We're not hired assassins though. We're more set on ending all wars and establishing a new order, and with your powers we could very well accomplish our goals."

Nagato inwardly groaned in embarrassment. Had he really sounded like that? Though he had to admit he wanted the power for the right reasons. He wanted to bring peace to the shinobi world, and this man wanted to take over the world. In the end, he had been brought out of the darkness and back into the light thanks to his blond haired cousin.

"Your so fucked up in the head, if you think we're going to teach you what we know just so you can take of the world," Kim shouted, outraged. Did that man think they were stupid?

The man walked over to her. He lifted up a hand from behind his back, and cupped the girl's cheek. Kim narrowed he eyes at him. He ran his thumb back and forth on her cheek feeling the softness of her skin. He chucked in Ren's direction, which puzzled everyone.

"You should learn to watch your mouth, you little bitch," the man growled into her ear. The dark haired girl just stared in shock with widened eyes as the man raised his hand against her. Didn't they have rules against harming civilians?

Later on he would apologize, but he couldn't say he regretted his next actions because in all honesty he didn't regret them, not one bit. Although, what he could not believe was that he did something Naruto would have been the most likely candidate for. Kakashi lunged forwards and punched the leader of the assassins, preventing him from laying a hand on the woman he loved. The force behind the hit was so hard that the man flew into the television that was mounted high on the wall. The wall was caved in where the man hat hit, nearly landing him in the coat room. Everyone in the room watched as the man fell forward onto the ground face first. When he looked up they could all see where little shards of glass from the broken windows had imbedded themselves in his face.

Everyone was stunned to silence after bearing witness to Kakashi's outright display of rage, though they understood why he acted the way he did. They had all heard what the man had called Kim and when he began to raise his had at the girl, they were all ready to take action. What they never expected was Kakashi to have that sort of reaction or any kind of reaction at all. He was the most levelheaded person out of the group, and always handled things calmly. Anyone who had ever worked with him could attest to that.

The men that were surrounding the groups were shocked into stillness. They hadn't even seen the white haired twelve-year-old move a muscle, only a while blur. He was that fast. They had all been briefed that the group had possessed strange powers, but they believed they would be able to handle anything they could throw at them. Seeing them in action had put them off, way off. They were no longer sure if they would be able to go against them.