9. Reunion

Introduction: Following a tracker toad's instructions, Eirika's group is quickly catching up with her brother's. But just before they do Ephraim runs into an unpleasant group of characters.

Story Start: Grado Forest

A convoy of orange and black sprinkled with other colors and split into two groups shot through the forest as blurs. In the interest of catching up to the Renaisian Prince's group as quickly as possible, his sister's group had stored everything but the humans in storage seals (yes, even the horses were in stasis scrolls). Those humans were now on the backs of Naruto's shadow clones who ran in lines of two as they tore after the shadow clone partnered with a tracking toad who was just ten miles ahead of them and closing.

As the trees shot past him in a blur, Seth looked back from the front of the convoy at all of the fighters in his group and the supply convoy personnel group a hundred yards from theirs and thought 'We're traveling in hours what would have taken normal army groups days, if not weeks depending on weather and terrain. I'm glad I'm not a non-Shinobi general in the Elemental Nations. By the time I received word that a Hidden Village was ready to march, they'd already be at my castle's gate. So glad Naruto and his teammate are on our side and not Grado's.'

"I'm tempted to have Naruto do this all the way back to Frelia once we've found my brother!" Eirika said from where she was riding another clone next to him.

"I do not blame you Princess, it is a very efficient form of transport." Seth answered back before looking forward at where the Original Naruto was ten yards ahead. As unbelievable as Seth found it, the blond almost seemed more eager to link up with his teammate than the princess did with the prince.

Time Skip: Three Hours Later, With Ephraim's Group

Ephraim was riding behind Orson while Kyle and Forde flanked them when Sakura dropped from the trees and began running alongside the pair, easily keeping up with the galloping horses as she reported "Prince Ephraim, trouble up ahead. Grado soldiers have captured what appears to be a young girl with dragon wings on her back."

"A Manakete." Orson breathed out, seemingly in disbelief.

The name triggered the memories of Ephraim's lessons on the Sacred Stones and his expression hardened as he said "We cannot allow Grado to do as they wish. Ignoring her species, abducting what sounds like a child is unforgivable. Sakura, how far?"

"Less than a mile, at current speed, we'll be on them in about thirty five seconds."

"Lead us in." Ephraim ordered and Sakura nodded before she took point a hundred feet ahead of them.

The group of Grado soldiers turned out to be a squadron of twelve, mostly foot soldiers with lances but there was a cavalier with a sword and a mage among their number as well. Most of them had been standing around as one of their number bound their prisoner, the cavalier idly studying the girl's dragon stone in his left hand.

Sakura shot into their group like a pink lightning Jutsu, slamming her fist into the mage's chest and hurling him into a tree with much snapping of bones. She began tearing through the soldiers that had been around the mage as the rest of her group came riding in. Ephraim was standing on the back of Orson's horse, off hand on the Paladin's shoulder for balance. The moment they reached the enemy, he leapt off driving his Reginleif Lance into a soldier's neck before spinning around his falling corpse as he went for the next one. Orson meanwhile continued his charge straight for the Cavalier who had dropped the Manakete's dragon stone in surprise at Sakura's abrupt appearance and was fumbling to draw his sword from its sheathe. He only got it half out before Orson's Silver Spear punched through his iron armor like tissue paper. Kyle and Forde split to the left and right respectively and tore through the soldiers almost as easily as the other three as they charged past soldiers still distracted by Sakura's appearance.

Within moments, there was only the soldier by the Manakete and he was shaking like a leaf even as he held a knife to the terrified girl's throat and shouted "Stay back! Or I'll slit her throat!"

"You do that and you just give us even more reason to kill you." Ephraim stated cooly. A moment later though, he blinked when Sakura was suddenly where the girl had been, spinning to her left in order to slam the back of her arm into his neck and hurling him head first into a tree.

As Sakura quickly ran back to where she was before in order to start freeing the Manakete from her bindings, absentmindedly healing the cut the knife gave her as she went, the four males stared in surprise before Ephraim blinked again and said "Right, Replacement Jutsu, I forgot she could do that."

Orson shook his head free of his surprise and dismounted, moving over to his first kill and bending over to pick up the stone the cavalier had been studying.

"Um, that's mine, can I please have it back?" The indigo haired Manakete asked shyly as Sakura started looking her over for injuries.

"Of course my lady." Orson said, walking over and handing it to her. The girl clutched the stone to her chest like a lifeline even as she looked around at her saviors and said "Thank you so much for saving me! May I know your names?"

Introductions were given. But just after the newly introduced Myrrh had given her name, Sakura's head shot up and turned towards the direction they had approached from. As she felt another familiar pulse of chakra she gained a massive grin and called out "We have incoming!"

Before the knights that were confused by her grin could properly react to her warning, there was an orange and black blur slamming into the female of their group with a happy shout of "SAKURA!"

"Oof, hey there Naruto." Sakura said, hugging her 'attacker' back.

Two seconds later, there were more blurs and the group was surrounded by more blondes. An instant later, there was a cry of "Brother!" and Ephraim found his sister giving him a fierce hug.

"Huh, so I guess Sakura's partner can make copies of himself, that's a handy ability." Forde said as he looked around at the mass of identical people.

"Indeed, well met brother." Franz said as he walked over.

Forde looked surprised for a moment at his brother being there before he grinned and slapped the green armored blond's shoulder as he said "Franz! Well met!"

"Orson." Seth said with a nod to his fellow paladin.

"General Seth." Orson returned with a nod of his own. He then shifted his gaze to Garcia and blinked in surprise before he said "General Garcia, I believe your appearance here may be a bigger surprise than your method of arrival has been."

"Just Garcia now lad." Garcia stated and Orson nodded his acknowledgment.

Sakura and Naruto had separated by that point and Naruto looked down at Myrrh, the poor girl looking completely flat footed at all of the new people that had suddenly appeared (Including all of the identical blondes). Naruto's eyes narrowed before widening as he asked "Sakura, what are you doing with a Manakete?!"

Sakura gave him a sharp look of surprise and asked "How do you know what one of those are? I just heard the term from Orson before we saved Myrrh here from the Grado soldiers we just killed."

Naruto (and several other members of Eirika's group) gave a look down and grimaced at the corpses on the ground, several stepping further away from the bodies they had been trying to ignore in favor of the reunion of the two groups. Naruto looked back up at Sakura, expression turning confused as he said "It was part of my briefing packet." Pulling out the scroll he had been handed by the being responsible for the pair of Shinobi being in Magvel, he unsealed a thin folder and showed it to Sakura as he asked "Didn't you get a folder like this when you were told what was happening?"

Sakura accepted the folder and flipped it open. Inside was a generic diagram of a human with wings on their back, a picture of a dragon beneath it, followed by a map of Magvel on the next page with a section of the eastern side circled. The page after that there was a short description of the race.

"Weird, I don't remember this being in my briefing packet." Sakura said, handing Naruto the folder back before pulling out her own scroll.

A quick bit of searching revealed that there wasn't a similar folder and the pair of Shinobi gave each other a confused look as Naruto scratched at his head and said "That's strange, you've got your group's bios, and pretty detailed maps of Grado but not much else when it comes to the rest of the continent."

"Yeah, it is strange that you would be given a more broad briefing packet." Sakura said with a small frown. It was almost like Naruto was going to be seeing more of the continent after this while she was expected to remain in Grado. Looking over to where the royal twins were, Sakura's frown grew as she asked "What if they're going to be splitting up again? With Prince Ephraim continuing to fight Grado and Princess Eirika going somewhere else?"

Naruto frowned as he looked their way as well and said "I guess that could happen, but it'd really suck given all the trouble we went through to link up with you guys."

The pair looked back down as they heard a shy "Um," Seeing she had their attention, Myrrh gave a small swallow then said louder "If you all are fighting Grado, then there is something you need to know."

"What is it Myrrh?" Ephraim asked as he and Eirika moved closer, everyone else giving the Manakete their attention as well.

Time Skip: One Explanation Later

Almost everyone was frowning after hearing what Myrrh had to say.

"King Hayden should be informed of this." Eirika stated.

Ephraim nodded and said "Him and the other two Sacred Stone holding countries' rulers." He thought for a few more moments before he asked "You set out with the goal of finding me then returning to Frelia with my group correct?" At his sister's nod, he continued "Then that is what we shall do."

Eirika nodded before she looked towards her Shinobi Escort and asked "Naruto, do you believe you can make another large stasis scroll? Time is of the essence, and none of us are as fast as you Shinobi."

Naruto nodded and said "Yeah, I can make another one. It'll be easier getting past the Grado forces with just me and Sakura rather than everyone else as well."

Eirika mirrored her brother as she stated "Then that is what we shall do."

END

Author's Note: Standard Reminder to vote on my poll for what stories I work on.