Chapter 13: Surprises

Naruto was sitting down with his eyes closed taking in all the natural energy to enter Sage Mode. He ignored the grunts of a horde of Walkers below him. He was just concerned with finding Shikamaru. Naruto opened his eyes, they were now a yellow green with a toad-like irides and an orange pigmitation of the skin around his eyes. Naruto had successfully entered Sage Mode. He then focused on the surrounding area, trying to sense Shikamaru's chakra. He didn't have to sense for long as he located Shikamaru's whereabouts.

Naruto formed a hand seal and created a few Kage Bunshin and sent them after Shikamaru. Naruto figured he'd cover more ground in finding Shikamaru faster. The bunshin began jumping through the trees in different in directions and the real Naruto began jumping through the trees straight ahead.

'Once I find Shikamaru, I think I'm going to beat his ass!'

Naruto was a bit upset that Shikamaru would just take off like he did. He thought he convinced Shikamaru enough not to go on a hunt for someone who probably wasn't living anymore. Naruto continued jumping through the trees, keeping sense of Shikamaru's chakra when Naruto began to sense another chakra but he knew it wasn't Kotetsu because it was closer than Shikamaru.

Once Naruto was very close to the chakra signature, he decided to hide to investigate it. After finding out people like Kai and Tai were out there, he wasn't sure he could trust anyone that was still alive out here. Naruto stayed hidden within the tree branches looking down below when he saw someone jump through the trees onto the branches below him. He was wearing a black cloak that hid their identity and was heading back toward their waterfall cave.

Naruto created another Kage Bunshin and ordered it to continue on the same direction Naruto was going as the real Naruto decided to follow the cloaked person to make sure they were not a threat to his hideout where Ino and Choji were.

The explosion rattled the cave as Choji was snacking. He put down his food and rushed outside. He put down his food and rushed outside. He saw Ino running towards him, he figured she was going in the direction of the explosion.

"Sounds like our explosive tag perimeter has been breached!" he yelled.

Ino ran passed him, nodding her head, and he followed her to the blast area. Ino and Choji looked down the side of the hill and saw someone they'd never thought they'd see again.

"Akamaru!" Ino yelled.

"Arf!" he barked. The dog looked nearly scared to death and Ino thought the blast of the explosive tags might have been the reason.

"Are you okay, Akamaru?" Ino asked. Akamaru barked and motioned with his body to follow.

"You know what, I think he wants us to follow him," Choji said.

"Really?" Ino asked.

Akamaru barked some more and continued using his body language to get Choji and Ino to follow him.

"Should we follow him?" whispered Choji.

"He might be trying to get help for Kiba," Ino whispered back. "Of course we should follow."

Ino and Choji climbed down the hill to where Akamaru was.

"Alright, take us to wherever help is needed," Ino said.

Akamaru took off running with Ino and Choji following behind him. They ran through the forest and it was thickening up. It accured to Ino they were going into a more inhabited part of the forest as it wasn't as cleared of lower brush like where they were.

"Akamaru, where are you taking us?" Ino asked.

Akamaru just barked and continued running ahead with Ino and Choji still following behind. Choji was beginning to worry, he didn't like where they were going to at all and Ino didn't either.

The bunshin Naruto had sent to in his place so he could pursue the cloaked person continued jumping through the trees as he could sense Shikamaru was getting closer. It wasn't long before he stopped to see Shikamaru foolishly walking on the ground below.

"Shikamaru!" the bunshin called.

Naruto's voice surprised Shikamaru and looked up to see Naruto standing on a branch in the tree above him. He was about to question how Naruto found him, but he remembered Naruto's abilities when he was in Sage Mode.

"Naruto, what are you doing here?" Shikamaru asked as he got up into the trees to avoid being caught off guard by Walkers.

"I came to find your dumb ass," Naruto replied sternly. "If you were that concerned with finding Kotetsu, I would of send my bunshin to search instead of being out here exposed to Walkers."

"Sorry, but last night it seemed like you didn't really care so I decided to go off on my own," Shikamaru said.

Naruto sighed, "If you want to find him that bad, then I'll go and you keep your ass right here in the mean time."

"Why go alone?" asked Shikamaru.

"I'm actually a bunshin, my real body is busy right now," the bunshin said, leaving out the detail about Naruto really pursuing a suspicious person.

"No, I'll go," Shikamaru said. "I just can't just sit here and wait, what if you poke yourself on a branch or fall and land on a rock and disperse?"

"Now that you mention it, I didn't think abou tthat," the bunshin said. "Fine, let's go."

Shikamaru and the Naruto bunshin headed off into the forest in search for Kotetsu.

Naruto continued to follow the person in the cloak. He made sure he stayed a few paces behind him to not draw any attention to the person that he or she was being followed. Naruto continued his pursuit until the person he was following changed direction and was no longer heading to the hideout he and Shikamaru established. Naruto contemplated on continuing to follow him or her to make sure they didn't change their direction because of being followed. To be safe rather than sorry, Naruto decided to keep following the person for a few more miles just to be sure that it wasn't an attempt to shake the pursuit.

Naruto picked up the pace to catch up to the person he was following but just enough to stay out of sight. The person he was chasing stopped and jumped to the ground. Naruto stopped in a nearby tree and watched the person pull out a katana that Naruto recognized being closely resembling his former teammate had. Naruto then saw a couple of Walkers walking toward the cloaked person. One of them had a few kunai's sticking out of its decaying body. It was obvious that who ever threw them did not know how to kill them. The other Walker was missing a jaw as blood and dead flesh oozed off it.

Naruto heard what sounded like chirping birds and he noticed lightning was being forced through the katana into the ground and it traveled through the ground towards the two Walkers. The lightning struck the two Walkers from the feet and traveled up the body to their heads where the electricity caused the heads of the Walkers to explode. Dead flesh, blood and brains splattered across the forest ground. Naruto was shocked because he only knew one person other than Kakashi-sensei that could use that kind of lightning based jutsu.

Ino and Choji continued to follow Akamaru through the thick forest. Choij, who didn't want to admit it, was getting tired and more frightened as they went through this part of the forest. He didn't know what could be behind every bush and tree.

Akamaru stopped with Ino and Choji following suite. Ino and Choji peeked out of the thick bushes they had stopped behind and saw a group of Walkers trying to reach up a tree for something. Ino looked up the tree to see a girl with long, lavender hair and Ino could tell she was frightened.

"How is Hinata stuck in that tree, can't she just jump to another tree?" Ino whispered to Choji.

"That's because that tree is too far from the forest, the bush we're hiding beind is the edge of the forest," Choji whispered back.

Ino looked and realized indeed they were on the edge of the thick forest and the lone tree was too far for the girl to jump to get away from the small hode of Walkers.

"I don't know what to do Choji, there's too many of them to kill and our jutsu's aren't really good for it," Ino whispered. "I wish Naruto-kun and Shikamaru were with us."

Choji swallowed his fear, his comrade was in trouble and he new exactly what to do in this situation.

"I know what to do, I'll use my human bullet tank which hopefully distracts them and follow me," Choji whispered.

"Good idea but please come back alive," Ino pleaded.

"I will," Choji said as he performed a few hand seals. "Human bullet tank!"

Hinata, who was scared stiff in the tree, heard the familiar voice and looked toward the forest line and saw massive human ball come out of the bushes. The Walkers below here turned their attention to the noise and began to follow Choji. Once the horde was completely away from the tree she was sitting in, Ino popped out of the bushes.

"Hinata!" she called out.

Hinata looked around and saw the familiar face of Ino.

"Quick, over here!"

Hinata looked up into the tree, "Shino, Kiba, Akamaru found help."

Kiba jumped down from the top branches and saw Ino in the bushes along the tree line of the forest.

"Well I'll be damned, I never thought I'd see anyone from Konoha again," Kiba said.

"Thankfully we did, I don't know how much longer we would have survived in this tree," added Shino.

The three ninja jumped to the ground below and ran across the grass into the bushes. Kiba was reunited with Akamaru.

"Good job boy, you got us help," praised Kiba.

"Where do we go from here?" asked Shino.

"Shikamaru and Naruto set up a nice hideout nearby, we'll go there," Ino replied.

"Naruto huh? Glad he's okay too," Kiba said.

"I take it Sakura, Sai and Kakashi-sensei are there waiting sa well?" asked Shino.

Ino shook her head, "No, but Naruto can tell you about it later. Let's hide in the trees just in case Choji accidently brings the horde of Walkers back."

The four ninja jumped into the trees to stay off the ground and wait for Choji.

"How did you guys get stuck in that tree anyway? Couldn't the three of you work together to kill those Walkers?" asked Ino.

"We killed quite a bit as we ran across the grassland but we ran out of kunai and I didn't have enough chakra left to use my fang passing fang," Kiba answered.

"We were only up in the tree for a couple hours, I wanted us just to rest and we could of killed them tomorrow but Kiba decided to send Akamaru out for help because he became impatient," Shino added.

"What!? I did not get patient!" Kiba yelled in denial.

The bushes below the tree began to rustle as Choji made his way back to the forest. He jumped into the tree and he looked tired.

"Where'd you take them?" asked Ino.

"No need to worry about them as I was circling back to the forest, I found a deep, dry lake bed that I lured those Walkers to fall into. They shouldn't create a problem for anyone anymore," Choji replied.

"Good, I guess we should head back to the hideout then," Ino said.

The group of reunited Konoha-nin began jumping through the forest trees heading back to the waterfall.

Shikamaru, along with a bunshin of Naruto, reached the cabin they had rescued Ino from a day ago. The front of the cabin where the door used to be was still just a hole that was created by explosive tags. The Walkers Shikamaru fed Kai and Tai to were no longeer around. Shikamaru and the bunshin jumped from the trees onto the ground near the cabin. They were about to figure out just where Ino and Kotetsu were confronted by the two criminals when three Walkers came out from behind the cabin. One looked to be female as it was wearing a dirty, torn red kimono who had a chunk of her right arm gone which ment she must have been bitten. However, what drawed Naruto's attention was the color of the kimono and for a split second thought it was Sakura but then he noticed the Walker's hair was long and brown. The two were about the kill the Walkers when they realized who one of them was. Dried blood that soaked Kotetsu's uniform from his stomach.

"Fuck!" Shikamaru yelled as he fell to his knees.

Shikamaru started to second guess himself as a leader. His first mistake was thinking the cave near Tanzaku Town was a safe haven which utimately got almost everyone killed. His second mistake was falling asleep in the Hokage's Tower that day which scared Kotetsu and made him leave on his own which ultimately got him killed as well.

To Naruto, it was obvious that Kotetsu must have been bitten sometime after being stabbed through the stomach which then he died and turned. With Shikamaru having a hard time dealing with this, the Naruto bunshin walked to the Walkers. As he stood, the three Walkers passed the bunshin by as they walked their way to Shikamaru. Naruto took out a real kunai that was given to him by the real Naruto and stabbed each Walker in the head.

After putting down the Walkers, for some strange reason, the bunshin felt the need to inspect Kotetsu's corpse. He ripped open his shirt to reveal the only injury he received was the katana through the stomach. Naruto turned to Shikamaru who was still on his knees.

"From the looks of it, you're blaming yourself for Kotetsu's death but he brought this on himself by leaving on his own without you back in Konoha," the Naruto bunshin said.

Shikamaru looked up, "Yeah but..."

"If he hadn't done that, he probably would be still alive."

Shikamaru pondered what Naruto said and maybe he was right after all.

"Besides, you need to see this."

Shikamaru got up from his knees and walked over to Naruto and Kotetsu's corpse. Once he was close enough, Shikamaru looked.

"What am I supposed to be seeing?" Shikamaru asked, "All I see is that Kotetsu's dead with a wound in his stomach."

"Exactly," the Naruto bunshin replied. "There's no bite marks. I thought only bites turned you but Kotetsu didn't get bit and he still turned."

Shikamaru's eyes widened, "But that's impossible! I saw this shit happen from the beginning and people that got sick and died returned the first time. The people that never got sick only died and turned after getting bit by a Walker. How the hell could of Kotetsu turn without being bit?"

"I don't know," the Naruto bunshin said, shaking his head.

"What the hell is going on?" Shikamaru questioned.