Chapter 18: The Incoming Storm
A rustle in the bushes nearby caused two people in white cloaks to turn around. They scanned through the darkness but they couldn't see much of anything.
"Is it a Flesh Eater?" asked the female.
"No, I don't think so. I don't hear any growling," said the male.
"I think it was..." the male siad as his voice slowed down.
He turned to face the female and she saw a kunai stuck in his right eye and blood dripping down the right side of his face. The female screamed as the man fell to the ground. Suddenly she felt electricity enter her body and she too fell to the ground. Sasuke sprinted forward over the bodies followed by Kiba, Hinata and Choji. Naruto was the last in the formation as he took his kunai and stabbed both bodies in the temple to keep them from turning. Naruto then sprinted forward to catch up to the group.
When the group reached the wall of the old prison, Sasuke stopped the assault group when he saw there was a guard walking along the wall.
"They must be on high alert since their precious leader hasn't returned yet," Sasuke whispered.
"What are we going to do?" Kiba asked.
Sasuke activated his Sharingan and stared at the guard. After a few moments, the guard turned facing the edge and walked off the wall. The guard hit the ground hard, breaking both his legs. He started screaming in pain.
"What did you do?" Kiba asked.
"Genjutsu," Sasuke answered.
Sasuke walked towards the injured guard with Kiba, Hinata, Choji and Naruto following. Sasuke reached the guard, who was wearing the group's white cloak and looked up at him, fear was evident in his eye.
"W-who are you?" the guard stuttered in fear and pain.
"I'm the one who is going to end The Saints," Sasuke said.
"W-why?"
Sasuke took out his kusanagi and stabbed the guard through the chest without answering the question. Naruto was the one to answer instead.
"For killing the woman I loved," Naruto said as he stabbed the guard in the head with his kunai.
Blood gushed out of the wound when Naruto pulled out his kunai. He looked at Sasuke who was looking at him and they nodded.
On the other side of the wall, a bald, middle-aged man with thin brown eyebrows and green eyes sipped out of a small teacup as he stared across the grounds. He was sitting on the grass with his back up against the wall and was lost in thoughts until lightning that sounded like birds chirping came down from the sky and struck several of his comrades who were walking around. He spits out the liquid as hundreds of look-alike blonde ninja fell to the ground and began beating down his comrades. He dropped the teacup and quickly got to his feet. He pulled out a kunai and ran toward's one of the many look-alike ninja. As he was about to make contact, he was stopped in his tracks when he was hit and thrown into the air by what he saw was tornadoes. The tornadoes stopped twisting to reveal two of the same person. The two smirked as they began twisting again and they slammed into the man again. The bald man fell to the ground and coughed up blood when he made contact. He stared at the night sky when more lightning came crashing down from the sky and then everything turned black.
"I wonder when the attack will begin," Shino whispered.
"I don't know, hopefully it's soon. This waiting is becoming so troublesome," Shikamaru whispered back.
They continued to watch the guards in the towers around the main gate of The Saints compound. Shikamaru then heard the faint sound of birds chirping in the distance. It was night time and no bird should be awake and chirping so he knew it was Sasuke's Chidori which meant their assault on the compound had begun.
"So you heard it too?" Shino whispered.
"Yeah, sounds like Sasuke and Naruto have begun the operation. We just wait until Sasuke gives us the order to infilitrate and we'll begin doing our part," Shikamaru explained.
The guards turned their attention to the left side of the compound and soon all of three of them abandoned their post and ran toward the direction of the chirping sound.
"Infilitrate," Sasuke said over the radio.
"Come on Shino, let's go," Shikamaru said.
They jumped from the tree they were hiding in and made their way to the gate. They peaked into the compound and found several white-cloaked people running to the left of the compound. They waited until the coast was clear and entered the compound. Shikamaru motioned Shino to follow him and they ran diagonally into a dark spot in the compound and waited. Shikamaru saw hundreds of Naruto's bunshin at the far left end of the compound.
"Looks to me Naruto's doing most of the work as usual," Shikamaru whispered.
"Kiba is a close second," Shino said who could see Kiba and Akamaru spinning around through the air.
Two more Saints came out of the door to the main building and ran towards the battle. Shikamaru motioned Shino to follow as they made their way to the door and entered the building. Shikamaru looked around as they were three different hallways with jail doors. One in front and one on each side of them.
"I'm beginning to think The Saints are just a bunch of prisoners," Shikamaru said. "Let's look around here, the armory would be in a place where prisoners wouldn't be able to get their hands on them."
Before they could begin their search, a young Saint with long light-brown hair that was tied back in a ponytail and brown eyes opened the cage door and came out from the hallway in front of Shikamaru and Shino. The young man stopped in his tracks.
"W-who are you?" asked the boy.
"Where is the armory?" asked Shikamaru.
The boy was about to run back into the hallway he was coming from but realized he couldn't move.
"My Kagemane no Jutsu, it's not going to allow you to go anywhere," Shikamaru said.
"Please don't kill me!" yelled the boy.
"I might be willing to spare your life if you tell me where the armory is," Shikamaru negotiated.
"I don't know, I'm new here. They just let me out of The Box yesterday," the boy said.
"The Box? What is that?" asked Shikamaru.
"It's a cell they put you in. They keep you isolated for three weeks while you watch a video on how the sins of the ninja has angered God so much he decided to end mankind by raising the dead and you watch this video over and over and over," the boy said.
Suddenly Shikamaru's hold on the boy was released. Shikamaru had reached his limit at the moment.
"Damn it," he whispered.
The boy knew he was free and quickly ran back down the hallway. Shikamaru and Shino began pursuit the boy before he could warn anybody that could have been inside of their presence.
Fatigue was setting in as Naruto and his hundreds of bunshin fought and killed Saints. He actually thought it would be more difficult that it turned out to be. It turned out that most of The Saints were not even ninja. Naruto paused and wiped away sweat from his forehead before it trickled down into his eyes. He caught a glimpse of something at the back of the compound. All he could make out was a slender figure and long blonde hair glistening in the moonlight. It looked so much like Ino and then the figure disappeared behind the building. Naruto abandoned the fight with The Saints and ran off towards the back of the compound.
"Naruto, where the hell are you going?" Sasuke called out but Naruto didn't respond. "Shit!"
Naruto heard Sasuke but chose to ignore him because he wanted to find out who the woman he saw that he was sure looked like Ino was so he could kill her for impersonating Ino. He reached the back of the massive building to find a back door closing. Naruto opened the door to find a hallway leading to metal doors. Suddenly the metal doors opened up and the slender figure was all the way at the end of the hall and she looked just like Ino.
"You fucking bitch!" Naruto yelled. "How dare you impersonate Ino!"
Naruto ran down the hall and pulled out a kunai out of his holster and aimed at the figure, but as he got closer to the end of the cell block, the slender figure was no longer there. Naruto found himself face to face with just the wall. Tears began to form in his eyes as thoughts of Ino flashed in his head again. Naruto quickly wiped them away and was about to tun back and return to the fight outside when banging on the metal cell door caught Naruto's attention. He walked to the door and peeked inside through the window and was surprised at who was inside.
"Centipede Brows?" Naruto asked after seeing huge, bushy eyebrows.
Naruto looked for a way to open the door. He walked back to the double metal doors and found a buttons that opened the cell doors. He pressed all the buttons and all the cell doors on the cell block opened up and a male about Naruto's age wearing a green jumpsuit with black hair cut in a bowl shake and thick, bushy eyebrows.
"Naruto-kun, I can't believe you're here too..." Lee trailed off realizing Naruto was by himself. "What's going on?"
"Sasuke and I have led an attack on this compound," Naruto said. "Why did they have you locked up?"
"They call this place The Box. They stick you in here and force you to watch this video on how our sins have made God so angry that he raised the dead," Lee answered. "It's part of the recruitment here."
"Recruitment?" Naruto questioned. "You mean you joined up with these psychopathic killers?"
"I- I only did it to keep me and Tenten alive," answered Lee. "They would have killed us if we didn't."
"So if you're angry at The Saints, don't be angry at us, we're only here so we could survive," a female said.
A woman with brown-hair tied up into two buns, wearing a white long-sleeved shirt and brown pants came out of a cell across t he hallway from wehre Lee was being held.
"Where's Intense Brows-sensei?" asked Naruto.
"I- I don't know," Lee answered. "We got seperated during the evacuation and that's how we were approached by The Saints."
"I'll have you explain more later," Naruto said. "I want to capture this prison from The Saints."
"We will help you," Lee said.
"Thanks," Naruto said.
Shikamaru and Shino continued to chase the Saint boy through the cell blocks. They were trying to catch him so he wouldn't warn anyone else of their presence inside the prison. They entered the main cell block that had two floors of jail cells. Shikamaru stopped in his tracks when he realized all the cells were filled with Walkers.
"This is not good," Shikamaru said to Shino.
"Looks like we've been led into a trap," Shino said.
The Saints boy they were chasing caught his breath.
"You stay away from me!" he yelled from across the cell block. "All I have to do is press this button and it will open all the cell doors and this room will be crawling with Flesh Eaters!"
"Now why would you do that?" Shikamaru asked, "There's no way out for you!"
"It's okay, I can lock myself into this monitoring station. Besides, protocals state that if this prison is overrun by an outside force that someone should be willing to sacrifice themselves and release the Flesh Eaters onto the invading party," the boy said.
"I'm not liking this at all Shikamaru," Shino said.
"If he does release them, Naruto can kill them off with ease with his kage bunshin," Shikamaru whispered.
"That might work if he hadn't led the assault on the compound with Sasuke," Shino replied. "He might be getting tired by now."
"We can lead them outside and I can hold them with my Kagemane no Jutsu and kill as many as we can before I reach my limit," Shikamaru whispered.
"We need to do something and quick," Shino said.
"As much as I'm not ready to die, I will sacrifice myself to reap vengeance on you people for The Saints!" the boy yelled and pressed the button.
"Shit!" Shikamaru yelled.
All the cell doors in the cell block began opening. Walkers inside the cells began walking out of them. They all walked toward Shikamaru and Shino who ran out of the area and began running through the other cell blocks to get back outside. The boy who opened the cell doors tried to hide inside the monitoring station but it was locked and he couldn't get inside. Several Walkers grabbed him and bit into him and started ripping him open. His screams echoed through the cell blocks as Shikamaru and Shino tried to find their way out.
Naruto returned to the battlefield when he saw his bunshin were gone and Sasuke, Kiba, Hinata and Choji were sitting on the ground.
"Where the hell did you go?" asked Sasuke.
"I thought I saw someone impersonating Ino so I followed them to kill them but it turned out that my fatigue was just playing tricks with me but somehow I found Centipede Brows and Tenten," Naruto answered.
Sasuke looked behind Naruto to find he indeed found Rock Lee and his teammate Tenten.
"Did you join them?" Sasuke asked.
"Relax Sasuke," Naruto said. "They're only here to stay alive. We'll have them explain their full situation later. Did we get them all?"
"I believe so," Sasuke said.
Naruto turned and saw Shikamaru and Shino run out of the prison and running towards them. Naruto thought maybe they were being chased by more of The Saints.
"We need to get out of here!" yelled Shikamaru.
"They're coming!" yelled Shino.
The two ran passed by the group and climbed up the stone wall with their chakra.
"Who's coming?" Naruto yelled. He then heard grunting and moaning and Naruto turned to find a bunch of Walkers coming out of the prison.
"Oh shit!" Naruto yelled and ran towards the wall. Sasuke, Kiba, Hinata, Choji, Lee and Tenten all followed him.
The group just looked at the prison grounds as the Walkers slowly walked into the courtyard. Naruto knew what had to be done but he was tired from fighting with The Saints.
"Let's just get out of here," Tenten said.
"We have nowhere to go, this prison would keep us safe. Let me rest a while and then I will send in my bunshin to get rid of the Walkers," Naruto said.
"I know of a place we can go," Lee said.
"What kind of place is it?" asked Sasuke.
Before Lee could answer Sasuke's question, the wall right next to the group exploded. Kiba fell into Hinata as he held his ear which was ringing from the explosion. When the smoke cleared, Shino and Akamaru were missing.
"Where's Shino and Akamaru?" asked Naruto.
Sasuke walked to where the wall collapsed into rubble and looked down and found Shino pinned down by a couple of large pieces of rock from the wall and Akamaru wasn't trapped but looked unconscious.
"Shit, Shino's trapped under some of the rock from the wall and Akamaru looks unconcious," Sasuke said.
"Rest is going to have to wait," said Naruto. "I'll keep the Walkers at bay, everyone else help Akamaru and free Shino from the rubble."
Sorry that it took so long to get this chapter out. I had started writing it back in June but work had me busy for the last couple of months. Now that things have finally slowed down, I have time to write again.