"..." Normal chat.

ABC. Thought.


Chapter 8


Next morning

"Kakashi-sensei."

Once finish getting ready for the trip, I approach the white haired man who is reading his book by the tree.

"Hmm?"

His eye's attention changes from the papers to me.

"Well, uhm... Thanks, for helping me."

Despite knowing that his assist would definitely not come for free, I figured that it'd still better to express my appreciation than staying silent.

Therefore Kakashi smiles and gestures his hand to me as if saying *You're welcome*, though I'm pretty sure that it can also be read as *You still owed me an explanation*.

When Naruto's packing his stuff into the backpack, Sasuke stops by his spot and speaks in volume that only enough for both of them to hear.

"That Nina girl... you better not get too close to her, Naruto. She may not be the person who you think she is."

Puzzled by his out of the blue statement, Naruto asks again since he has yet to caught up with the Uchiha's complicated thinking. "Huh? What do you mean by that?"

"Just a warning." However Sasuke refuses to give him anymore detail and walks away, much to his distress. "Hey!"

That bastard, what was that all about! Naruto cringes and continue packaging, yet for some reasons he cannot get Sasuke's words out of his head. I wonder what exactly he was trying to tell me.

Subconsciously, his gaze shifts to the girl in short orange kimono who is talking with their teacher not too far away. And they both seem to be in good mood toward to each other that he doubt there's really anything serious happened last night.

Notice that Naruto's been staring at his package for a while now, I approach and pat him in the shoulders to wake the boy up from his long daydreaming. "What's wrong, Naruto? Hurry and pack things up or we'll leave you behind."

He seems unfazed and turns around, looking deep into my eyes.

"Nina-chan. You're not hiding anything from me, are you?"

..

...

"I'm going to look for them."

Naruto declared for the nth times and stood up, attempting to leave but Sakura quickly stopped him from breaking what's left of the team.

"Alone in the middle of the woods, at night. Are you an idiot?"

Both Naruto and Sakura gathered at their camping spot after finishing their duties long ago, waiting for their missing teammates and teacher to return.

Sakura had been telling herself that she had to stay calm and believed in their teacher in this situation. Still, the girl couldn't hide the anxiousness on her face. The moment she noticed that Sasuke had disappeared without a trace, she dashed back to their old spot to report to Kakashi.

By then, she found out that Nina had also gone missing by the look on Naruto's face. As he said that she had went off on her own to gather some woods for a while now and still not coming back.

Therefore Kakashi agreed to go look for the two Genins by himself and told them both to stay put to keep everyone's belongings. So now here they are, sitting in the middle of the area watching burning fire. Utterly clueless and helpless.

"Say, Sakura-chan. Don't you think Sasuke has been acting weird lately?"

Could no longer keeping it to himself, Naruto asked her about his friend's odd actions.

"Weird? Like what?"

Sakura stopped drawing illegible scribbles on the ground the moment her crush was mentioned.

"Yeah, like, bullying people. You know."

Sasuke-kun? I can somewhat understand his feeling at the moment but for him to be a bully? I don't think so. Because Sakura's certain that Sasuke wouldn't bother himself doing those kind of stuff, whether on his free time or not. I mean, his mind was only filled with training and getting stronger nowadays...

Sakura started to wonder what had caused Naruto to jump into such a strange conclusion. "Why would you think so? What happened?"

Getting curious that her teammate perhaps had known something about the Uchiha that she didn't. Sakura urged him to talk but the boy refused to do so. Instead, he kept asking for her opinion about his theory earlier.

"There's no way Sasuke-kun would such a thing." Therefore Sakura stated confidently, and surprisingly, Naruto's expression lighten up. Even if only for a little but it's enough for her to figure out there's definitely something going on between them behind her back.

"Yeah, I wouldn't believe that either."

He responded and smiled to her softly, as if just being one hundred percent assured that his best friend wouldn't have become one of those kind of people that he hates most.

"Jeeze, Naruto. You're seriously not making any sense right now, you know that?"

Naruto grinned at her sarcastic question and returned to his normal up beat personality. Leaving Sakura slowly getting drowned by her own confusions.

What was Naruto trying to imply just now? Why was she having such a complex feeling about this? And since Naruto didn't want to talk, should she ask Sasuke instead when he return?

However at the end of the day, Sakura still couldn't bring herself to ask him and had to wait for another chance to come to do so.

...

..

And I almost choke on my own breath.

"Never!" I respond immediately, almost yelling into his face and heart starts racing by seconds. Don't tell me he has noticed something abnormal? But why? And how? I was quite sure that I had...

No, I have to calm down or I'm sure as hell going to mess it up. Based on the manga and anime, If I remember correctly, Naruto's kid-self is still too much of an airhead to figure out anything that is far more complex than Ramen, ideal friendship and Shinobi's trainings.

Well then, I know exactly where to strike.

"You are my close friend, Naruto. There's no way in hell I would ever lie or do anything to hurt you or your feelings. I'm sure you've realized that by now, right?"

Despite my sincere words, the uncertainty has yet to leave the boy's face.

"Are you doubting me, Naruto?"

Therefore I ask him, adding a suitable amount of disappointment in my voice and expression to make myself seems more convincing.

"No! Of course not. I believe Nina-chan, you know!"

Naruto shakes his head, strongly declares his trust on our pure friendship.

Good, he's back to normal now. I've got to thanks the author for making him too easy to read and persuadable sometimes.

Figure that lengthening this conversation would bring nothing but danger, I urge him to get moving to catch up with the others and Naruto's gladly to follow.

A couple of hours later, we finally reach to the Sunshine's village gate and the first thing catches my noses is the faint scent of blood.

Confused, I turn to Kakashi, then Naruto and the other two to look for some clarifications. Yet they all seem to act like there's nothing wrong. It can't be just me, can it?

As we get into residential area, the atmosphere is somewhat similar to any other normal village. Clean street, crowded market and everyone's here working on their jobs like any other usual day. Showing no sign of assault or abnormal activities. And for some reasons the scent of blood from earlier has also disappeared.

Soon team 7 reaches to the leader house, which is quite big for a Traditional Japanese house, I take the delivery package out of my backpack to prove to the workers that we're the expected visitors. After finished explaining, we're lead further inside to the guest room and there. A man in his 40s, straight long black hair, wearing a green fancy kimono shows up to greet us with open arms.

"Welcome, Shinobi of Konohagakure. I've been waiting for you!" Judging by his attire, he should be the leader of this village and the owner of this household, who is called Kazuhiro if I remember correctly.

"Kazuhiro-san." Kakashi greets him with a slight bow and the man does the same to him in return.

After a short introduction and confirmation about the quest info between the two, Kazuhiro then notices the parcel box in my hands and reaches for it.

"Oh, this must be the delivery package that I've asked for. Thank you so much!"

"Not so fast." However Kakashi stops him. "We're still not yet certain that it's you who wrote this commission."

"What ever do you mean, it's saying right here that Kazuhiro is the one who bought Konoha shinobi's service for that package, isn't it?" The man shows us a wrinkled brown paper in his hand that filled with words and a signature of the village leader at the bottom.

"Yes, it's true that Kazuhiro has hired us for this job. However, you're not him."

Kakashi explains, his penetrating blank stare is causing the man to feel uncomfortable.

"Do you even realize what you are saying right now!?" The self-claimed Kazuhiro protests.

After looking at each other, the team 7 then shows him the result of their investigation this morning.

Therefore Sasuke starts first. "There were no sight of children or their activities around this area."

"The market's too clean at such a busy time of the day. Seriously, not even a single cattle around? Just who are you trying to fool." Sakura states confidently.

Naruto steps in. "I sensed your subordinate were following us on the street, even right now inside this house. And they're definitely suck at hiding their killing intent, you know."

"The scent of blood at the village's gate." I speak, recalling to the nasty smell that hit my noses back then.

If our calculation is right, everyone here is already dead and these bandits are in the middle of to disposing the villager bodies at the river bank nearby. While preparing for our arrival.

"Or based on this." Kakashi simply shows us the picture of Kazuhiro which we have never seen or heard of before setting off onto the journey. And by the look on our teacher's annoying face, we can tell that the reason for his doing is something along the line of - testing our observation skills...

The man looks stunned by our performances for a short moment before bursting into laughter. He stops trying to deny or clear his identity. Instead, clapping his hands as if just having watched an entertaining play. "Impressive. I didn't expect for be exposed that easily by a bunch of kids."

"Yeah! Can't look down on us now, can you!" Naruto chimes in.

"Hold on, if you're all here waiting for a single package, does that mean..." Getting an uneasy feeling, I hold the parcel box closer into my arms as we're getting surrounded and downright outnumbered.

There are at least 15 guys here and I still haven't counted the ones outside. Not a surprise since place has been flooded with bandits since the beginning.

"Yes, that casual looking thing is actually contains a valuable piece of hand crafted jewelry for the dead old man's daughter upcoming wedding." Ignoring Naruto's never lasting blabbering, the man in fancy Kimono answers. "He's such a cheapskate to hire you low rank shinobi and put that inside a parcel box just to fool people."

Or it could also be a big surprise when it arrived to his daughter, we would never know. I gulp at the menace aura that he and the others are showing. Should I reach for the Kunai on my leg for defense or for the backpack first? Will I have time for both?

"Get ready, everyone." Kakashi orders and the rest of team 7 quickly change into their fighting stance for the battle. Naruto's excited for the big fight, Sasuke smirks at his new found challenge. Sakura is not fazed by the large amount of enemies and I, well, obviously have not prepare enough in both physically and mentally for this.

In a blink of an eye, the bandits jump at us all at once with various type of tools in their hands. Kakashi aims for the tough ones to eliminate while Sasuke and Naruto go for the average looking ones. Sakura and I are in the role of support and keeping the package safe.

"I'll protect you!" Naruto summons multiples of his clones, using more than half to fight with him and leaving rest in the back line to keep me and Sakura safe.

"I can fight too, Shannaro!" Not going to be left behind by her teammates that easily, Sakura engages in battle against enemies with the help of several Naruto's clones. Meanwhile I'm still struggling to get the parcel box inside my backpack due to constantly dodging their attacks and countering them with only one free hand.

During the middle of chaos, however, some of them have managed to sneak into our team position and gets a hold of Sakura from behind. And her surprise yelp has gained all of our attentions.

"Sakura, duck!" Quickly I try to rescue Sakura by throwing several Shuriken toward to her attackers. Only waiting for that to happen, one of the bandits dashes to my side and easily snatches the box out of my hand. Oh no! The package!

I can't let them get away! Afraid that I will lose sight of the thieves, I abandon our team position to chase after them before Kakashi has the time to protest.

And it's not until getting deep into the woods that I finally be able to catch up with them. Only to realize having made a grave mistake by setting my feet into right their territory, which is full of deadly trap and ambush, alone.

"What do we have here. It's the little girl from that shinobi's family earlier." The bandit from earlier, along with his subordinates, appears before me and snickers. Tossing the package up and down in his hand and acting like his gang has already won the battle. Even though more than half of his men are having their asses handed to them at the village leader's house the moment we speak.

Holding tight onto the Kunai in my hand. I step a few step back to calculate my safe zone and prepare for combat. Only end up looking more like a joke to them.

"I say we capture this girl and sell her to the slavery market."

One of the bandits suggests his brilliant idea and the others laugh, seem to be in agreement with him.

"Let's use that paralyze method, it's the easiest and quickest."

Now several blowguns can be seen in their hands and they're all aiming at me.

Never mind that necklace, I need to get out here alive first. Easier said than done, there are too many of them and I'm still inexperienced in dealing with several enemies at once.

Not wasting time, I backtrack my steps and try to open up a clear path through enemy's bodies, while trying not to get hit by the paralysis needles on the way. Still, my effort alone is clearly not enough when more and more of them just keep coming. Almost entirely blocking my escape route.

And those bastards enjoy their moment mocking at my futile struggle by playing around with my amateur shinobi skill. The way their eyes look at me feels as if watching a cornered, helpless animal which is about to get killed. "Give it up, kid. This is the end."

Not until I drag every single one of you down to hell with me.

Eyes close and take a deep breath, I toss the Kunai away and reach for the double daggers hanging around my waist. Changing into a much more suitable battle stance and preparing to initiate my final resort.

However before being able to draw out those blades, I hear shouting and people getting knocked out from behind and turn around. Eyes widened in surprise once seeing that it's Sasuke who has arrived to the scene.

"No need to get all so excited for. I wasn't here just to provide aids."

Is he for real? And here I thought that Sasuke was actually cared for me as a teammate for once. But I guess that's too much to ask from the Uchiha. "And just for how long are you intending play this detective game again?"

"Until I rip off that fake mask of yours and find out what you're truly hiding." Pulling his Kunai out of the bandit's body, Sasuke declares to stick with his so almighty duty, which no one has ever asked for, till the very end.

Right, of course you totally would. Who am I even kidding. Shooting him an irritated look, I reach for another Kunai in my pocket since the last one has been kicked off somewhere. While Sasuke approaches to where I'm standing.

"Looks like we've got company." One of the bandits says and gestures his men to gather before us. "Doesn't matter, because you all are going to die here."

Gladly accept their warm welcome, Sasuke steps forward and I notice that his Sharigan has been activated. "We'll see about that."