Chapter 24: The Shadow over Insumasu

Part 1: Call of the Wave.

Flowers are bloming,

Birds are singing,

On a fine spring day, kids like you,

Should be burning in hell.

Man, Undertale fandom may be a weird furry community but the cover fansongs sure are dope.

I am stronger than you~~

Nanana na na~

Nanana na na~~

Nanana na na~~~

"Makoto Hotaru, you are now being summoned by the Hokage.', an ANBU dropped in to pick me up.

Ah shit, I knew that I'm gonna get dragged into the Wave arc somehow.

)))))))

Team 7 had been getting along nicely, since Sakura had become awesome now, offscreen. For the whole duration of winter, they had been having multiple D ranks to work out the kinks to their teamworks. Meanwhile, I was having a peaceful life as shoveling snow across the roads. Very important job here, folks.

I was preparing my jumpsuit to do my annual job of fishing out drowned hobos at the flooded slums that happens every early spring, when of course, the fucking Hokage gonna send me to bullshit missions once again.

"Long time no see, young Makoto." the Hokage greet me in with his lame ass grandpa act. I'm onto you old man. You can't fool me with your fake act of care.

"So what now?"

"Well, Makoto, I have grave news for you. Haruno Sakura is dead.", the Hokage informed me grimly.

"And the world is now a better place. Amitabha." I prayed.

"Well, we're not sure if she's really dead. Kakashi reported they never seen her body."

Drats. That's just mean she's off to another Offsreen Adventures. This is gonna be her thing huh? The Writer completely despise her, so he just settled with having her achieved character plot offscreen.

I heard the other day she had been eaten by a snake in Forest of Death, crawled out of the snake through its anus, and proceed to go full Rambo for a whole week in there hunting and eating the huge animals to survive before she was rescued by some snake woman by coincidence.

Her Character Development and Plotflow now is so Awesome and Inspiring that my Writer can never bring it to life, so you folks gonna have to settle with just getting basic summaries about her Offscreen Adventures.

"Anyway, in case that Sakura had really died, we have to send a replacement member for Team 7. Makoto Hotaru, you are to escort Hyuuga Hanabi to travel to Wave Country as the new member of Team 7.", he orders.

Oh fuck me. So Hanabi Route is still going on afterall. Hell, the Fanfic profile had even be updated to include Hanabi H. tag. This is a big concern. Its basic knowledge that when a character name is tagged, they gonna be an important character.

Also, Hanabi graduated early? Well, she is a way better ninja than Hinata anyway so that makes sense.

"Fine, I'll fetch her."

))))))))

"You're late."

Hyuuga Hanabi had been waiting for me at the front gate of the wall. She wore yellow and dark red Taisho era style kimono. And I'm glad she wore combat boots instead ninja sandals. That shit was horrid. She wore a red scarf hitai-ate wrapped around her neck. That's smart. A bit of protection to your throat

…….

………

………….

"What are you doing, being all quite like that?"

"I'm just taking in how pretty you are, actually."

"W-what? Don't be ridiculous, we're working!", she pouts away in a blush.

Fucking Makoto Hotaru, don't get swept in by the Hanabi Route. Stay strong!.

Anyway, she about to start running when I stopped her.

"What are you doing?", I asked.

"How else we're going to Wave? By running, of course.", she answered me, looking at me as if I'm stupid one here.

Oh ninjas, you primitive bastards.

"What's your top speed anyway?"

"60km/h, and I can run with constant speed for half a day before needing to rest.", she smugly bragged to me.

Wow gee, so fast. So much stamina. Yea. Stamina.

I should really consider marrying civilians instead of ninjas.

"What is your top speed currently, Hotaru?"

I had PTSD as the training days of me with the gym bros of Konoha began to flicker across my memories.

"80 km/h, 9 hours non stop."

"Heeeeee….", Hanabi had this habit she hold her chin with the tip of her thumb and index knuckle when she's thinking of something deeply.

Dammit Hanabi! Don't think about it! I know ninja kids are more mature than normal but this is still a T-rated fanfic! This fanfic depends on staying a PG-13 compliant content!

"So you can keep up afterall. Why would you not want to run?"

"Coz I have this."

There's a whole Digimon OST blaring as I pull off a 1minute anime sequence of releasing this state of the art engineering gadget out of my Storage Watch.

[Release: Chakra Bike]

Hanabi eyes went wide as she circle around the blue dirt bike. Powered by chakra, courtesy to Dr Naruto, our forefront engineer of Fuinjutsu Engineering.

We have plans to open gadget company after we become Chuunin. Well, Naruto is. I just plan to stay as a simple Genin janitor

"This bad boy can run top speed of 150 km/h and I have enuff Naruto Cells (the battery, not the actual cells) to run it nonstop for 5 days. Here Hanabi, is the next step of transportation evolution."

When in doubt, just chuck Naruto at it. He'll figure something out eventually.

"But you can only use it on roads. And once you start going into Chuunin tier, many would just outrun this thing.", Hanabi criticize.

"We're not speed demons yet anyway. Besides, we're just using this to travel fast within Land of Fire. We can do clandestine tree hopping like monkeys later if you want."

And I actually can't tree climb or walk on water like you weirdoes either. Having no neutral chakra barred me from a lot of basic ninja parkour skillset.

"Fine then. Take out another one of your bike thing."

"I don't have anymore bikes. I only have one of these."

"So what should I do? Run behind you?", Hanabi frowned.

"No, you ride behind me."

"Eehh?"

I hop on the bike.

"Hurry up. Who knows what's going on with the boys and Kakashi can't be counted on."

Hanabi reluctantly sat behind me.

"hold onto me."

"W-why should I do that?!"

"Because the roads are bumpy and I'm going fast. If you don't hold on me tight you're going to fall."

"N-no! I think I'm not going to do that."

"Well, suit yourself."

I revved the bike and accelerated with a wheelie. Hanabi immediately hold onto me tight as I quickly reached top speed and drift across the corners of the road.

Having a girl hugging you from behind is nice.

And I actually do have a spare bike. Teehee.

Hanabi Route will be the death of me.