A/N: First, I gotta say guys. Taking two weeks where I didn't even TRY to force myself to write this fic was really nice, this chapter flowed out so NICELY! It was done inside of 3 hours on Sunday.

And then it was gone over by my betas by Monday evening.

And then a combination of cooking woes, migraines, and insomnia conspired to keep me from going over their edits to post it.

*sigh*

Clearly the universe hates me.

But honestly, I'm SO happy with this chapter, I just really really like how it went?

Hopefully you guys enjoy it as much as I do!

As always, thank you for reading!

Natsu wakes up to the overpowering smell of ramen, and for a single, long moment wonders how he got stuck in Naruto's head and if the demon in him actually liked ramen too.

Then he opens his eyes and realizes, with his face buried in a bright orange jacket, that Naruto's carrying him.

The ramen smells so fresh though, and Natsu's pretty sure the piece of jacket he's leaning against is slightly damp, and now he's hungry.

His stomach rumbles loudly, and Naruto nearly trips in response.

"Natsu! You're awake!"

Even as Naruto goes to set him down, Natsu knows something's wrong.

Normally the blond would yell, excited and eager - this quiet response, more relieved than excited and more worried than eager, is not what Natsu wants to hear.

He gets his feet under him and glances around, looking for enemies.

There aren't any.

But they're also missing half their team, Jiraiya and Sasuke nowhere to be seen. A near-army if Naruto clones is in their place, some bunched around an unconscious man Natsu vaguely recalls, and the others spread out in a clear defensive grid.

Something has gone very wrong.

How?! I wasn't even out for that long!

He turns to ask Naruto, but the blond's eyes are everywhere but on him, scanning the forest without pause.

The clones are too, now that he looks, and that's worrying too.

He reaches out and pokes Naruto's shoulder. "Hey, c'mon- what's up? Where is everybody?"

Naruto babbles, grabbing Natsu's hand and dragging him back into motion as he does. "We split up- Jiraiya made a-a shadow clone, like I do, and it left with Sasuke to go to some Sakuragi-guy's house for some info or something, and Jiraiya and I stayed with you and that guy, and- and we were just- and then Jiraiya's clone popped, and Sasuke's all alone, but the clone got him to run away before it 'sploded, and Sasuke was running this way, so we're supposed to look for him, a-and meet up, and the real Jiraiya was goin' after the guys they were fighting, but Sasuke's not here and I think we passed where we were supposed to find him and I don't know what to do but maybe I didn't pass them maybe I'm just not there yet I don't know I thought if I made enough clones it would be faster, and Jiraiya said s'mthin about how I can like remember their stuff or something but no one's found Sasuke and I don'tknowwhattodo-!"

Natsu stops, twisting his arm to grab Naruto's wrist and make the blond stop as well.

"Right." he says, when Naruto turns, mouth open, to argue. "Sasuke's missing and Jiraiya's fighting some guys, and we don't know if there's more of em, yeah?"

Naruto nods hesitantly, body all but vibrating with the need to move.

Natsu's not good at this whole planning thing, but he knows Sasuke.

And he knows criminals.

He grins savagely. "Alright then. Instead of just running all over the place, let's just make Sasuke come to us!"

"Wha- how?"

All the clone Narutos turn to look at him too, a hundred-man stare boring into him from all directions.

Natsu slams a fist into his open palm.

"We light everything on fire! The enemy shinobi guys will come after us, and Sasuke will too, just to yell at us for being stupid. And since Jiraiya's fighting the shinobi guys, so will he! And then we'll have everyone. Perfect, right?"

Naruto gapes at him for a minute, but then the clones explode into a flurry of whispers, and Natsu catches some words here and there about prank supplies and stuff being duplicated with the jutsu and explosions-

The real Naruto scratches his head. "You think it'll work? What if there's too many bad guys, if they got here before Jiraiya and Sasuke we'd be screwed, dattebayo."

Natsu shrugs. "We'll figure it out as we go along! Or-" he changes tracts at Naruto's squinty glare, "we could build, uh… traps? Or something? Like when we were catching Tora, but, y'know, people-sized. Sakura-chan can help! Right?" He tilts his head, as he gets a bleary sort of feeling from Sakura-chan. Sort of like she was sleeping or something, 'til he called her.

"Hm? Yeah, I know a couple basic Academy ones… I don't know how much good they'd be against Jonin though." She hesitates a moment, then Natsu gets a feeling like she took a deep breath. "Naruto's probably good though. Since he does all those pranks, a-and some of them are really stupid, but some of them- aren't. So. Uh. Pranks are just traps that don't hurt people, right?" she trails off, a bit uncomfortable, and Natsu's grin widens.

"Ne, Naruto. How many pranking supplies did you bring with you?"

Naruto's eyes light up.

The answer, as it turns out, is more than feasibly possible.

This is gonna be great.

Sasuke should have kept going the direction the clone told him to. He knows that, he knows this is reckless and dangerous and something even the dobe would probably call stupid, but-

They need those papers.

Right?

They were important enough Jiraiya even changed his mind about the chakra restriction, and even if the man hasn't explained anything, Sasuke can tell it's serious.

So he just-

Needs to find that shinobi, just long enough to see everything.

After all, the papers an enemy chooses to keep have to be more important than the ones they choose to destroy. Right?

Sasuke's pretty sure it's not the seal talking. He… felt… something, a little while ago, and it was probably Natsu fixing whatever was going on - his shoulder doesn't burn, at least so that's got to be it - and if it's not the seal trying to twist him into doing it, then it can't be that bad of an idea.

If only he could find a trail.

He tried to pinpoint where the shinobi would have left the city, but he must have taken a turn somewhere, because there's no trail for Sasuke to spot.

And if the shinobi exited from one of the main gates, even his eyes won't be able to spot a trail with all those competing footprints.

He glances into the forest.

There can't be that many places to hide an armed force, not without leaving some traces. He could scout a grid pattern, as long as he's careful, as long as he doesn't get caught-

The explosion's almost deafening.

Those idiots!

Sasuke doesn't even know how they got into a fight- they're supposed to be with Jiraiya-!- but the unique blend of Natsu's chakra is unmistakable and that direction is nowhere near the pond they were camped at before so-

He pivots, bolting towards the flames, and he swears to kami-sama abovethat if Natsu burned those papers he's going to strangle the idiot.

He's absolutely not relieved to know the idiot's awake again.

He already knew that, because the mark's not burning.

So that light feeling in his chest is just glee at finding his target.

That's all.

He grins sharply, and picks up the pace.

They'd better make sure to leave him some.

Jiraiya sees the fire, and curses.

He is never babysitting Kakashi's brats again.

Can't leave them alone for two gods-be-damned seconds!

It's a pretty good plan, for the first thirty seconds or so.

That's about how long it takes for the enemy shinobi to show up, armed and pissed.

Natsu's kinda glad they stuffed the merchant up one of the trees, cause damn there's a lot of 'em. Way too soon, too.

And then one of them spots a Naruto clone, and everything seems to spring into action at once.

The shinobi move forward, the traps go off, the clones attack, the shinobi realize they're fighting a veritable clone army in a booby-trapped battlefield and try to retreat, and absolutely none of this was in the plan, but Natsu can't just let them run away!

He's halfway out of his hiding place when he feels Sakura-chan's hesitance, and he doesn't want to stop, but then she speaks.

"It's weird, don't you think? There's too many of them, and shinobi don't travel in large groups a lot- they'd just break into smaller teams. Do you think their base is near here? Maybe we can find it?"

Natsu freezes.

That's-

He glances at the shinobi, still fighting the clones as they retreat, and he wants to fight but he's still so sore and Sakura-chan's already talking about information and stuff they overheard and-

He grits his teeth and turns in the direction he's pretty sure most of them came from.

"Keep them busy!" he hisses to Naruto as he passes, and the blond's eyes fill with determination as he brings his hands together.

"Right!"

The forest explodes into orange as dozens of Narutos spawn into existence.

Natsu dashes forward, dodging between clones as he tries to figure out how fast they moved, how far they must have travelled, where the base is, but he's not good at this-!

Then he stumbles, trips down a gully he hadn't spotted, and finds two shinobi hastily dissembling the remains of a camp.

The shinobi explode into action, one lunging forward as the other starts making handsigns, and Sakura's cry of, "Those are fire-signs!" is just barely enough warning.

He ducks under the first shinobi's attack, lunging toward the second, and he viciously ignores the burning in their chakra pathways as he calls up his own fire, the two techniques colliding and clashing in a way he's never seen fire clash before.

They almost look physical as they slam into each other, but Natsu's better at this, whole new world or not fire is his element, and he puts it all out, the lingering magic in his own flames smothering the shinobi's, and by the end of it, the camp's remains have only been lightly singed.

Everything hurts.

But Natsu's never let pain stop him before, and he's not about to start now. He lets his momentum carry him, crashes into the second shinobi and then flips, spinning to land a foot into the side of the man's head as he scrambles to recover.

He goes down, but then the first shinobi is back on him, way too fast, and Natsu reaches for his fire but his arm burns, like a muscle pulled too far, and all he gets is a heat shimmer-

The kunai slips under his guard, and Natsu slams his arm down, blade deflecting to scrape along his forearm and bicep-

He backpedals, trying to get out of range, catches a stray thought from Sakura-chan about the curse-mark making the chakra strain worse, grits his teeth, and kicks fire.

The second kunai clips his bangs, strands of pink hair drifting loose across his nose, but he's out of range and the shinobi's eying his legs warily.

Natsu grins and refuses to let his muscles tremble.

Fights aren't fun if they're not challenging, after all.

He grabs a kunai of his own, so comfortable in Sakura-chan's grip but so strange if he thinks about it-

So Natsu doesn't think.

Instinct is all he's ever needed to fight, and if Sakura-chan's own instincts are good with a kunai that's enough for him.

He goes on the offensive.

His arm burns inside and outside, two bleeding scrapes and an ache nowhere he can physically point to, but the strike didn't dig deep enough to make him falter, and all he really needs is a way to deflect the enemy's blade without slicing himself up.

Kami-sama but he misses his scales.

He imagines them, creeping up his neck and down his arms and protecting his skin, and then hastily shakes off the thoughts when those areas start to burn from the inside as well.

And he thought Edolas was bad.

At this point, Natsu's pretty sure having no magic was easier than having such an incompatible half-mix of magic and chakra.

He dodges a swipe at his face, flips the kunai he's holding into a more angled grip, and stabs. The blade sinks in.

He must not be very good, Natsu thinks distantly as the man yanks his arm back instead of to the side, tearing a large gash down his entire forearm.

Natsu'd expected him to dodge entirely.

His kunai slips free from the base of the man's palm, as the shinobi continues to stumble backwards, and Natsu's holding a blade dripping blood and he's frozen.

He didn't dodge.

Stabbing people is usually Erza's thing. And even then, she never stabs anywhere that would leave this much blood.

It's a stupid thing to freeze over, Natsu thinks distantly, as the shinobi curls his arm up and pulls a kunai with his left hand.

Then the man lunges forward and Natsu snaps out of it, bringing his blade up to guard-

His hand, actually, empty of a blade because he must have dropped it, shit-!

Sasuke slams into the shinobi, an aerial tackle that sends the man crashing into the ground with enough force that Natsu hears something crack.

The man's unconscious when Sasuke gets up.

Still breathing, but his arm's laying at his side now, spilling blood quickly enough that Natsu wonders if they've killed him anyway.

Sasuke stares at the blood a second too long, something haunted in his glowing red eyes, before he sharply jerks his gaze away and towards the remains of the camp.

"Help me look for the papers." he all but snaps, and-

Natsu's not sure if he wants to ignore this, but Sasuke's arms are trembling, and he's all but peppered in wounds only half-treated and-

Well.

Natsu's always thought of himself as a simple enough guy.

Team first.

Friends first.

Everyone else second.

He grits his teeth, steps around the steadily-growing pool of blood, and grabs Sasuke's arm.

"You're hurt."

Sasuke stills, breathing just slightly too hard.

He shakes his head. "There's some papers - that shinobi ran off with them. We need to find them. They're important-"

"Not as important as you." Natsu interrupts. "They're not going to grow legs and run away. You're hurt. I'm hurt. Let's worry about that first, and then we can go looking for those papers. Alright?"

Sasuke spins to look at him, Sharingan-eyes bright, and Natsu sees when his gaze locks onto the two gashes on his arm.

The Uchiha clenches his jaw, and jerks his arm out of Natsu's grip.

"Fine. But we'd better be fast, before the dobe runs out of clones to distract those guys with."

Natsu's a little shocked, and Sakura's presence stutters with worry.

He tries not to think about how she was gushing a few seconds ago, girls are weird.

"Jiraiya's not here yet?"

"I didn't see him." Sasuke responds, holding steady as Natsu tries to patch a scrape on his collarbone.

The mage curses and picks up the pace.

Rushed medical care is better than no medical care, or something like that, he figures, and Sasuke must agree because he's just as quick slapping bandages on Natsu's arm.

Then they're done, and Natsu glances between Sasuke and the distant sound of dozens of Narutos screaming in fury.

He breathes in through his nose, regrets it when all he smells is blood, and breathes out sharply. "Let's tie them up, then you go help Naruto. Sakura-chan and I can look for the papers."

The words come out bitten-off, sharper than intended, he wants to fight.

But Sakura-chan has an idea, and even if he doesn't want to admit it he's pretty sure he needs a solid twelve hours of sleep before he's really in any shape to fight again, and Sasuke's hurt but not badly so-

It's the best division they've got.

Tastes like ash to say though.

Sasuke must read it all on him though, because the Uchiha just sighs and nods, pulling a coil of ninja wire out of his pouch.

"I saw the first sheet - it was just a list of goods, with some annotations that were probably in code. I couldn't make sense of them, but the rest of the papers should help. There were eleven sheets."

Natsu nods sharply. "We'll find 'em. Go help Naruto."

Sasuke takes off as quickly as he arrived, and Natsu surveys the ruined camp.

"So what're you thinking here, Sakura-chan?"

"W-well- um- I don't really know how- uh, that is…"

Natsu tilts his head a little. "You don't need to be nervous! I'm bad at all this economics stuff, so I don't really think I have room to judge here."

He gets the impression of Sakura-chan taking a deep breath.

"Alright. So- we know those merchants were all smuggling. And we know that all of them were involved in something. And it was- hard, when you ran into that building and I know I stopped looking after a bit but I saw some insignias and I think I recognized them? Some of them anyway. One of them had the marks of the Ton'ya, they're a really big merchant clan, one of the few that actually operate in multiple countries? Um. There were, uh, classes on it, for Kunoichi-"

"That's cool. So what's special about these tonya guys then?" Natsu crouches down, sorting through some of the supplies.

"Ton'ya, you can't just slur it together like that-!" Sakura huffs, "anyway, they're an international trading clan right? They got those rights at the end of the last war, the Daimyo were all worried about how much damage it had caused, and they practically forced the shinobi to accept such a thing in order to repair the economy. And since everyone was fresh out of the third shinobi war, no one wanted to go to war with the Daimyo too, right? Especially since the Samurai clans in the land of Iron were being very supportive of the idea. S-so- uh- anyway-"

Sakura stutters to a stop as Natsu hums consideringly at some papers. He's not really sure what makes a shipping list different from a grocery list, but he figures he should just take every paper he finds maybe.

Better safe than sorry.

"Sakura-chan?" he prompts after another minute, when she doesn't say anything.

"Oh! Right, um, where did I- right. So anyway, no one really liked the idea of a single merchant group working in all the countries, that's a huge security risk - I think the shinobi figured that at least it was easier to trust native merchants not to betray you, but people who worked so internationally couldn't be trusted? Basically, what I'm saying is shinobi don't trade with the Ton'ya. Ever. Most shinobi villages even have their own merchant clans, and they basically blatantly refuse to use the Ton'ya's services at all. I'm sure Hokage-sama keeps an eye on them, they're a big threat, but no one hires them. So, it's a bit strange that these shinobi did, right? Like really really strange."

"Ooooh, so you think they're up to something. Like something a lot bigger than just some smuggling for extra cash?"

"Exactly. It's a pretty universal thing, that the shinobi all consider the Ton'ya an insult to their system. And if a shinobi did decide to take advantage of a clan like that, well. Kinda hard to believe they'd do it just for innocent trade."

"Especially since the shinobi killed off all the merchants."

"Yeah."

Natsu nods, because yeah, Sakura-chan's making a lot of sense.

But he's still a bit confused, because, "Wouldn't… those Daimyo guys be really upset if they found out a shinobi was killing their special merchant group?"

Sakura's silent for a really long time, but Natsu's found a new stack of papers and ends up a bit distracted as he tries to fit them all in his kunai pouch.

It's almost surprising when she starts talking again.

"I- I don't really- I mean, we don't know who those guys are, right? They had blank headbands. If Konoha got blamed for it-"

That's not a pretty thought.

Natsu doesn't like Konoha, really, and if they disappeared it'd be a lot easier to take his team with him back to Fairy Tail, but this world-

He's pretty sure disappeared would mean slaughtered to the last and-

He doesn't want that.

He glances back to the two shinobi they'd captured, sighing in relief when they're both still breathing.

Must have tied everything tight enough.

He goes back to digging through the luggage, but he's pretty sure he's found everything worth finding.

That's how Jiraiya finds him, one kid under each arm and an unconscious merchant thrown over his shoulder, killing intent all but boiling off him.

That's also about when Natsu remembers that he and Naruto completely disregarded the man's orders.

"Oh shit-!" he tries to bolt, and all but slams into the ground when Jiraiya's foot stomps into his back.

"Going somewhere?" the man asks, tone so cheery Natsu's pretty sure it loops all the way back around into pissed off.

He gulps.

The pressure increases.

Natsu laughs nervously, face smushed into the dirt.

"You're welcome?" he tries to say, but then there's dirt in his mouth and he's pretty sure it's not understandable at all.

The killing intent increases.

Sakura-chan very blatantly moves away, he can practically feel her plugging her ears and singing, "la la laaaa~" as she leaves.

He wonders if Jiraiya will believe it was an accident.