"..." Normal chat.
ABC. Thought.
Chapter 12
Before saying this, I was ready to be lectured about my responsibilities as a Shinobi. To be called a coward for only thinking about myself. Even spending a whole night long just to figure out a way to counter Kakashi's cross-question.
"Oh? Any specific reason for that?"
Yet the only reaction I get is him tilting his head to one side and an usual deadpanned face.
"Well, I really can't tell you much but... This is really important and I hope that you can trust me on this."
After hearing my explanation, not a good one to be honest, Kakashi takes out his notebook and writes something into it.
"Is this counted as the third condition?"
Therefore I shake my head in response.
"Alright then. Just so you know, this is not something to be done in one or two days. I will inform you once there's news about it."
Kakashi puts notebook back inside his jacket and vanishes from the spot. Probably on the way to his next assignment, and he seems to be in a hurry, too.
Wow... That went much easier than I expected? Is this even normal?
It takes me a minute to return to reality and I get back inside my room. Too tired to change into pjama or take a bath, I jump straight onto my newly bought bed to look for a little comfort.
What's left to do is to inform the others. But how am I suppose to do it probably?
Should I tell them now or wait for Kakashi to do the dirty work? Hopefully things won't get too awkward between us after I leave the team...
By afternoon I'm awaken by loud bangs on my door. And it turns out to be Naruto, who is eager to train for the upcoming Chuunin exam and decides that I should be coming along. In hope that we will somehow figure out a combination attack for ourselves. Like how he did with Sasuke.
Then he proceeds dragging both Sakura and Sasuke, who are enjoying their peaceful walk on the street, to join him. Because the more, the merrier or so he claims.
And now everyone is here, except for Kakashi, gathering at the third training ground and discussing on how we should split the team into a group of two, one male and one female, for practice matches.
Ugh! I know that it's going to be tough. But this is way too much.
During the whole time I haven't found a chance to talk about it to everyone. Because I keep holding myself back whenever seeing Naruto's overly enthusiastic face.
Let's just leave it for another day...
"Naruto and I shall be a team. How does that sound?"
It's been a while and their debate has yet come to an end. So I conclude it for the team by picking Naruto as my training partner. Therefore he agrees, since it's his intention to train with me begin with.
"It's settled then!"
Sakura's happy with this vote as she has been itching to be grouped with Sasuke. It's easy to guess by reading her face expression, which is rotating 360 degrees whenever either Naruto or Sasuke is suggested to be her partner.
"Picking on the weak now, huh?"
Suddenly Sasuke speaks to me, yet his tone sounds more like an insult than expressing his dissatisfaction with the *unfairly* distribution.
"Sakura can team up with Naruto. And you're coming with me."
Then he proceeds demanding for a partner swap. Too bad for him, none of us wants to make a change. And the reason is quite obvious.
"Bastard, who are you calling weak!"
Naruto erupts immediately after hearing Sasuke's little taunt.
"Naruto isn't weak. And as far as I know, he's way stronger than you are."
I step in between the two and drag Naruto away from a potential verbal fight, paying no mind to Sasuke's burning glare from behind.
"Bleh!"
Upon seeing Sasuke's grumpy face, Naruto grins viciously and starts throwing harmless insults to make fun of him.
"Drop it, Naruto. We're not here to watch you two fight over silly things."
Despite being told to stop pouring fuel into the fire, he keeps on going until Sakura rushes over and punches his head for being too annoying.
"Oh really? Do you want to bet?"
Then, Sasuke walks up to us and invites Naruto to a one on one battle.
"You're on! If I win, you will have to call me Naruto-sama for the rest of your life!"
Of course, Naruto isn't someone who is going to back down from a challenge, especially from his ultimate rival.
"And if I win, you will be the ultimate loser for the rest of your life."
When their deal is done, Sasuke takes a few steps away and pulls out his Kunai.
Oh boy, I have a very bad feeling about this... I watch the two of them getting into their positions speechlessly.
Therefore the girls are standing at the side of the battle ring. Acting as the audiences and judges for those burning in fire of youths fighting for their Shinobi's prides.
"Do your best, Sasuke-kun!"
As always, Sakura cheers for her crush with one hundred percent confident that he will win easily.
"Jeeze, Naruto. Do something or you're going to be a loser forever."
While I'm starting to regret for stating my opinion out loud without thinking. Sighing from time to time since it's already fifteen minutes into the fight and Naruto has not able to land a proper hit.
Because it seems that Sasuke has gotten familiar with Naruto's overused tactics and found a way to deal with him. He gets around with Naruto's clone and pin points the real one with ease, all thanks to that damned Kekkei Genkai of his.
"Brr... Clang!"
Within the noises of clashing weapons, Naruto and Sasuke shouting each other names and their special moves. A sound of a heavy object fall onto the background catches my attention almost instantly and I turn to Sakura.
"Hey Sakura, did you hear that?"
However, Sakura's too focus on the battle to notice anything around her.
It's not too far away from where we are standing, maybe I should go take a look.
So I quietly moves away from the battleground to search for the source of that mysterious sound. And the further I walk, the louder it gets and there seems to be other mechanical noises as well. Soon, I reach to the spot and...
Oh. My. God.
Standing before me are three human-shaped figures, painted in white and as tall as an human adult. They seem to be made out of material that looks like steel but much more durable. But the most important thing is, they are heavily armed.
It's them! You have got to be kidding me.
My heart begins to race when that surge of memories start flowing back to my brain. Feeling weak from the past trauma, I have to lean on a tree nearby to keep myself from collapsing.
Why here? Why now?
I cover my mouth to calm myself, but it cannot drive away the fear that is eating me alive from the inside.
How the heck did they get in without being noticed?! Isn't Konoha being heavily guarded right now?
Carefully I crawl my way toward to their spot to see clearer. Can't help but feeling confused by their odd appearances.
Perhaps it's better if these things aren't being noticed. Saving me the trouble and time from having to explain crazy stories to Kakashi.
Peeking out from a tree nearby, I see that those machines are scanning the area around them. By using laser created from their red giant eye in the middle of their heads. And it clears that they're searching for something, which is me.
They are the same model as the ones Ryu and I fought against back at the lab.
While Ryu can defeat an army of these by himself using Dragon sword and his overpowered Ninpo, I can't do the same and sure as hell don't own or know how to wield a freaking Dragon sword.
What's left to rely on is that technique with the Twin Daggers. But I do not have energy to sustain it long enough to take them down.
First thing first, I have to lead them out of the village without being noticed. Since I do not want to cause a big ruckus and gain unnecessary attentions from the other forces that have yet to appear.
"Beep! Target I.D: No.9 is located. Confirming coordination..."
Wait... What did it just say?
Turned out that while I was swimming in thoughts, their lasers had gone through where I was hiding and scanned me from head to toes.
Crap! I have to get out of here!
The moment turning around to make a run for my life, I'm grabbed from behind by one of their extended automatic arms.
"Target's secured. Preparing to depart."
By now the rest of the team 7 have noticed Nina's absence and begins to look for her.
Earlier, both Naruto and Sasuke weren't able to settle out their bets, as they had to drop the fight due to Naruto's constant nagging about finding their missing kunoichi.
"Uhm... I think that she said something about hearing a strange sound?"
Said Sakura when she's asked about her last conversation with Nina before her sudden disappearance.
"Ouch! Let go of me!"
Once picking up Nina's shouting from afar, they accelerate.
"She's over there!"
And when they reach to her, Nina's already been captured by something that looks like walking cyborgs that weighted over tons. Long arms and legs, equipped with a giant round eye made out of glass in the middle of their heads.
As if these things have just stepped out of sci-fi channels and comic books.
"Kage Bunshin No Jutsu!"
Naruto's the first to act by summoning multiples of his shadow clones and dashing forward to attack the robots.
"Danger's alerted! Activating self-defense system!"
One of the robots shoots a long line of red colored energy beam out of its eye and eliminates everything across its path, including Naruto's clones. It only misses the real one's head by several inches.
That strange light keeps going until it reaches to a tree far behind them and creating a hole through the body. Burning it down into ashes by progress.
"W-What the heck was that?!"
Naruto trembles in fear after witnessing such high-tech power that he has never encountered before.
"No idea. But I can clearly see that you're not supposed to get hit by that abomination."
When it's Sasuke's turn, he throws several shuriken attached with string at their legs. Once making sure having a strong grip on them, Sasuke uses all of his strength and pulls.
"Ugh!"
Yet Sasuke becomes the one to be pulled forward due to their insane strength. To escape, he let go of the rope and jumps off before being smashed into lump of meat under the robot's feet.
"Please, just go! You guys can't win against them!"
Not wanting her teammates to be involved in her overly complicated personal matter, Nina begs them to leave.
"Come on, Naruto."
Figures that they cannot charge into the fight without a proper plan, Sakura urges Naruto to go and they withdraw up on one of the tree branches nearby.
"Just so you know, I'm not leaving her."
Naruto states before anyone of them can speak.
"But we can't blindly jump at them, idiot. Didn't you see what it did with its eye?"
Sakura has to remind Naruto that he will get everyone killed if doing something stupid, since he has always been the hot-headed one in the team.
"One of them is already stronger than the three of us combined."
Yet there has to be three of them. And as much as Sasuke doesn't want to admit, those creepy steel dolls are too much for them to handle.
"Then... What should we do?!"
Right now they have zero knowledge about their enemy. There's no plan, no supervisor, not even fully prepared for a difficult battle since what they had in mind when first coming here was to train for the Chuunin exam.
"Pzzt! Pzzt!"
Meanwhile, the robots are creating a black hole about their sizes by combining each other's energy. Shocking everyone, including Nina.
Ignoring the aggressive shinobi who are prying on them up on the tree branches, the robots carry their main objective into the dark gate and vanish.
Taking the chance that it's still open, Naruto attempts to follow but is stopped by Sakura's call.
"Wait, Naruto! L-Let's stay calm and report back to Kakashi-sensei, okay? I'm sure he will find a way to help."
As he's about to open his mouth to object, Sakura explains her reason.
"Trust me, I want to save her as much as you do. But this situation is getting out of our hands now. And god knows where that thing will lead us to."
She's scared when recalling to their prior mission which they're almost get killed by Zabuza and Haku. And that was when they already had Kakashi to back them up.
"There is no time for that! Can't you see it's closing?! If we give up now, we may not be able to see her ever again!"
However, Naruto's too stubborn to listen to any logical reasons and turns away from them. He points at the black hole floating in the middle of the air up ahead, which is getting smaller by seconds and says.
"I'm going in there to save her."
Then, Naruto dashes straight into the black hole, and following him right behind is Sasuke. Despite her desperate calls for them to stop.
"Naruto! Sasuke-kun!"
Watching her teammates disappear into the black hole before her eyes, Sakura groans.
Even if I stay behind to get help, I won't be able to know where to find them!
Sakura keeps debating whether she should turn around. And it's not until the gate's about to close completely that she chooses to follow their path as well.
"Guys! W-Wait for me! I'm coming too!"