"I thought I hated Shino's bugs more than any others!" Naruto shouted as he, Shikamaru, Ino, and Fuu ran away from a swarm of larger than normal bees that were doggedly pursuing them through the trees, "Why is this happening?"
"I thought I hated my bug more than any other!" Fuu responded in kind, turning her head to see that they were still just out of range of reaching them and possibly stinging them. She didn't want to stop and find out if they could pierce her Tekiousei-Tai (Adaptable Body) as she had been dealing with too many surprises when it came to her natural defense after going to the chunin exams, "What are we going to do about this?"
Those bees weren't natural, they couldn't be. For an attack like that there had to be a hive, for there to be a hive there would have been way more bees, and these bees were bigger than even bumblebees but looked like hornets. They weren't swarming, and they seemed organized, like they had been given orders.
Yeah… because before that they were surrounding them, just looking at them and waiting on them to make a move. Normal bees did not act that way.
"These are summon creatures!" Shikamaru exclaimed, turning his head for a moment to glare back at the bees as they ran, "They have a ninja giving them orders, it's the only way this whole thing can keep being coordinated in real-time! But where? And how are we going to get to who it is even if…" He then stopped and took a glance at his two teammates, "Ino I need you to use your new jutsu and Naruto use your echolocation jutsu to nail this guy!"
"What?" Both blondes said before sparing each other a glance, Ino glaring at Naruto and Naruto turning his eyes away from her, wishing that someone that close to him wouldn't look at him the way others used to.
"Hurry up before we get stung by the stupid things already!" Fuu shouted authoritatively at them.
"Fine." Reluctantly, Ino hopped onto Naruto's back and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist to make sure her body would be secure, "Don't you drop me or I swear to Kami I'll-."
"I won't, I promise." What was with that? Ino had done this a million times with him and Naruto had never dropped her or let her get hurt while she wasn't in her body. He took that very seriously. He didn't want to think about Ino mistrusting or hating him that much, and simply put his mind to locating the summoner of the hornet swarm.
PING
He didn't feel just trees blocking his signal nor did he merely sense the hornets, he sensed a person's body.
"Ino-chan seven o'clock, behind us!" Naruto whispered to her, speeding up to make sure the added weight of Ino didn't slow him down and get them caught.
She turned around but couldn't see any person, just the bees and the trees that were there the whole time, "I can't see anyone! Are you sure?" Ino already had her hand-seals halfway formed and didn't want to leave her body just for mere speculation.
So now she didn't trust his senses when he used his jutsu? Naruto grit his teeth, but let his hands go from Ino's thighs to form a quick Kage Bunshin that ran with them a short ways before sharply turning around, "Follow the clone then, he knows where!"
Ino nodded and finished her jutsu, "Shinjoueishin no Jutsu (Mind Body Projection Jutsu)!" Ino's spirit jumped out of her body in visible specter form and she followed after Naruto's Kage Bunshin as it brazenly jumped through the wave of bees, pointing towards the unseeable person before being destroyed by the deadly stings. Ino followed the exact direction that the clone had been pointing in blindly, but smiled when she saw the leaves rustle, signifying him changing direction.
Now all she had to do was chase him, and she could fly through the tree trunks in that form. But just as she started chasing, her spirit disappeared from the forest with a pop, returning instantly back to her body which stirred with a gasp and a start, "I saw him! I almost had him but he bugged out and ran away when I started chasing after him." She said with a bit of regret as to her limited range when it came to her latest jutsu.
"It's okay Ino-chan." Naruto said with a grin, "At least we know that the bastard is running now. So let's stop him."
Oh, so he was still being ever the sweetie in the hopes that she'd stop being mad at him. His dedication to having her forgive him was admirable but it would take more than that to get Yamanaka Ino off of one's back. Speaking of getting off of someone's back, "You can let me down now, I can run on my own."
"Eh?" Naruto said, blushing slightly at realizing that he actually was still holding Ino on his back and his hands were placed rather high up under her thighs to keep her in place, "Well what about our combination? We can't really do it if we're not close."
At hearing of a combination move and remembering what they had been working on, Ino's eyes widened and she hurriedly started making her hand-seals, "Ah, you're right! Okay, let's go! Dokugiri (Poison Mist)!"
Naruto had already drawn his machete and mid-leap from branch to branch, he turned in the air and started swinging it by its chain like a fan blade, "Suishinki Haretsu Bunkatsu-sen (Propeller Burst Splitter)!"
Naruto's cyclone of wind that shot out from the windmill motion combined with the purple poison smog from Ino's mouth, blowing it directly onto the hornets. The many that avoided being cut down by the loose little blades of wind that came with the technique were killed by Ino's poison, dropping from the sky in droves and saving the four chunin from a painful demise.
Not missing a beat once the hornets were disposed of, Shikamaru stopped on a branch and immediately began heading back the other way with Naruto, Ino still on his back, moving right along with him, "Naruto can you still find him? We can't let a ninja with a cloaking jutsu stay around here."
"If we can get close enough I can." Naruto said with a frown on his face as he kept releasing pulses of sonar to try and find the jerk that had sicced bees on them, "The trees are in my way and I can't find things through solid objects."
"Follow me!" Ino took the lead at that point to show them the direction that she had last come into contact with the enemy ninja.
A bit behind them, Fuu stood there on the branch that Shikamaru had turned around on thinking to herself, 'I should just go back to Taki, it's not my mission to fight anyone… but can I really just leave them like that?' She shook her head of the thought and then followed hurriedly to catch up with Team 10, "I couldn't do something like that could I? We are… friends after all."
XxX
Kurobachi was busy taking a tactical retreat away from those Konoha brats that somehow managed to find him. It seemed more like a guess at first, but it was a damn good guess. He didn't know what would have happened if that blonde girl's little ghost thing hit him but from the way she was pursuing after him it was obvious he wouldn't have wanted to find out.
A trio of punks had stopped his hornets, and how had they even seen him to begin with? And now they were following him! He could tell he was being tailed!
All of this just to find a stupid entrance to this village. But it served a purpose. If it was well-known how to reach Takigakure then it would have been destroyed by now, there was no doubt about it. Iwa would have crushed Taki first during the last war instead of getting dragged into the drawn out war that had occurred with Konoha.
In the middle of his thinking, he didn't seem to notice a pair of blonde boys drop down from the canopy above him with machetes drawn, almost until it was too late.
Naruto and a clone fell from the sky, cutting right through Kurobachi in one pair of slashes before the man's body seemed to turn into beeswax, "Damn clone! I fell for the decoy!" At that moment, Shikamaru tackled Naruto and the clone to the ground before a dozen stingers could hit them, "Ugh… thanks."
"No problem." Shikamaru said, helping Naruto and his clone up as the original kept searching around for the bastard again that had substituted himself with that fake, "Do you have anything?" He asked as Ino landed nearby them. Shikamaru then noticed Naruto grit his teeth, "What's the matter?"
"He's going back the way he had been coming before, for Fuu this time." Who would be crazy enough to actually head back towards Fuu? That did not seem like a smart course of action for any ninja to make, no matter who they were.
Ino seemed ready for more dealing with pests judging from the way she reached towards her supply pouch to grab a few poison smoke bombs, "More stupid bees…"
True to her statement, there were bees hovering all around them. At the moment, Naruto felt like it was his fault due to the fact that he had thought he had felt the actual Kurobachi instead of just his clone. Otherwise the trap wouldn't have even happened. There was space being rented out in his head in regards to the whole situation with Ino. There had been all the way to Taki. But he had to set that aside or else they'd get killed.
'Get your damn head in the game already!' Naruto screamed to himself mentally, 'You might feel bad about Ino-chan hating us for leaving, but you'll feel even worse if everyone gets killed because you can't focus!'
"These bees…" Shikamaru said slightly warily of what strategy would be used here, "They've got explosive tags tied to their abdomens."
Another pulse of his sonar jutsu to ensure that there were no nasty surprises waiting for them showed Naruto that there were two more enemies with different signatures from the man that they had chased to that point. Gritting his teeth angrily, Naruto pointed in the location close to the forest floor where he could feel two signatures.
Ino didn't even need to hear him speak to know what he was alluding to and quickly hurled her poison-containing orb in that direction only for the bees that had been surrounding them to move away and form a wall to protect the two mystery ninja at the cost of their own lives, and at the cost of the explosive attack as the explosive tags burned down and exploded, rocking the quiet forest with a blast.
"Stop using that stupid jutsu to hide!" Naruto shouted, taking advantage of the lack of bees to subvert him. Dropping down to the ground and rushing ahead with his machete he drew back and swung at seemingly nothing but a shimmer in the air, "I can feel you there you bastard!"
Upon being discovered and attacked, instead of wasting chakra to keep up his cloaking jutsu, Jibachi, the blonde bee summoner, simply dropped the technique as he jumped away from Naruto's slash, "Ooh. Kids like you shouldn't be so violent." He taunted until he found himself frozen in place, "What the-?"
"Good work Naruto!" Shikamaru said, holding the rat seal from his place on the forest floor, having used Kagemane no Jutsu while the imminent threat of Naruto was rampant. Instead of just moving his shadow around to try and flank the man, Shikamaru had his shadow hitch a ride with Naruto's shadow, getting a short jump and a shorter distance to risk being discovered from when it chose to make its approach on Jibachi, "Don't waste time finishing this guy! Find the other one before someone gets hurt! I'll finish this guy!"
With a nod, Naruto quickly broke off to locate the next enemy per Shikamaru's instructions, knowing that he had the situation handled.
"Damn…" Jibachi said, finding himself completely unable to move, "You think you've won don't you Nara-kid?" He asked, beginning to percolate his chakra for one surprise attack, the only move he could make with his body frozen as it was.
"Nope." Shikamaru replied as a portion of shadow began to creep up Jibachi's body in the form of a hand that was moving for his neck, "I'm about to though." The hand of shadow clutched tightly around Jibachi's throat, making him feel as if his neck was in a powerful grip that was choking the life from him, "Kage-Kubishibari no Jutsu (Shadow-Neck Binding Jutsu)."
With a sharp crack, Jibachi's neck bent harshly to the side and what little outside of the panic that was left in his eyes left with the rest of the life in them. Shikamaru sighed and let his shadow retract before turning to locate Naruto and/or Ino, "I never get used to that…"
XxX
(With Naruto and Ino)
Fighting his way back through the multitudes of bees proved to be more difficult that Naruto figured it would be to catch back up with the large bearded bee user and the third person that he had sensed with the one Shikamaru had dealt with.
It was absurdly so though.
Naruto had to run in the middle of a living shield comprised of more than a dozen shadow clones, all jumping through the forest making sure that the original Naruto in the middle of them did not get stung by the countless bees pursuing and moving around them angrily.
The fact that these bees shot their stingers made the entire pursuit more miserable than before. Clones that had good aim with their machetes and were able to cut hornets before they got close enough to directly sting them were then covered in thick honey resulting from the bees' destruction, thus making them sitting ducks for the stingers that they had been trying to avoid.
"Naruto…"
Naruto almost tripped on a branch upon hearing Ino's voice in his mind as clear as day, "Ino?" He couldn't see her though.
"It's Yamanaka Clan Telepathy… heh. Daddy finally started teaching me a jutsu instead of me teaching myself. Cool huh?" Despite what she said, she didn't sound that fine at all, "Look, I just wanted to say that I'm still mad at you and Shika… but you don't owe me anything. This year has been awesome and I guess teams can't stick together once they start heading up the ladder. Thanks for always being sweet."
The first time Ino decided to try using this new jutsu of hers and she was using it to apologize? Apparently the link wasn't two ways since she couldn't hear his own thoughts even when he tried to project them, nor could she somehow hear him try to speak, "Ino! What are you talking about? Now isn't really the time to say anything like this you know!" Couldn't it wait until after the mission was over, or at least until they had beaten these bee-using chumps?
The only reason he could think of as to why she would say such a thing was in case she figured that she wouldn't be getting another chance to do so… perhaps because of her own impending demise.
"No!" Naruto yelled, sending out pulse after pulse of sonar jutsu as his eyes started to turn red and his whisker marks began to deepen on his face. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes as his speed began to increase past what the swarms of bees were able to keep pace with as he tried to head back to find his wayward female teammate. This definitely wasn't going to be the way it ended after everything that had happened.
"Still just a baby that can't do or save anything on his own." The dark voice inside of his mind chuckled, further fueling Naruto's growing rage, "Now then… who do you want to kill?"
XxX
(With Ino)
Ino's eyes were half-lidded as she sat stuck to the ground by a tree covered in the honey from many destroyed bees as many more of them flew all over the area. In her mouth she had several visible senbon needles, one of which she spat directly at the easiest to target bee, getting it to explode in honey. She had fought off as many as she could on her own until she ran out of poison smoke bombs to take them down with like pesticide, and then it had been hand-to-hand and targeting which became her downfall.
'Stupid suicide trap bees…' She thought to herself as three stingers were fired at her and hit her, going along with the ones she already had in her. Ino let out a grunt of pain but spat two more needles and took out some more bees accurately.
Her breathing began to labor and eventually she lost the strength to hold the needles in her mouth any longer as they fell to the ground, effectively taking the only weapon she had left at her immediate disposal from her. She couldn't pull her arms off of the ground due to the honey and the bee stings were working her over.
"Wow. You should be dead by now."
Ino's half-closed eyes panned up to see a woman in a specialized kimono with a very short skirt, and neck-length brown hair. Without even letting any time pass, Ino used her very last senbon, one she kept underneath her tongue just in case, and spit it at the woman, narrowly missing her neck.
Suzumebachi was surprised at Ino's last attempt to fight back, just as much as she was surprised by Ino taking so many bee stings, but smirked when she saw the blonde girl's head fall forward. Suzumebachi touched at Ino's neck to find her pulse and found that she was still alive, "With all of the poison from the hornets in her system she should have been long dead."
Ino used too many ingredients in her own concoctions and just so happened to have built up a bit of an immunity to poisons that could be found un-tampered with in nature, even hornet's poison. Still, her body took the effects of it, it was only that such a thing wouldn't easily kill her.
"You could be pretty useful alive as a prisoner though." Pondered Suzumebachi before calling upon the hornets around her to begin to crowd Ino's body, constructing something solid around her entire frame, "Even if you aren't useful to this mission… you are from Konoha, and from a prominent clan Little Miss Yamanaka. That has to mean something to Iwa I imagine."
XxX
(With Fuu)
Great, so in her endeavor to try and meet up with Team 10 after she almost had thoughts of leaving them, Fuu wound up running into another swarm of bees that sent her in the other direction. Her retreat back led her to come across the bodies of the Taki team that had given her the orders to lead Team 10 towards Konoha so that the entrance to Takigakure wasn't compromised.
'Oh no…' Fuu thought to herself, stopping momentarily to look over the bodies, 'Yeah… they were stung.' It was strange because more than a few months ago she wouldn't have cared any less that they were dead. She might have even spared a smirk. She then noticed the captain of the squad encased in beeswax and shook her head at the position of his head and neck. The suicide move that many upper-level Taki ninja knew.
"They didn't want to give up the location to their village you know."
Fuu heard that echoing voice and immediately headed off in the direction of it, a touch of anger running through her system. She might not have liked them that much, but they were still her villagers and none of them had ever been the ones to 'test' her special abilities when she was a little girl. They had been alright with her.
And besides, if anyone was going to beat up and possibly kill anyone in her village it was going to be her damn it. She was the one that had more right to than anyone else.
Eventually, Fuu came across a structure that she knew for sure wasn't there before. The forests around her village were well scouted in case anyone ever got close to discovering Taki's entrance by accident and she would have known full well if there had ever been an oversized hive made out of rock. A sneer crossed Fuu's face as she moved to demolish that piece of crap until the voice spoke up again, "Stop right there for just a moment."
Fuu did just that as she saw two people standing on the top of the hive along with another figure that seemed to be cocooned in beeswax. A large cloak wearing man with a beard and black hair and a woman with brown hair and a short kimono, "Why should I stop? I'm just a few steps away from rearranging your faces for life."
Suzumebachi smirked and pulled away some of the beeswax from the figure that was on top of the hive with them to reveal it to be Ino, "Because if you can live with having some girl that has nothing to do with this' blood on your hands, I wonder what kind of person that makes you."
"It's simple really." Kurobachi said calmly, having drawn a kunai that he held above Ino's head, "All we want to know is the location of the entrance to Takigakure. Once we have that information we can leave. No one else has to suffer."
'Yet.' Fuu thought to herself. Due to the location of the lands that happened to be Takigakure's main operating area and the fact that it and Iwagakure were the two closest hidden villages in existence by a large margin, the fact that Iwa did not have Taki's location was something that kept an unstable balance between the two that kept war from breaking out between them, as the two constantly stepped on one another's toes and were constantly at odds during missions.
The fact that Iwa couldn't locate Taki was the only thing that kept the larger and more powerful village from simply beginning a war against them and wiping them out in quick order before their ally Konoha could turn around and come to their defense. Without the anonymity of their village's location there would be nothing stopping it.
But it was Ino there. And while she didn't know the girl all that well outside of the few times they had spoken it was obvious that she was Naruto's friend, his close friend. And he was her friend too. Despite herself she liked the younger brat of a jinchuuriki, even with all of his past attempts to obnoxiously get her to hug him.
"Even if you didn't care for this girl's life." Suzumebachi said as multiple hornets started emerging from the hive, settling over the area, "Attacking us wouldn't be wise anyway. But like we've said, we're not here to fight. All we want is a little information. That's all."
Being surrounded by the hornets once again got Fuu to feel a bit smothered and crowded. The buzzing felt like the suspicious whispers of the villagers from her past. Her breathing started to get a little heavier and heavier and her chakra started to spike a bit in lieu of the growing tension and potential hostility, "It's either watch the friend of a friend die, or betray a village that doesn't love me but I still hold a duty towards. Heh, either way I'm screwing myself over."
She'd be a traitor or she'd earn the outright hatred of the first person that ever gave a damn about her and her wellbeing.
"Ino!"
At that moment when Fuu heard the voice of Naruto's that she remembered from a specific point during the chunin exams she decided to make her own move then and there before the situation got even more out of control, "Hiden: Rinpungakure no Jutsu (Secret: Hiding in Scale Powder Jutsu)!" Fuu exhaled a massive amount of shining powder from her mouth that shone brightly enough to blind everyone and everything in the area.
This did not affect Naruto due to the fact that he had his goggles down around his eyes and upon entering the area wasted no time upon spotting Ino and snatching her from the top of the hive and from the clutches of the bee-users.
"It's that stupid brat again." Kurobachi said as his vision came back from Fuu's surprise attack and he was able to see again, "Using Meisaigakure no Jutsu (Hiding with Camouflage Jutsu) against that kid is a gamble, he can tell where you are somehow."
Fuu smirked at the sight of the orange aura blazing around Naruto's body as he set Ino down next to her, "Welcome back." She then addressed the ninja trying to get her village location with a much brighter outlook, "So do you really want to find my village's location so bad that you'll fight two jinchuuriki for it?" She said before she began radiating green chakra much like Naruto did, her eyes glowing green eyes not promising anything good.
The matching death auras between the two, both orange and green, were extremely intimidating to the two Iwa ninja who had two jinchuuriki of their own in Iwagakure, one of whom happened to be very dangerous even to other villagers.
"You and him?" Suzumebachi asked with wide eyes before going into denial on the matter, "There's no way you two are jinchuuriki? You're just kids!"
"Every ninja starts out as a child at first you know." Fuu taunted before from the red cylinder on her back had her chakra wings sprout and levitate her off of the ground, "Even jinchuuriki like us… even a runt like him."
Naruto ignored the good-natured jibe at his height or lack thereof and ducked down to rip the wax off of Ino, shaking her in an attempt to wake her up, "Ino-chan!" Naruto said, noticing her stir and wrinkle her nose to show that she was still alive. This got him to smile and sigh in relief.
Losing their main bargaining chip in one move, Kurobachi grit his teeth and formed hand-seals to punish the kids for their treachery, "You all made a grave mistake. I hope this was worth your lives. Hachi Senbon no Jutsu (Thousand Bee Stings Jutsu)!"
The hornets surrounding them fired their stingers at the three and attracted Naruto's attention from his teammate's wellbeing long enough to let out a deafening roar, "RAAAAAAGHHHH!" The thin orange shockwave released from his sheer, Kyuubi charged roar blew Fuu's hair and looser articles of clothing around as she had to shield her face from it and focus to keep from being blown away from him. The hornets and their launched stingers were hit with the shockwave and knocked to the ground.
Gritting her teeth as the intensity from the outburst by her fellow jinchuuriki died down, Fuu began flying forward at the stunned bee-using pair. They saw her coming and Suzumebachi managed to jump off of the hive only to see Kurobachi try to but freeze in place before he could make his jump, "What are you doing? Get down from there!"
"Can't move!" Kurobachi said, seeing a shadow stretching across the ground, linking him to something in the forest. And this left him at the mercy of the charging Fuu who had her look of anger clear on her face for the attempt at holding her hostage by her morals.
"Keshi Gomufera (Eraser Blow)!" Fuu's high speed punch, delivered with the added hardness of her body, drilled into Kurobachi and sent him flying back hard enough to fell trees as his body smashed through their trunks.
"Kurobachi!" Suzumebachi shouted before jumping into the air to avoid the shadow that just so happened to have been chasing her, dumb luck saving her from being caught and suffering the same fate as her brother. She made a different series of hand-seals and pressed her palm on the air, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!"
In a puff of smoke a giant bee with fur around its neck, a massive stinger, and a jaw full of intimidating teeth was summoned with Suzumebachi sitting in its back.
Not showing any fear as apparently both had seen and had charged at bigger opponents before, Naruto and Fuu rushed towards the creature until getting blown back by intended flaps of the giant bee's wings that kicked up a strong wind. Fuu flew back and grabbed Naruto's ankle before he could be hurt, but this allowed Suzumebachi to get distance into the air with her bee to begin flying away.
Fuu began to fly up in pursuit, but the bee spat out a massive amount of honey that covered much of the sky and forced her to turn her back to try and avoid being covered in the dangerous attack, "Damn it, she's running away!"
Shikamaru had made his way over from his ambush spot to Ino's downed form, watching as Suzumebachi's massive bee flew northwest away from them, "There's no reason to chase her." He said, not seeing or desiring any reason to continue the battle any further, "She's got nothing, and all you have to do is go home. She's the last one left and she still can't find your village. You won."
Glaring at the sky with her glowing green eyes, Fuu settled down and landed calmly on the ground, her Nanabi's chakra vanishing once more. Realizing that she was still holding onto something in one of her hands, she held up an equally Kyuubi-calmed Naruto by the ankle who just stared blankly at her until grinning at her through his goggle-clad eyes until she dropped him, "Ow."
In the end, Shikamaru couldn't really blame Suzumebachi for retreating. He himself had killed one of her teammates previously and it had been two-on-two against a pair of jinchuuriki chunin before he had ever interjected himself and assisted Fuu in easily hitting Kurobachi with a killing blow. Fighting three-on-one against a group including two jinchuuriki was not honorable, it was the epitome of suicidal.
A sigh came from Fuu, remembering seeing the bodies of her Takigakure comrades. She wished that she could have gotten the last attacker as well, but at least she got their vengeance on Kurobachi if nothing else.
With a grunt, Shikamaru picked up Ino bridal style and walked over to the pair of jinchuuriki, Naruto getting up off of the ground and dusting himself off and Fuu pondering just how she was going to tell her village leader that she was the last survivor of a squad that was dispatched only to retrieve goods from a delivery team, "You guys didn't have much of a choice, but still… thank you." Fuu said earnestly with a small smile on her face, "But now… I've got to go home and tell the higher-ups what happened. Those guys all deserve to be buried."
"Well I guess that's our cue to go home then." Shikamaru said, shifting Ino's weight in his arms and wishing that she'd wake up soon before he had to carry her halfway back to Konoha, "After this I'm not even going to bother asking if we can rest in your village… it'd be too troublesome after all of this." He finished in a grumble, hoping that they could reach the outpost town at the border by nightfall for a night with an actual bed.
While Shikamaru was making sure that he and Ino were ready for travel, Naruto turned towards Fuu and much like he seemed to try and do repeatedly when in her presence opened his arms to gesture for a hug. And just like all of the other times Fuu gave him a deadpan look, putting the two into something of a standoff until Fuu finally relented, "Okay damn it. One time is all you get and if I accidentally crush you it's not my fault."
With a grin on his face, Naruto stepped forward with full confidence, "You won't hurt me accidentally because you know I won't hurt you. I'm not a threat." With that, he wrapped his arms around the body of the tan, mint green-haired older jinchuuriki and felt her do the same, somewhat tightly, but it didn't hurt, showing that she was holding back, "Take care of yourself Fuu."
"I'll try to." She said before releasing Naruto and pushing him back to give him a look full of intent, "If you tell anyone I let you do that I'll find you and I'll-."
"-I won't tell anyone." Naruto nervously assured her, knowing that she could certainly back up the underlying threat. As Shikamaru leapt off to begin moving through the trees back towards Konoha, Naruto refrained from doing so for a minute, "Wait. Before I go. There's supposed to be a group of super-strong ninja out there that are supposed to be trying to grab the Kyuubi out of me one day."
"What are you telling me for then?" Fuu asked, "Do you want me to help you or something?"
"No, it's just…" Concern was evident on Naruto's face before he simply came out with what he was trying to say, "If they want me then they'll probably want the Nanabi too. And if they take our biju out of our bodies we'll die." Fuu nodded, having known that much already, "So I just wanted to tell you that. I don't know how strong these guys are, but they're all S-rank and that means they're all way stronger than me."
"Aww. Little runt is all worried about me." Fuu said, putting a hand on the shorter Naruto's head to ruffle his hair, "Look, your fancy trick from the chunin exams aside, I know I'm stronger than you, so don't worry about it. But I'll keep on training and stay on the lookout to keep you calm now go home kid." She finished, turning Naruto around and giving him a kick in the butt with a playful look on her face to get him to leave.
Sparing one glare behind him as he rubbed his backside from Fuu's kick, Naruto gave her a wave before taking off to follow Shikamaru.
Fuu waited for a moment until she was certain that Team 10 had indeed left the area before beginning to make her own way back to her village, "*sigh* Time to face the music I guess…"
XxX
(Skies Above the Way Back to Iwagakure)
That entire mission had fallen apart after the Takigakure captain had killed himself to keep Suzumebachi and her brothers from getting the location of the minor hidden village. And then they had engaged in battle with not just a team of Konoha chunin, but they had fought two jinchuuriki from both Taki and Konoha.
And now her brothers were dead. She had seen Jibachi's body while she had been retreating. The hopes that instead of being dead he just retreated before them were not upheld when she had seen the corpse through the trees.
Now what was she going to do? Running away was the only option that she had and the only option that she would take. Going back for revenge against Naruto and Fuu would not have ended well and she wasn't the type to kill her enemy at the cost of her own life. That was just a waste of her life and their clan didn't need to take another hit like that.
"Look at what we have here Sasori no Danna. A lost Kamizuru Clan woman, un."
In the air along with her was a very large clay bird that lowered itself from above directly in front of Suzumebachi. That clay looked familiar, and there was only one person that would have used such a thing that she as an Iwagakure ninja knew very well, "You…Deidara." Why was this traitor here? To take her down? No, she wasn't important enough at all in Iwa's hierarchy for him to go after for any kind of missing-nin vendetta.
The man Deidara had long blonde hair in a ponytail with a bang covering one blue eye underneath his straw hat, an Iwagakure headband with a slash through the village symbol on the plate, and he wore a long black cloak with red clouds all over it. Also on the bird was another man with a hunched back and angry eyes dressed exactly like Deidara with the cloak and straw hat, "I see you've had a bit of trouble with our future target, un." He quipped at Suzumebachi's defeated state, "I saw the whole thing. So much for the Kamizuru Clan eh?"
"Your target?" Suzumebachi said, confusion evident in her tone of voice, "What business would you have with Taki? You left Iwa to be a terrorist bomber."
"Not Taki, just the jinchuuriki of Taki." Deidara clarified, "The rest of that place is useless, un."
"Deidara." The other figure on the flying clay bird said to get his partner's attention in a gruff tone of voice, "We've wasted enough time here. Our mission is complete. We should return. Leader-sama should not be kept waiting."
A frown came over Deidara's youthful face before he shrugged, "I guess you're right Sasori no Danna, un. Well Suzu-chan it was nice to see you again. When you get back to Iwa to get your ass chewed out by Old Man Onoki tell him I said hi." He said before turning an about face with the bird to head off his own way.
Suzumebachi watched him go a short distance before remembering that Deidara was a criminal of the highest order, "Wait a minute! Do you really think that I'll just let you leave so easily? You stole our village's secret kinjutsu and you used it for hired terrorist bombings! You're the most wanted man in our village!"
However, Deidara didn't really pay her any attention, instead continuing to fly on ahead with Sasori.
After the horrible day that Suzumebachi had been having, being blown off by a criminal from her own village after expressly declaring that she could not and would not let him simply fly off into the sunset was simply the last straw for her, "Kyodaibachi, do not let them get away. Take Deidara down!" She shouted, and the giant queen bee began buzzing aggressively, flying straight ahead with stinger prepared to attack.
"Katsu."
Deidara made a single hand-seal and the multiple clay insects that he had secretly managed to slip onto Suzumebachi's giant bee before he made his presence known to her, just in case of hostility, exploded in a fiery blast in the sky.
A sigh came from the criminal bomber as he spared a glance back at the remnants of the explosion before turning his attention right back to flying the clay bird they were on, "Stupid girl. I was going to let you just leave. You should know better than to stand against my Shunshin no Geijutsu (Art of a Single Moment). Fools in Iwa should know by now that true art is an explosion."
"Save your stupid theatrics for idiots that care." Sasori said, as gruffly and as impatient as before, "I could walk faster than this."
"…Then why don't you, un?"
XxX
(Takigakure no Sato – Early Evening)
Fuu climbed out of the water that housed the secret tunnel that served as Takigakure's natural hidden barrier from the rest of the world and just sat on the shore, legs still in the water and her hands on her cheeks. She had informed her higher-ups of just what had happened and had led them back to the places where she found her deceased comrades. She had just finished assisting with transporting their bodies back to the village for memorial purposes and had been the last of the group back in.
What a long day.
Even though she was soaking wet and the sun was going down she didn't care at all. All of those people had died. Despite the way she used to be she had never wished to kill that many, she still kept that much of her morals about her even in her darkest of moments. And now she really felt sorrow for the deaths of those that she might have been able to save if she had been there. Wasn't that a jinchuuriki's main purpose in the first place? To serve as a deterrent and in worst case scenario as a super-soldier?
She didn't feel much like a super-anything right then as she was too late to help anyone other than Ino. At least she could take solace in the fact that things could have been worse.
"There she is!"
Fuu's head turned around quickly at that shout that she just knew was directed at her and saw dozens of villagers coming her way. Her natural reaction was to prepare her body for anything that would be coming her way as she was still uneasy with being crowded and being around many people. And aside from that, many people paying attention to her had traditionally never ended well for her. Perhaps it was finally time that they tried to take the Nanabi out to look for a new host, "Look, I'm sorry alright. I did my best and I know that it's not much that I'm the only one that came back, but-."
"She protected the village from those Iwa monsters that killed our ninja!"
"All by herself? She's a hero!"
"See mom! I told you Fuu-chan isn't bad! She's really pretty and she's strong too!" A little girl said, tugging on her mother's skirt as she pointed at Fuu.
As the villagers chattered in approval to her, Fuu had her orange eyes as wide as saucers and her mouth hanging slightly open at people actually speaking favorably of her for once, "Fuu!" Her attention was then obtained by someone making his way through the crowd to get to her.
"Houki?" Fuu said questioningly upon seeing her teammate from the chunin exams so excited. He turned out to be a very nice person that didn't hate her and was actually grateful for even getting him as far through the chunin exams as he had gotten, "W-What's going on? I'm not in trouble? They're not going to take the Nanabi out of me are they?" Taking the biju out of her would mean death.
"No! No way!" Houki said, getting a hold of Fuu's hands to help her out of the water to her feet. She was so stunned and confused that she didn't register the contact as a threat and allowed him to do so, "Everyone knows what you did out there for us by yourself. The bodies of the enemies were recovered and the recovery teams saw all of the huge bees on the ground all over the place."
"So I'm not going to be executed?" Fuu said hopefully as she was still wary of the crowd that seemed to be growing, though she could see no ire in their eyes, "People are… proud?"
"You tell me." Houki said with a grin as he still held on to Fuu's hand and lifted it into the air to get cheers from the people. Taking that moment, he whispered so that only she could hear him, "People haven't felt that way about you since you did so well during the chunin exams. The only person that beat you or even came close was that Kyuubi kid from Konoha. They were just confused on what to make of you for the longest time. You did this for yourself."
"-You're not a bad person."
"-You're just scared. But not everyone in the world wants to hurt you. Give someone a chance and you might be surprised… I know I was."
"What's the matter with Fuu-chan? Is she alright?" One of the little kids that had been hoisted up on their parent's shoulders to see over the crowd said when they saw tears start to roll down Fuu's face.
Noticing exactly what the little girl was talking about, Houki turned towards Fuu in a bit of alarm, "Fuu are you alright? You weren't hiding being hurt again were you?" No ill intent whatsoever as he looked at her. Houki never had ill intent when he looked at her. There had been fear at one time, but that was mostly because of Dorobou and not her. Other than that, Houki had been nothing less than cordial.
"I know that it sucks being by yourself. And for a long time it'll be hard trying to find someone that you can trust… but when you do I promise it makes everything better. Just… don't give up alright? You're better than that. I promise that it'll be worth it in the end if you can find someone like that."
Why did Naruto's words from after their fight in the chunin exams keep ringing out in her head? And why did they affect her like this? She was supposed to be tough; the strongest kunoichi in Taki and the biju in her body had nothing to do with it. So what did that say when she was crying like a normal woman in front of what seemed to be a fourth of the village? Last time no one saw it. This time it was happening in front of everyone. But instead of making her look weak to them all, it seemed to further humanize her in the eyes of many.
"Stupid little runt… *sniff* what does he know anyway?" Fuu said to no one in particular as she continued to unknowingly shed tears of joy.
XxX
(A Few Days Later – Konohagakure no Sato – Yamanaka Clan Compound – Main Home)
On the way back to Konoha following the conclusion of their delivery mission, Ino was actually less antagonistic to her male teammates, speaking to them slightly more than before, stopping with the heated glares that both boys felt burning into the backs of their heads all the way up to Takigakure, but she was still not her normal cheerful self and for the most part she refrained from speaking.
The only question she wanted to ask was one that they wouldn't give her answer to, 'What would it take to make you both stay?' And that was a question she didn't bother asking either way.
So after arriving back, delivering their mission report, and parting to head their separate ways, Ino went right home and just sat on her bed staring out the window of her room at the night sky. Kami, she was so pathetic. Who in the world said that she needed them that much? She wasn't supposed to be some pathetic little girl, she was a Konoha chunin. The Hokage saw enough in her to promote her, so why couldn't she just get over this and be done with it.
"Ino can I come in?"
Hearing her father Inoichi at her door, Ino turned away from looking out of the window lest he believe that she was desperate or something, and turned to lay down in her bed as if she were exhausted from her mission, "Yes daddy. You can come in." The door opened to reveal the taller Yamanaka patriarch that Ino graced with a smile, "Hi. How was your week?"
"Oh, the moments when I wasn't worried about my little girl's safety were pretty good." Inoichi said with a smirk as he walked into Ino's bedroom, "So how'd the mission go?"
"It turned into a big mess. We had to fight a team of Iwa shinobi that were trying to get into Takigakure's secret entrance." Ino could still feel the phantom stings on her arms, legs, and face, "Stupid bees…"
"Well if nothing else I'm glad you're alright." Inoichi said with a grin, "I'm proud that you're doing so well in your first year as a ninja. You're outdoing your old man's own rookie year the way you're going."
Ino blushed in a bit of embarrassment before deciding to ask a question, "Daddy. You and your team don't work together that much anymore do you?" She asked, getting a shake of the head from her father, "Why did you all break off? I thought that Ino-Shika-Cho was the strongest combination in the Elemental Nations."
"Well we were all needed elsewhere." Inoichi said with a shrug, "We still do work together all the time and our families are still really close, but we all had different directions to go in. I took up a job in the Intelligence Division and now I run it, Shikaku is the Jounin Commander, and like the rest of us Choza had our clans to run otherwise. It happens. Elites aren't kept together usually. They're often spread out to balance squads that need them so that they can ensure that more ninja make it home from dangerous missions. Why are you asking?"
She thought about telling him, but then remembered what she thought earlier; that she wasn't some little girl and that she could solve her own problems. It was an issue between herself, Naruto, and Shikamaru. No one else really had any business getting involved.
"Just curious." Ino said with a slightly nervous laugh that Inoichi raised an eyebrow at.
"Okay…" Turning back towards the door, Inoichi stopped at the doorway and faced her once more, "Oh, I came in here in the first place because you have a visitor."
"If it's Naruto or Shika I don't want to see them right now."
Just Naruto and not 'Goldie-kun' like usual? Well it was between them and not him Inoichi figured, "It's not either of them. It's actually your team's sensei." He saw Ino perk up in interest as she hadn't really seen Asuma since their mission to Degarashi Port due to a longer mission that he had been on right afterwards, "Do you want to see him?"
"Yeah, of course." Ino said with a nod. With that, Inoichi left the room and in a matter of moments Asuma was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, "Hi Asuma-sensei. Where've you been for most of the month?"
"Oh just on a mission, and no I can't tell you what it is." Asuma said with a grin, chuckling at Ino's pout due to being denied something that she might have been able to use as gossip later. With the ice between him and his pupil broken, Asuma shut the door for a semblance of privacy, "So I came here to tell you something that I'm not sure if Naruto or Shikamaru got to tell you. In a few months-."
"-They're running off to the daimyo." Ino finished for him on a bitter note, "To wipe his ass and be his gofer."
Asuma raised an eyebrow at how she had finished his sentence. Not exactly what he was going to say, "Well I guess that means that when I was your age I ran off to the daimyo to 'wipe his ass and be his gofer' too." Ino had the good grace to look bashful at that point, "Listen there's something about this that you need to know as to why they're going. It's about Naruto but Shikamaru knows too. It's the main reason why he chose to go."
Instead of making a remark or choosing to shoot her mouth off about whatever reason they had being stupid, she just sat there on her bed and listened quietly. She had waited a week to learn the reason behind it, but she didn't want to talk to Naruto and Shikamaru about it any longer.
Taking a minute to think of how to properly word it, Asuma walked over to Ino and pulled up the chair from her desk to sit by her bed, "Okay, well, it's like this. There just so happens to be a group of kage-killing ninja called Akatsuki that are going to try and grab Naruto and every jinchuuriki they can for the demons inside of them." Ino's jaw dropped but Asuma kept going, "He can't beat them. And this place, with the daimyo, this is where I became powerful. As a member of the Twelve Guardian Ninja. That's what Naruto and Shikamaru have the chance of becoming."
"Naruto's going to be hunted?" Like an animal? For the stupid demon fox inside of him? Just how many of the hits would keep on coming for that kid?
"He's going to be watched over by Jiraiya-sama and taken out of Konoha to continue his career and training with a bit of anonymity." Asuma explained for Ino's benefit, "Only you, myself, Hokage-sama, and Jiraiya-sama know of this except for Shikamaru. And since Shikamaru was offered the same job I told him to explain why no matter what Naruto would be going. He chose to go."
Ino blinked blankly but understood at that point why Shikamaru would bother doing something so troublesome. Even if he happened to be lazier than a sloth, when it came to his friends he'd do whatever he felt he had to do. It was pretty much his only motivation to do anything difficult.
"That's why they're going?" Asuma nodded in response to Ino's question and put a hand on her shoulder, "That's… I didn't expect that. Heh, and I can't go with them either can I?"
Asuma shook his head this time, "The job offer was just a means to an end. If it hadn't been presented then Jiraiya-sama still would have taken Naruto away from Konoha on a training trip to help him prepare for the Akatsuki." He could tell that all of this information was beginning to wear on Ino and decided to leave it at that, "Listen, you've got a choice. You don't have to be a part of this. Naruto's not going to ask you to fight his battles for him and neither will anyone else."
"To hell with that Asuma-sensei." Ino snapped in response. She knew that he was about to give her the chance to cut her ties with Team 10 on even terms so that she wouldn't be involved in Naruto's soon-to-be problem with Akatsuki, "My friends are going to work to fight a gang of kidnappers that want Goldie-kun's life and you think I'm just going to turn my back and walk away. I'm not doing that to him. Not after all of the times he and Shika have saved my ass."
A smile slipped onto Asuma's face at seeing an under five feet tall blonde teenage girl try to look tough while sitting in her bed. Still though, Ino was tough, and that look on her face let him know that it was as good as assured.
With a confident look on her face, Ino reached out telepathically with the only person outside of her clan she could use the jutsu with due to being the closest to him, "Do you hear that Goldie-kun? You and Shika can go off and do your little missions for the daimyo. But you'd better keep getting stronger while you're gone, because if you're not and you come back I'll kick both of your asses!"
XxX
(Meanwhile – Ichiraku Ramen)
Naruto had been eating ramen with Iruka and Konohamaru who had been kept back after class that day for hijinks when he heard Ino's telepathic message go through his head, alarming him enough to force him to fall out of his stool and backwards onto the floor of the ramen stand.
Both Konohamaru and Iruka looked down at Naruto in surprise at seeing him randomly fall out onto the floor, "Uh Naruto?" Iruka said, worrying about the vacant look on Naruto's face as he might have hit his head, "Are you alright?"
Konohamaru hopped off of his stool and tried to help Naruto sit up, "Boss? Are you good?"
"Do you hear that Goldie-kun? You and Shika can go off and do your little missions for the daimyo. But you'd better keep getting stronger while you're gone, because if you're not and you come back I'll kick both of your asses!"
The sound of Ino's determined voice going through his head was melodic to Naruto as he had missed hearing her speak in such a way for the last week... especially with the nickname.
A grin came over his face and he stood up to climb back into his seat, a happier look on his whisker-marked face than he had previously been able to boast, "Yeah." He said as Konohamaru got back into his seat as well, "Yeah, I'm fine."
Omake: Training Day 7
"I can't stand that guy Naruto-oniisama!" Hanabi huffed as she walked home with Naruto from her day at the Academy. She had run into him on the way home and had puppy dog eyed him into taking her back to the Hyuuga Clan Compound, all the way to the main house, and inside so that she could play with him. But she didn't say that much. No, Hanabi was a noble Hyuuga Clan member, and they didn't play, "It's like he won't leave me alone! I don't know what that Konohamaru kid's problem is, but ignoring him just makes it all worse!"
Strangely enough, Hanabi's idea of 'playing' was training. And Naruto had been roped into target practice with kunai and shuriken with the little girl. She certainly did seem to have issues with Konohamaru though. He thought he had worked them out of that when he was guest speaking at the Academy. At that time Naruto tried to think about what he could do as far as advice went.
"Naruto." Turning around he saw Neji walking towards him with Hinata none too far behind. Her face was red like usual and she didn't address him first, but Neji did, "I didn't know that you were on the grounds. And with Hanabi-sama as well?" The two shook hands upon getting close enough and Naruto grinned at the amicable greeting from the stoic Branch Hyuuga.
And that was it. The answer he could give Hanabi, "Okay, Little Firecracker. Listen up. The best way to make friends with people that don't like you is to beat their asses first."
Hanabi's eyes widened and Neji palmed his face at the 'advice' being given to the impressionable little girl, who while she was a Hyuuga through and through was still young enough to listen to people that she looked up to; Naruto for some reason being one of those people.
"Oh Naruto-kun…" Hinata said quietly, her face going even redder as she was slightly embarrassed at his 'sagely' advice to her little sister. Hopefully she herself could fix that later.
"Naruto that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Neji said flat out as he didn't care for being subtle when Naruto was poisoning the young mind of the future of his clan. A Hyuuga needed poise, grace, social presence. Not a habit of beating up the people that they didn't like.
"It's not that stupid." Naruto replied, preparing to hold up his fingers for each corresponding example he could dredge up, "I fought Sasuke in Nami no Kuni for a bit and we're kind of cool now, I met Tenten and fought her five minutes later and now we're friends, and you and me kicked each other's asses and now look at us. I'm on your clan's property teaching your little cousin life lessons."
"That's-." Neji was about to dispute Naruto's point and then make some kind of subtle yet scathing jab at his intelligence as was his way, but stopped when he realized that Naruto was 100% absolutely right… for the most part, "The thing about you and I doesn't count though. I'm nicer than I was for another reason… because of what Hiashi-sama gave me after I returned from Tetsu no Kuni."
"-Which happened after I kicked your ass." Naruto finished with a self-satisfied nod before he leaned down to Hanabi's level, "All you have to do is just wait until it winds up in a big fight. But you have to win… because if you lose someone like Konohamaru will never let you forget it." Naruto loved that kid, but sometimes he just wanted to grab Konohamaru and Nebaiken-slam him on his head, "Anyway, after you win don't rub it in. Just be friendly and humble. And then he'll stop being a jerk."
He couldn't explain why it worked the way it seemed to, because it worked a lot. Perhaps because the concussions dealt out caused the other person to think in a different manner than before?
In Hanabi's eyes that plan was brilliant. She eventually got to vent some of her righteous pent up aggression on Konohamaru's face, she got to prove that she was Naruto's legitimate number two to the Sarutobi brat, and afterwards she could come out of it in the positive light by taking the high road thus probably netting her more friends in the future. It was deviously genius in her eight year old mind.
'Naruto-oniisama is a tactical mastermind!' Overcome with excitement towards her new approach in dealing with her primary rival, Hanabi jumped towards Naruto and wrapped her arms around his neck in a big hug, "Naruto-oniisama that's perfect!"
Chuckling and picking Hanabi up off of the ground to return the hug from the very cute little girl, Naruto held up a peace sign towards Neji who was just shaking his head. On the other side though Hanabi opened her eyes only to sweatdrop upon seeing her sister give her a look that stated that she wished it was her in Hanabi's place, "Oh Hinata-oneesama…" She said quietly in a disappointed tone of voice, 'Just tell Naruto-oniisama you like him already so that you can marry him and I can really have him as my big brother!' She screamed in her head.
Yes. Because that would be perfect for her.
Ongoing Stats (Out of 5)
Takigakure Shinobi
Fuu
Ninjutsu: 3.5
Taijutsu: 3.5
Genjutsu: 1.5
Intelligence: 3
Strength: 4
Speed: 3
Stamina: 4.5
Hand-Seals: 2
Total Score: 25
Iwagakure Shinobi
Suzumebachi
Ninjutsu: 3.5
Taijutsu: 2
Genjutsu: 3
Intelligence: 4
Strength: 2
Speed: 3
Stamina: 2.5
Hand-Seals: 3
Total Score: 23
Kurobachi
Ninjutsu: 3
Taijutsu: 3
Genjutsu: 2
Intelligence: 2.5
Strength: 3
Speed: 2
Stamina: 2
Hand-Seals: 2
Total Score: 19.5
Jibachi
Ninjutsu: 3
Taijutsu: 1.5
Genjutsu: 2
Intelligence: 2
Strength: 2
Speed: 2
Stamina: 2
Hand-Seals: 2.5
Total Score: 17
Akatsuki
Deidara
Ninjutsu: 5
Taijutsu: 3.5
Genjutsu: 3.5
Intelligence: 4.5
Strength: 3.5
Speed: 4.5
Stamina: 4
Hand-Seals: 3.5
Total Score: 32
Sasori
Ninjutsu: 5
Taijutsu: 4
Genjutsu: 4
Intelligence: 5
Strength: 3
Speed: 4.5
Stamina: 5
Hand-Seals: 4
Total Score: 34.5