The Hope of the Senju Clan

Chapter 41: Demon

-Konoha-

It was a calm and peaceful night in the village hidden in the leaves. It was now mid-autumn; the night had gotten much cooler now, but still held a trace of summer warmth which was slowly fading. Yet despite the seasonal change, the forest surrounding the village remained as lush and as green as it would when it was summer. This was thanks to the fact that the forest had been created by the Shodai Hokage, Senju Hashirama, who's powerful chakra, which created the forest, still remained within it keeping them lush green year long.

Hanging over the village a full moon shone down on the village, which was the only thing illuminating Konoha as the majority of its inhabitants had gone to bed.

However not everyone was tucked in their beds, a cloaked figure was silently making its way through the village, doing its utmost to avoid attention from village night patrols. Quickly the figure made its way up the high walls around the village and leapt into the surrounding forest, without any of the guards noticing

Once it was in the trees, the cloaked figure wasted no time in speeding through the forest, putting as much distance between it and the village as possible. After about half an hour of racing through the forest the figure finally halted after hearing a bird-like whistle.

Hiding behind the trunk of the tree it was standing on, the figure responded with its own bird-like whistle. For several seconds, that seemed to last for hours the cloaked figure waited until it heard the whistle respond back. Letting out a sigh of relief, the cloaked figure replied with another whistle and stepped out from behind the tree trunk. Moments later two more cloaked figures appeared out from a nearby tree, standing directly in front of the first cloaked person.

"You're late!" hissed the one of the other cloaked people is low whisper. "You should have been hearing half an hour ago."

"I couldn't help it" replied the first cloaked figure in the same low whisper. "If I'd left early it would've drawn attention on me, and the ANBU are already too close as it is."

"Are you sure that they've caught on to you?" asked the other cloaked person.

"I'm certain" nodded the first cloaked figure. "They haven't realised it was me yet, but it wouldn't be long until they did. They already suspect the bar and have questioned everyone at it twice now. I've also noticed a few patrons acting odd, staying until closing time, keeping to themselves and watching what everyone else was doing...My guess, undercover ANBU looking for me. And if they were on to me, it would only be a matter of time until they found the rest of you."

"Dammnit" cursed one of the others. "Two years of work down the drain. How the hell did they catch onto us!?"

"It must have been after that debacle at the Ame boarder with the Senju heir" answered the partner of the second cloaked person. "Konoha probably figured that they had a leak."

"Fuck!" cursed the second Iwa spy, a little more loudly this time. "If only those idiots hadn't screwed up, none of this would've happened."

"It doesn't matter anymore" his partner replied. "What matters now is us getting back home as quickly as possible."

"Where are the others?" the first spy asked, only now realizing that there was no sign of the rest of their team, to which the second cloaked figured responded.

"They never showed up...which means you were probably right about Konoha being on to us, and if they aren't here by now, they're either captured or dead."

"That means we need to get out of here...now" stated his partner.

Nodding in agreement the other two figures prepared to move, but before they could, several Kunai suddenly came out of one of trees and flew straight for them.