Starting over

#90 The Price Of War

Naruto POV

As I heard Gabu, Hori and Paira attacking the group of Anbu behind me, Akira and I went ahead and kicked it up a notch. I flared my chakra and instantly the opposing Anbu were enveloped in a bright orange circle. Jumping around my Hiraishin kunai, I drew my sword and began to hack into the group. When I was done, the light faded and I landed at my starting point. The jonin and chunin that watched let their jaws drop as the Anbu fell to the ground, bleeding from their necks. Akira looked at them with fletched fangs, waiting for me to order anything.

"Akira, help yourself. Dispel in twenty minutes and don't die.", I ordered as I took out another hiraishin kunai and smirked at the shinobi, who had started to creep up on me, not knowing how they should approach me. Akira let out a small growl and jumped onto the rooftops, growing larger by the second, until she was twice as big as me. Throwing my kunai at the closest enemy still alive, I unsheathed my katana and disappeared once again in a blur of speed.

Temari POV

We crept through the tunnels, beneath the house, where the council was located, always expecting an enemy behind the next corner. Neji's Byakugan was a great help, but we still couldn't be too sure, that no one would be able to bypass it, so we had to stay on guard.

After ten minutes, in which we almost constantly heard explosions go off above us, we finally found the council, or what was left of them. There were only two survivors, the only female council member and one of the younger men on the council. The rest of them laid there with cuts and burns all over their body, obviously they had been tortured and then left for dead. The younger man had been tortured too, but he was still alive. I quickly went to him and started to heal him with my limited amount of knowledge about medical jutsu. Meanwhile Neji helped up the old lady. "Come on, we have to go.", he said, while he already was half way out of the door. I hoisted the man and followed the hyuuga. We got out of the tunnel system safely and went towards the walls of the city, when a shinobi dropped out of the sky, directly in front of us. I immediately dropped the council member that I was carrying and took out my fan. Then I saw another thing drop down, right on top of the smoke cloud over the shinobi that had dropped just a few seconds ago. Then I heard the screams and the growls and immediately smiled, knowing that only one animal could make such sounds. Putting away my fan, I again hoisted the hurt man and looked at Neji who was still staring at the smoke cloud. "Come on Neji, let's go.", I whispered, only getting a worried look. "And what about that beast in the smoke?", the black haired shinobi asked with a worried voice. "Don't worry about it, she is on our side. Now come on.", I said and jumped over the wall, without looking back at him. I heard him land behind me only a few seconds after me. I turned around and nodded at him, before we took off to our meeting point with the rest of our squad.

When we met them, they nodded at us. Shiji and Joaba took the two surviving council members from us and we went on our way. We jumped away towards Sunagakure, when we heard someone jumping through the trees. We stopped and everyone formed a protective circle around the two who were carrying the council members. "Korun, we need your help right now.", Gabu screamed, as both of them landed in front of me. Hori was bleeding heavily from his stomach, with a giant wound going across it. The girl was not moving and I noticed instantly that her breathing was slowing down, too. Korun went over to the downed shinobi and her hands started to glow green. After a few seconds the glow slowly faded away and she looked up at Gabu with tears in her eyes. "No.", Gabu whispered, getting the silent message. He looked down on the girl in his arms and i could see tears falling. That's when I realized that Naruto was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is Naruto?", I asked Paira, who stood next to Gabu, tears in her eyes. "I don't know, he held back the Anbu, so that we could get away and try to safe Korun.", she whispered, before her eyes widened. "Oh no.", I heard, as she realized that he should have been here by now. Just then a flash lit the area up and I felt something crashing into me.

After the light had faded again, I saw that it was indeed Naruto that had crashed into me and was now lying on top of me. We slowly got up, when I noticed the dark look in his eyes and that he was covered in blood. "What happened Naruto?", I asked with worry evident in my voice. "They got Akira.", he answered silently, before going over to Gabu and putting his hand on the other man's shoulder. "I am so sorry.", I heard him say to his teammate. "Come on, we have to go.", I said, knowing that Iwa would most likely send out a large force to track us down.

Gabu looked up at our group and I saw that he knew, that we had to leave. He slowly stood up, pressing one last kiss on the temple of his girlfriend. After he stood up, he shot a small fire jutsu at the corpse, to destroy any intel that the body may have had. The only thing he took, was a small necklace, which he tied to his neck.