Something to Fight For (Naruto)

Taking (A Hostage)

Naruto was confused.

And that was putting it lightly. One moment, he had been standing with Shikamaru, watching the Teme beat the hell out of Gaara, and the next, he was on the floor, being woken up by Sakura. He had a faint memory of seeing wierd floating feathers, but wasn't sure what they meant.

"S-Sakura?! What's goin' on?" He slurred, barely awake.

"Wake up already! The village is under attack!" Sakura ordered harshly, shifting over to Shikamaru, who was laying beside him.

Scratching his head, Naruto turned his attention to his sensei, who was currently being swarmed by foreign nin. "Kakashi Sensei, what's go-" Before he could finish his sentence, a foreign lunged towards him, kunai raised to kill.

Kakashi swiftly cut the man down before Naruto could even think about screaming or defending himself.

"I need you to listen closely. This will be your first S- rank mission since the land of the waves..."

At the moment, Temari was extremely worried for both her brothers. One was clutching his head and moaning in pain, while the other was carrying that ticking time bomb.

Once Gaara had collapsed from his partial transformation, he had refused to leave the village without first killing a certain annoying blonde. He hadn't even been able to stand up, but the two siblings knew that to deny him his request also meant a potentially deadly punishment in the future. So that's why they had been forced to smuggle Haruka out of the village as well.

The second she woke up, they knew they were in for a world of pain, but had no other choice. At least they had a 40% chance of surviving her wrath, while with Gaara they had a .40%.

Temari had insisted on being the one to carry Haruka though, knowing Kankuro might have not been able to keep his inner pervert in check. Even if she had kidnapped Haruka, she still had some morals.

"Hey, Temari..." Kankuro began after a minute or so of silence.

"Yeah?" She murmured, more focused on scanning their surroundings for enemies than her idiot brother.

"Don't you think it was strange that H- I mean, Nee-san, got caught in the genjutsu with all of the civilians? She just seems too... Too good for that." He stated, his voice low.

Now that she thought about it, it did seem very 'out of character' for her to be done in so easily. She had even seen the pinkette on Haruka's brother's team awake and moving, unaffected by the jutsu. So how had someone strong enough to stop their brother been affected to the point where they still showed no signs of waking up, even though they were a good distance away from the jutsu caster?

"I don't know! Just concentrate on getting Gaara to safety!" She growled, pushing the question out of her head. Now was not the time to get distracted.

"Alright, alright." Kankuro grumbled, rolling his eyes.

Temari ignored him, trying her best to think ahead as to how to keep Gaara as safe as possible. For the time being, the best she could do was lay traps to try and deter any followers.

They didn't have time for anything else, so she could only hope that it would work.

As time went on, Naruto was becoming more and more unsure about their mission. At first, it had seemed like something truly worthy of his awesome skills, but now...

His heart had stopped it's excited skipping, and his palms were sticky with more sweat than they should have been.

Everything had been going fine until they had to leave behind Shikamaru. He had been more revved up than ever to show Sasuke up, and teach that crazy psycho not to mess with the leaf village.