Tsunade's daughter (A Naruto original fanfiction)

Chapter Seventy-Three: The Kage Summit (Part One)

A/N: okay, so I don't even know how to start this chapter.... Still, I hope it'll be good enough.....
And also, I guess most of you expected Mai to choose Akira, and I thought about it as well,  but then I changed my mind (God knows why....), but let's just say that Akira will accompany Sakura, Sai and the others to find Sasuke (and help Sakura 'kill' him, because assassination is her thing after all...).

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Mai asked both Gai and Tokuma to escort her to the Land of Iron; Gai because she knew that he had amazing skills in Taijutsu, and Tokuma because he was an excellent user of Byakugan (and also partly because he was her former teammate). And they were now on their way there, walking without being too much in a hurry.

They were walking in utter silence, being serious and focused on any danger that they might encounter sooner or later.

Everything seemed to be pretty normal and calm so far until Mai suddenly stopped in her tracks, making Gai and Tokuma stop as well as they were nearing the border of the Land of Fire.

"What is it Mai?" Gai asked her, being somehow puzzled.

The female Hokage replied nothing as she was observing their surroundings carefully. She then crouched down before putting both her index and middle fingers on the ground and closing her eyes.

Gai and Tokuma were just watching her in silence without saying anything.

"We are surrounded by Shinobi. I'd say that there are forty of them," Mai stated solemnly before standing back up.

"You mean Shinobi from one of the four other villages?" Gai asked her. "But why would they surround us?"

"..... That's very unlikely. I don't see why any of the other Kage would have ordered his or her shinobi to attack us right before the Summit. That wouldn't really make sense," Mai plainly answered.

And that's when Tokuma decided on using his Byakugan.

"No, they are not Shinobi from any other village," he ended up saying, confirming Mai's intuition.

"What do you mean by that?" Gai asked seemingly confused.

"Godaime-Sama!" Tokuma just cried to warn her, noticing that they were about to attack them.

Fortunately Mai could anticipate their attack without needing any Dōjutsu. And so she weaved hand seals swiftly before a wooden dome emerged from the ground to protect the three of them. The shinobi weapons ended up being driven into the wood, all around the dome.

"But who would attack us then if they are not enemies?" Gai asked Mai as they were still protected by the dome.

"...."

There couldn't be many people that would attack her at such a crucial moment. And Mai thought she had just figured out who it could be....

But she needed to make sure she was right first.

Anyway, they would have no other choice than to fight back and defeat them, whoever they were...

"Gai, Tokuma. Get ready to fight. They won't leave us alone until they reach their goal. So we have to fight back. And since we are clearly outnumbered, we must be twice as cautious, okay?"

The two men nodded firmly, ready to protect Mai from them.

And since Mai was expecting them to attack them once again just as they had done, she decided to use her Mokuton again, but to counterattack this time.