A/N: Shippuden starts here.
About two and a half years have passed since Naruto left on his journey, and now he's due back soon. Tsunade kept Kakashi and I off our assassination missions for good now so that Kakashi can rejoin his team again when Naruto gets back.
I did the same, rejoining Team Guy and almost immediately being sent out again. Tsunade sent us on a simple mission near the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind, with instructions to report to the Kazakage after we are done. While the others on the team were confused by the second part of the mission, she and I had worked this out as a plan. We should be arriving around the time the Akatsuki attack the Sand village. Since we don't know precisely when they will get attacked, we just plan to be nearby in order to help.
Over the three years since I first met the Sand siblings, I have seen them a few more times, usually on my missions with Kakashi when we pass through the Sand village. I have grown close to each of them, forming a friendship with them all, and I don't want to see Gaara getting killed, even if he does come back. If I can help, I want to try to change his fate.
"Alright team, we cleared the bandits in record time. I see our amazing teamwork hasn't suffered an inch in our time apart." Guy Sensei tells us while laughing proudly after we finished our mini mission.
"That seemed like far too easy a mission for a team like us." Neji comments.
It's true, this could have been handled by either a genin team or a Jonin by themselves. Our team has three Jonin and Lee is a tokubetsu Jonin, which means he has the specialized skills to be a Jonin but not all the requirements, which makes sense for him since he cannot use any jutsu. I was actually the one to nominate Lee for the ranking, and Tsunade eventually approved just recently. Lee and Guy don't know it was me who nominated him, but both are proud and honored that someone did.
"Agreed. Let's move out to the Sand village at once then, no point hanging around here." I say while casually looking around. I don't know when the Sand gets attacked, but the sooner we leave for there, the better.
Our team heads out from the small village we were at that was near the border of the Land of Wind. From here, it will take about a day and a half to reach the Sand village. We run at a moderate pace, which is surprising since Guy and Lee for once aren't going full out. It seems like even they are a little more on edge from Tsunade's request to report to the Kazekage without a specific purpose. When we do arrive at the Sand Village, I can see my pre-emptive attempt was in vain.
"Hold!" A guard calls out to us as we approach the gates, "No one is permitted to our village right now. Turn around and leave now, this is your last warning!"
"What is going on here, we are Konoha shinobi, our Hokage gave us a mission to report to the Kazekage." Guy Sensei says to the guard in confusion. Quickly, another Sand ninja appears behind the guard.
"How did you get here so fast? We only just sent out the request half a day ago?" The new guard asks us seriously.
"We were already nearby. What is going on here?" Guy asks, turning serious after sensing the frazzled tone of the guards.
"Please follow me, I will take you to the advisors." The new guard says, and leads us towards the Kazekage tower.
"Konoha Shinobi, thank you for coming so fast. We weren't expecting you for at least another two days." Baki, the Sand advisor, says to us when we walk in.
"Never underestimate the great Team Guy. Now tell us, what is going on?" Guy asks enthusiastically.
"Lord Kazekage was taken 12 hours ago by the Akatsuki." Baki says grimly. He then proceeds to go into explaining how a fight in the sky happened between Gaara and Deidara. I just grit my teeth in anger. We were only a half day too late.
"Where is Kankuro now?" I ask at the end of his explanation after he stated Kankuro left to shadow the Akatsuki members six hours ago.
"We sent a backup team to follow him, but they have not returned yet." Baki says, and my team all lock eyes and nod.
"Leave it to Team Guy!" Sensei says boldly and we all nod. "We are the fastest shinobi in all the world, we will find your Kankuro. Let's move out!" He says, then we all salute Baki and take off without waiting for his confirmation. Some traditions never change.
"There are separate tracks up ahead, each leading in different directions." Neji informs us. He and I are trading off on using our eyes, that way we are not overworking ourselves as we run at full speed.
"Just keep following the trail of Gaara's sand." I say back to him. We discovered not too long ago in our pursuit that the sand that was wrapped around Gaara's body is still infused with trace amounts of his chakra, and it's slowly falling off his body while the enemies are carrying him.
After a little longer of running, Neji gasps lightly and turns slightly to me, "Ami, straight ahead. Look." He tells me urgently. I activate my eyes, and 20 kilometers away, I can see Kankuro laying on the ground.
"I'm going ahead!" I call out and use my Flying Death God jutsu to transport myself to Kankuro instantly. He's unconscious, but breathing still. He must already be poisoned. I look around and gather up a few poisoned needles I see that don't look like the ones I've seen Kankuro use in the past. I pick up Kankuro carefully, and transport myself and him back to the group.
"Ami, good work. Please give him to me, I will carry him back." Lee says to me, and I nod and hand Kankuro over to Lee.
"Lee, be extremely careful with him, he's been poisoned. Try not to move his body too much, no racing." I say firmly and he nods seriously.
We take off at a fast but careful pace back to the village. I spot the Sand's recon team, and split off to go and inform them of where I found Kankuro and that we are taking him safely back to the village. We get Kankuro back within a day of when we arrived. He had made it a good distance away from his village in his pursuit of the enemy. Now, Sakura should be here within the next day, which will be cutting it close on the poison used on him.
"Hang in there, Kankuro." I say gently to him as I wipe sweat from him brow while the medics work to stabilize him. Kankuro and I built up quite the friendship over the years and the few times I've seen him. He always playfully flirts, but it's not serious and more of a game to get the corniest pick up lines to me, and he always manages to make me laugh.
"Team Guy!" Sensei calls out after we've rested in the Sand village for a few hours after recovering Kankuro. "The backup team should be here soon, but let's head out first so we can locate the enemy hideout."
"Good idea, Sensei." I say, then perform a Summoning jutsu. Immediately, one of Kakashi's pack dogs, Akino, appears. "Akino, we're going scouting. Kakashi will be on the trail behind us, can you make our path easy for him and Pakkun to follow?" I ask the dog.
"Yes, Miss Ami." Akino responds. Kakashi gave me the contract with Akino last year. We can use the dogs to lay out either a strong scent for one of us to follow or to scout a trail if we are tracking a target and my eyes can't find them. Kiba has tried to train me to increase my sense of smell, but it will never be as good as a dog or a member of the Inozuka clan, so I rely on the ninken instead.
"When..." Guy Sensei stutters out, pointing at Akino. "When did you get a ninken?" He asks me with a scared tone.
"Ah, Kakashi lost a bet to me, this was his payment." I say to him. It's true, he did lose a bet. Kakashi thought I couldn't take out ten rogue ninja in a single attack. I proved him wrong, so he handed over the ninja dog contract. If I had lost the bet, I would have had to go one month wearing a mask like his. I would have been fine with that, but getting the dog contract was way better.
Team Guy spent half a day getting back to where we had found Kankuro. I had placed my Shinigami totem all along the route the first trip at various points so I knew we were always going in the right way. It's convenient, Neji can see my markers too with his eyes so we can still do our trade off in scouting. Once we reached back there, we continued on the path, this time Akino was guiding us, being able to track Gaara's scent still, though only just barely. As we are advancing on our way, we finally meet our resistance.
"Behind us!" I call out, suddenly seeing a form rapidly approaching us. It's my turn to be keeping watch out, giving Neji a rest. We can't keep our eyes activated for long periods, but we do activate them often enough to not miss anything on scouting duties. We all safely make it out of the way as Kisame of the Akatsuki runs up to us at lightning speed.
"Who are you?" Guy calls out seriously, despite having actually met Kisame in the past.
"Looks like the 'Beast' needs to have their memory refreshed." Kisame says to us.
"What overwhelming chakra. I haven't seen anyone like this since Naruto. This is the Akatsuki." Neji says in shock, scanning the enemy.
"He's a delay tactic. He's just trying to slow us down. We must be getting close, let's make this quick. It's probably not even him, I've met Kisame before, he was much more overwhelming than this." I inform them. It's only partially true, I did meet him before, but I didn't pay him any attention with Itachi attacking me. I remember that this Kisame is a fake though, and we can beat him quick. Sensei is stronger than Kisame anyway.
"Leave it to Team Guy then!" Sensei says, striking a stupid pose.
Kisame doesn't waste any time on going on the attack, and we all respond just as quickly. He uses a powerful water jutsu, and it creates a massive tidal wave and covers the immediate surrounding desert with water. We all jump to avoid the crashing waves and landing on either large rocks or on the water itself. I make a split second decision, and create a water clone that Kakashi taught me and send her underwater to hide.
Guy takes on the offense first, and while he is distracting Kisame, the rest of us move in. Lee manages to kick the Samehada sword out of Kisame's hand, and Neji and I move in.
"Twin Vacuum Air Wall Palm!" We call out, using our medium strength joint attack, though for now not using our elements. Since we are believing this to be a diversion, we are still conserving our strength.
Kisame gets blown back hard and painfully by our attack, right into Sensei's waiting kick. Sensei kicks Kisame down into the water, but he just resurfaces quickly with his sword back in his hands. We go in for another round of attacks, but Kisame keeps blocking us with his Samehada, so Sensei swoops in and steals the blade away from him while the rest of us attack his now unguarded body. Kisame immediately makes three water clones, and those clones trap each of us in a water prison.
"I'm surprised, you brats were more resourceful than I thought." Kisame says to us in his original body. "Now we can fight without them getting in the way." He says to Sensei. The Samehada cuts deeply into Sensei's hands as it goes back to its master. Kisame uses the blade and strikes Sensei down into the water, then performs another jutsu and sends out sharks towards Guy underwater.
My clone acts then while the main body Kisame is performing the shark jutsu. She summons the scythe and rises in a spiral out of the water right underneath the Kisame clones. The water wraps around the blade of the scythe, extending the reach. As the clone spirals upward, she slices all three of Kisame's clones' heads off, releasing the three of us from our prisons.
I dispel my clone as we all prepare to go on the attack. Lee and Neji go in first, kicking Kisame upward as I attack from above, sending him back down hard. I don't want to waste any huge chakra based attacks on this decoy. We will be too late at this point anyway, the enemy has had Gaara for almost three days by now.
I expected the others to also conserve their attack strength, since Lee and Neji both have been, but Sensei got a little ahead of himself. When we knocked Kisame down into the water, Sensei had been unlocking his 6th gate of Joy. He went on to the attack, and it was over very quickly after that. Sensei destroyed Kisame, revealing the fake that he was.
"Who is that?" Lee asks as we stare down at a random ninja who was definitely not Kisame.
"He was a fake." Neji says, looking at me as I nod.
"Bit overkill there, Sensei. Did you really need to open the 6th gate for that guy?" I ask him scoldingly.
"I got ahead of myself. Can never be too careful with these Akatsuki." Sensei tries to defend.
We move out from there, resuming our searching, but we take a short break for a few hours for Sensei to sleep and recover chakra. I consult with Akino to get an idea on how far Kakashi's team is from us, and he lets me know they are less than an hour away. We continue on our way, until finally Neji and I spot the sealed hideout and we make our way there. Kakashi's team arrives shortly after us.
"Always late, Kakashi." Guy says smugly. I just give him a look, we would have been here hours ago if he hadn't opened his gates and wore himself out. Neji and I sigh, knowing there's no point in pointing it out to him. We instead look inside the cave, and see the Gedo statue closing its eyes and going away, being released from its summons.
"There's only two Akatsuki inside." I inform the others after they ask us what's going on. I release Akino from his summons, since he isn't needed anymore and Kakashi does the same with Pakkun.
"Good thinking using Akino, Pakkun can track his own pack mates easier than anything else." Kakashi praises me.
Guy tries to break the boulder blocking the hideout, but the barrier seal stops it. "A barrier, huh? Alright Kakashi, how do we take this out?" Sensei asks his friend.
"This is a five seal barrier. There should be four more seals around somewhere. Ami?" Kakashi asks of me. I nod, and use my Byakugan to locate them all. Each are within a kilometer of the hideout.
"I found them all, each are within a kilometer." I tell them once I locate them.
"They will have to be released at the exact same time." Kakashi says firmly.
"Leave it to Team Guy, we'll get those seals off." Sensei vows, pulling out a headset to put on.
"No, Sensei, wait." I pause him in his actions. "I will send clones and time it with my Byakugan. There could be traps on the end of those barrier seals, this seems too easy otherwise." I send a subtle glance to Kakashi, letting him know that it's something I know from the story.
"Good idea. While Ami sends clones to the other four seals, we'll get ready to ambush the Akatsuki inside." Kakashi says firmly, making the decision for the group as he sees Guy about to counter.
I make my four clones before anyone can argue. I may not be as good as Naruto at shadow clones, but I can make up to 10 clones and still control them, though it wears me out greatly. I send my clones out to the locations and take up position on the main seal at the door.
"Sakura, Guy Sensei, when I remove the tags, you two destroy this door, got it?" I shout down to them. They both nod, moving back to get into position. I look to my clones, seeing them all in position.
I hold up my hand with three fingers up, and count them down slowly and purposefully so it's easy to see for my clones. When I hit zero, I rip the tag off at the same time my clones do, and Guy and Sakura use their monstrous strength to destroy the gate.
We all run inside and see Deidara and Sasori, the former of who is sitting on top of Gaara's now dead body. Naruto starts to yell at Gaara to get up, either not accepting or not realizing he's dead. Kakashi steps in and shuts him up while the rest of us glare at the two enemies. Deidara and Sasori begin to argue about the meaning of art, which sends Naruto off again. Deidara ends up creating an ugly large bird that swallows Gaara's body in its beak while Deidara gets on its back.
"Wait the hell up! Give back Gaara!!" Naruto screams, his eyes red with the nine-tails anger showing. He takes off running outside, and Kakashi immediately follows, but hesitates at the doorway, looking at me to follow.
"Ami, Deidara is a long range fighter, we need you out there." Kakashi says firmly to me and I nod, turning to my teammates.
"Lee, Neji.... You two stay here. Sasori works with poison and weapons, he will be weak against your speed. Do not let him land a hit, even if you think it's not a weapon. Listen to Lady Chiyo, she's a puppet master. Sakura, stay close to her and look for openings to use your strength, otherwise prioritize healing. And take care of my teammates, please." I say urgently and rapidly. "And Lee." I look directly at him, "Take your weights off now. This will be even harder than your fight against Gaara, don't waste any time." I say to him and he hesitates in surprise, then nods.
"Ami!" Neji calls firmly, looking at me. "Don't miss." He smirks slightly.
"I never do." I nod to him with a smirk. I take a deep breath, having already changed the story for now by having Lee and Neji fight Sasori. I head out and join Kakashi, Guy sensei impatiently waiting for me.