“As soon as they ready, we’ll head out with the Sand team and recover Gaara. Got it?” Kakashi explained to us, and right as he did, a voice cut through the air to our ears.
“Sorry for the wait.” We turned around to find Temari, and a few other people staring at us.
The person I had been laying my tired head on, Naruto, decided to stretch his back and then bend forward. I fell on my butt because of him, and soon I glared up at him, at the same time he looked down at me in surprise. “Mimi-Chan, why are you on the floor? We have to get going!”
“Wait!” Baki interrupted, and after staring at my team for a second, turned to look at the Sand team. “Temari, your team will remain here and guard the perimeter areas.”
“What?” They started to argue upon Temari’s response. However, their fighting got cut off by a voice.
“I’ll go.” The voice declared, causing everyone to glance up. The sun blocked our eyes for a second before seeing that it was the old lady from before. “I’ll be enough to represent the Sand.”
“Chiyo-Baasama, but that’s…”
“Well, instead of courtesy to an ally, I’ll be going for my own reasons.” They all protested still, until Chiyo jumped off the building rail she was standing on, and down to us. “You see, I want to play with my cute little grandson after such a long time.”
I tapped my chin quietly. Her grandson is in the Akatsuki? I want to play with him too, then. I didn’t say what I was thinking though, and followed my team and Chiyo to the entrance of the sand. We turned around to face Baki, Temari and other ninjas. “We’ll be on our way now.” Kakashi announced.
“Thanks, I’ll try to arrange for backup.” Baki reassured. I highly doubt that we needed more help, but then again… we are fighting the Akatsuki, and we have an old lady to slow us down. I glanced over to Chiyo before looking away. Maybe I’m underestimating her. They did say she was one of the legendary siblings.
We finally left to go save Gaara, and we continued to jump trees for a while. Sometimes my team would start up a conversation with each other, one conversation about Jinchuurikis, Bijuus, being categorized as monsters and disgusting bothered Naruto. Anyone could tell by the look on his face.
We continued to jump, along the way Kakashi turned to me slightly. “You’ve been pretty quiet, Naomi.” He said in observation.
My head turned slowly to him as his eye followed mine, my mind finally processed what he said and I blinked. “Yes… I’m pretty tired.” I told him, a small smirk replaced my previous more focused expression. Kakashi looked confused by my smirk, “I just couldn’t sleep with Sakura’s constant loud snoring.” Sakura’s eye twitched and an anger mark appeared on her head from my comment.
“I don’t snore!” She yelled back with her fist raised at me. “You’re so annoying! I’d rather have you not speak!” I couldn’t help my smirk from growing bigger at her bothered form. It grew quiet again, and my smirk finally vanished, replaced by a frown.
Hours later…
We finally were able to run on the ground, until we reached a clearing and in our way was a certain figure I hadn’t see in a while. All of us came to a stop in front of him. My whole team and Chiyo had a small staring contest with him before Sakura broke it. “Who is he?”
“Uchiha Itachi.” Naruto and I answered at the same time.
“This one is the brat who killed his entire clan.”
“It’s been awhile, Kakashi, Naruto-Kun…” Itachi acknowledged.
“Aww… Why don’t I get greeted?” I mumbled quietly, but everyone heard it. They looked at me like something was wrong in my head.
Itachi’s red sharingan orbs focused on me, and his eyebrow twitched slightly. “Naomi.”
I smiled in satisfaction, but it didn’t last long and soon I looked at him in panic. “Wait, how do you know my name?”
“You are part of the famous Tanaka clan…” He said to me, and it was the only thing he was providing as information of how he knew who I was.
“Uchihas are stalkers…” I mumbled mostly to myself.
Kakashi sighed at me upon hearing my statement. “This is a serious matter Naomi, now isn’t the time to get careless.” He ordered, which I nodded my head at.
At this moment, Naruto couldn’t stand the annoyance he felt towards the Akatsuki for taking Gaara and a growl escaped his lips. “First me, now Gaara... I’ll beat you down!” Naruto claimed, pointing his finger towards the intimidating Uchiha.
Itachi slowly lifted his hand up, causing Kakashi to react. “Everyone, don’t look into his eyes! It’s dangerous!” I quickly brought my eyes down to stare at his feet instead. Itachi did put Kakashi into the hospital… and now isn’t the time that I want to be put in the hospital. “Itachi’s genjutsu is a doujutsu. In other words, it works through his eyesight.”
As Kakashi explained more about that and how we were supposed to fight him, I continued my glare on his feet. No matter what, I can’t get caught in his genjutsu, or faint, or majorly hurt. I need to assist them in getting Gaara back… which requires chakra. So I need to keep most of my chakra intact. As long as everyone else doesn’t get hurt or anything, and I use my sword. We should be fine. I gripped the hilt that belonged to the larger one of my twin swords and nodded to confirm my thoughts.
I focused on my team again to see Kakashi stopping Naruto from advancing to Itachi. He explained stuff that I already knew about. That was the reason you couldn’t look into his eyes, the Mangekyou Sharingan. You’d instantly get caught in his genjutsu… that’s why I don’t plan on getting caught.
“Not only does it use a great amount of chakra, that jutsu itself carries a great risk to your eyes, right Itachi?” My ears perked up at what Kakashi had said, mostly because of surprise.
“You have come to know a lot, and you’ve fought me once.”
“Your eyesight… how bad has it gotten?” Kakashi pushed, while I frowned. I didn’t want Itachi to lose his eyesight… I remember that he was one of my favorite characters back in my home world. However, that was the only thing I could remember regarding Naruto from my world.
I noticed Itachi had a small waver in his usual expressionless face before he closed his eyes. Which reminded me, why was I looking in his eyes again? As I shifted my eyes back down to his feet, I silently hoped that he didn’t notice and didn’t cast a genjutsu on me.
“Kakashi-san, you couldn’t have…” Itachi cut off his sentence there, and everything went silent for a second.
Kakashi brought his hand to his gravity-defying hair and set it there. “Well, I was a bit careless back then, but I’m not half bad.” He told him as I sweatdropped.
“He says as he carelessly looks down at his feet, allowing Itachi to easily come over here and snatch Naruto up like he’s free cake.” I added as I turned to Kakashi with an apprehensive look.
Everyone glanced my way before ignoring me and looked back at Kakashi. “Things aren’t going to be the way they were last time.” Kakashi announced.
“What? You let him snatch Naruto up like free cake last time?” I asked, but got ignored.
“And if you think I’ll be the same as last time, you’re wrong!” Naruto said with a grin.
“He’ll be a cookie, this time.” I told Itachi with a nod, who in return glared at me.
“You’re kind of annoying.” He responded, his glare never letting up.
I couldn’t help but grin. “Yep, all Uchihas that I know say that. First Sasuke, now Itachi…”
Kakashi interrupted my pleasant conversation with the Uchiha. “Naruto, I’ll take handle this.”
“Kakashi, we’ve heard this before. We’re not falling for it this time…” I told him quietly.
“We’re not going to fight again?!” Naruto complained.
“No, I’m counting on you this time.” He corrected. “Although, I’d rather look cool, and say ‘You guys hurry ahead’ or something like that.”
We all grinned and looked back at Itachi. Well, not directly at him. I had already made that mistake a couple of times and I’m kind of weary if this is real or a genjutsu. It was just so hard not to look at him. I brought my eyes back up only to meet his eyes. I hastily looked away and somewhat panicked inside.
I stole a look to my teammates to see they weren’t there, my eyes widened and I looked back in front of me to see only Itachi. “Not even hiding that this is a genjutsu? Or… did you make all my teammates disappear into a different dimension?” Itachi didn’t response so I continued my rambling. “You’re pretty talented, losing your eyesight but putting not only me, but Naruto into a genjutsu.”
His eyes hardened as he glared at me once again. And I soon found myself surrounded by my teammates. I eyed them carefully, highly doubting they were my actual teammates. They turned into Itachis, and they all had swords. I highly doubt that I can take Itachi on in his own genjutsu.
Simultaneously, they all went to stab me at the same time, I jumped quickly to avoid it and threw shurikan at them. Once safely on the ground, I ran towards the real Itachi, grabbing my twin swords. I stuck the larger sword in the ground near him and used it to spin around to kick him, he easily blocked it and kicked my stomach, causing me to let go of my sword and skid across the ground with a small groan of pain.
I rolled out of the way just in time to avoid my sword—which was being used by Itachi—from coming down on me, and got up in time to block his other incoming attack. With my other hand, I grabbed a kunai to throw at him, and with speed faster than lightning, probably, he dispersed into crows. This caused me to fall face first into the ground, because I was formerly pushing with my body weight against the sword. As I looked up, I barely had enough time to yet again roll out of the way to avoid many birds that had turned into shurikans.
“Why am I even in a genjutsu?” I yelled to him before dodging my own sword that was thrown to me. I needed to get out of here soon. Luckily I was there when Jiraiya was teaching Naruto how to break from a genjutsu so I know how. When Itachi didn’t answer my earlier question, I clapped my hands together. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be breaking from this genjutsu.”
I started to try and cut off my flow of chakra, putting all focus on that entire one thing. Itachi wasn’t exactly trying to stop me from this either. I wasn’t exactly sure why he even put himself through the trouble of this genjutsu; it just puts more strain on his chakra and everything else.
I quickly broke myself out of the genjutsu to see Itachi fighting intensely with Kakashi while Sakura and Chiyo were standing next to Naruto. What I was in didn’t even really seem like a genjutsu, it just… was a place to fight Itachi for some unknown reason of his. Also, he didn’t try very hard if I could just break the genjutsu without him attempting to stop me… I don’t understand him.
They had a small conversation with Naruto to make sure he was okay. None of them asked me though, which was fine, it didn’t bother me. Naruto got in a fighting stance like everyone else. I glanced down at my twin swords to see them in place, as they were before.
Kakashi ran at Itachi, who in return quickly did hand signs to create spits of fire balls towards Kakashi. Kakashi warned us that the next was coming for us, and it was a giant fireball this time. You know; the usual Uchiha stuff. We dodged it all, and this gave Kakashi enough time to charge the chidori. He ran at Itachi and lunged forward, Itachi quickly dodged though by jumping in the air, which gave Naruto an opening to come down with the Rasengan.
The Rasengan created a huge blast and shook the ground, smoke rose and we couldn’t see anything for a moment. Once it cleared, we saw Itachi, unharmed and Naruto not there, because he was hiding in the forest with us.
Suddenly, a mist technique filled the area, making it hard to see. I frowned in annoyance and glared ahead. “Always the mist technique…”
“We have to move out once the mist clears. Don’t move your eyes from him.” I overheard Chiyo say to Sakura.
Shortly after, the mist cleared and I looked up to see Kakashi and Itachi standing very close together. Did he catch Kakashi in his genjutsu, too? But my thoughts were dismissed when another Kakashi climbed out of a hole. And Naruto started to run at Itachi with the Oodama Rasengan he developed a while ago.
After the impact, we ran to see the damage, and stuff. Only to find out that it was not actually Itachi that we had just taken down. It was a dark haired man, which only Chiyo knew from our group. “He’s a Jounin from the Sand.” And she explained more about him, which I still didn’t listen to. She was hard to listen to, for me.
We finally started to leave after finding out that Gaara was probably dead around now. So, you know, that’s a great motivation kind of thing.
… What? It does bring great motivation to the group! Or at least to Naruto...well, somewhat. He seemed more depressed after talking about how Jinchuurikis die when the Bijuu get extracted, Sakura started to cry and Naruto promised to save Gaara… even though that’s not what she was crying about.
~*~*~
It was the middle of the night when suddenly…
“Wake up, you three.” A voice faint called out. This caused me to fall from my comfy tree I was previously asleep on a few feet away from the rest of my team. I groaned quietly and glared over to Kakashi.
“Give me another minute…” Naruto said from his spot as he stirred.
“We have to save Gaara-Kun, don’t we?” Kakashi replied.
I could imagine a smirk of amusement under his mask as Naruto threw the covers off like they were poisoned and replied with an “Of course!” to his sensei before turning to me and grabbing my hand to drag me away violently. “Let’s go, Mimi-Chan! Hurry up! we’ve got to go now!” He ordered and I tried to rip my hand out of his grasp.
“Okay, okay! Just let go!” I cried loudly, causing him to quickly let go of my hand and grin sheepishly.
Hours later of jumping through trees as we usually do, we finally reached water, where a giant boulder was blocking what looked like an entrance, and four familiar people were waiting for us. We landed behind them and one of them turned around and smirked. “You’re late, Kakashi.”
“Well, we ran into some trouble on the way here.” He explained to Gai.
“Naruto-Kun, Sakura-chan…!” Lee greeted happily, while I frowned.
“No greeting for me…”
Everyone ignored me and Chiyo turned to Kakashi. “Hey Kakashi, you weren’t talking about me were you?” She asked apprehensively.
I smirked at her question before putting most of my attention towards Team Gai in front of me.
Lee hadn’t really changed, style-wise. It was still the normal bowl-cut hair, large eyebrows, and green spandex suit, but with a green chuunin vest.
Neji cut his hair, actually, I couldn’t really tell. Got new clothes which were ivory colored and had a dark gray skirt around it. I inwardly snickered at the skirt part.
And lastly, Tenten, same hairstyle, but she seemed more mature looking and had different clothes on also. She had a Chinese styled shirt on and poofy red pants that had holes on the side, which showed part of her leg… except it didn’t. Mostly because she had bandages wrapped around her legs…
I couldn’t help but randomly tackle hug Lee. “Lee! Hi!” I happily greeted as he somewhat flailed his arms.
“Naomi? Why are you hugging me?” Lee questioned in a confused manner which I grinned at.
“Well, you see… when you’re stuck with your team for around roughly ten days… you’re just so happy to see other people.” I explained to him with a nod as my teammates and even his team members sweat dropped at me.
I turned to look at Neji and nodded in acknowledgement. “Neji,”
He mimicked me exactly. “Naomi.”
Tenten ran up to me and looked at me excitedly. “Naomi!”
“Who are you again?” I asked as I tilted my head in confusion, trying my best to keep a smirk off my lips. She looked immediately heartbroken and I thought she might break into tears. “Tenten, I was kidding. I remember who you are.” I told her shortly after and she looked happy again.
They all went to converse with my team instead now, which quickly brought us back to our little situation behind this boulder. “Well, are we ready to do this, Kakashi?” Gai asked while Kakashi nodded his head.
We all stared at the sign on the boulder that said ‘forbidden’ for a few minutes before Neji used his Byakugan. “The inside is wide and spacious, but… I can’t get a very good image of what it’s like inside and it seems that there are some people there.”
“Neji, is Gaara…? What’s happening to Gaara?” Naruto asked, but in a raised voice and he was shaking Neji’s shoulders.
“I’m searching for him now!” He replied and went quiet again as he eyes moved slightly. Naruto, being impatient, shook his shoulders again. “Hey!” Neji said with a scowl, but then his expression turned to surprised. “What is that?
Naruto, who was still shaking his shoulders tried to get his attention once again. “What’s wrong? What is it, Neji?!”
Neji, who wasn’t using the Byakugan anymore, ordered Naruto to let go, which he did. “What’s wrong?” Sakura asked for us.
“It’s hard for me to explain.”
“This means, I’ll keep it short.” Gai told us and did backflips away from us and then, with fast speed, he punched the boulder. Small waves of white exploded from where his fist touched and went out around the boulder, showing that it was a barrier.
“What should we do?” Lee questioned his sensei.
“First, we have to remove the barrier, Lee.”
“How…?”
“And we have to figure out just what type of barrier it is.”
Gai nodded his head and we continued to stare at the ‘forbidden’ sign once again. “This is a five-seal barrier, isn’t it?” Kakashi concluded as Naruto and I stared at him.
“…Five-seal barrier?” Both of us echoed simultaneously.
“This five-seal barrier is a barrier made by placing five ‘Forbidden’ seals in different places. There’s one forbidden seal in front of us and four others somewhere else.” Kakashi explained for everyone.
“How do we remove them?”
“If you don’t remove all five of the seals at the same time, you can’t remove the barrier.” He answered.
“They have to be removed at the same time no matter what, right?” Sakura asked.
“That’s right. If it isn’t done at the same time, the barrier can’t be removed.” I frowned slightly. Kakashi was repeating himself now… “That’s how it’s set up.” He pointed up to the sign… paper thing.
“That’s the first one? And there’s four more…?” Gai was the one to ask this time.
My eye slowly started to twitch. Did they not hear him the first time he said it?!
“So, where are the other four?” Naruto asked as he turned to Kakashi, his fingers curled into a fist and he had a determined look on his face. I inwardly sighed in relief. Thank you Naruto, for being the only one with a question that hasn’t been repeated!
Kakashi turned to Neji, who nodded his head and insantly used his Byakugan. “I’ve found them.” He said, and immediately told us where they were exactly. Once they got all the wireless radios connected and hooked, Gai told them where they’d be going.
Lee took in a deep breath before speaking. “Everyone, can you hear me?” He asked as everyone freaked out from the loud noise.
“Lee, you have your mic turned on too high!” Tenten scolded him, still holding her ears from the noise.
Lee immediately bowed his head. “I’m sorry!” The loud screeching noise went through the ears again and Kaakshi looked as if he was about to fall to the ground. Gai gestured to the mic thing and Lee took the hint and turned it down before apologizing again.
I looked back to Kakashi and raised an eyebrow. “I think you killed Kakashi-sensei.” I told them before pointing at him. They all ignored me however so I went to pat Kakashi gravity-defying hair before glancing over to team Gai.
“Okay, team Gai…” Gai stuck his hand out for the teammates to put their own hands over, like a small chant of good luck, or whatever it was. He waited for the others to join in as he hummed.
Gai hummed a small sound and Lee didn’t even hesitate to put his hand over his sensei’s hand. Gai chuckled… while humming and then glanced over to Tenten, who in return, looked slightly annoyed and a bit hesitant. But Gai once again let out a short humming sound and she gave in and put her hand over their hands too. Gai chuckled-hummed once again and glanced towards Neji… while humming. Neji sent him a death glare and stood his ground, they had a small glaring contest before Gai let out giant, loud noises that were slightly annoying but I couldn’t help but laugh even just slightly. Neji finally gave him and slapped his hand on top of everyone else’s hand.
Gai laughed and did a strange smile-grin. “Fight with the full power of youth! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight and one more fight!” And with that, they all dispersed.
I turned to my team and flailed my arms. “Aww, I want to be on Gai’s team! Why am I stuck with you guys? You’re no fun, why can’t we be like them? Kakashi, why are you so boring?”
Kakashi sweatdropped at me, “Hey...”
“It’s great that they’re so pumped up!” Naruto exclaimed, and turned to the rest of the team. “Hey, how about we do it, too?”
I nodded my head excitedly. “Yeah, let’s go, let’s go!” Naruto held his hand out and I put mine on his and gave our team a puppy dog look.
Sakura crossed her arms and turned her head away. “I’d rather die.” She said and Kakashi agreed with us while Chiyo called us fools.
Naruto and I lowered our heads in disappointment. “Why is our team so boring…?” I asked quietly, which Kakashi still heard and looked at me with a bothered expression.
Now all we had to do is sit here, waiting for Gai to be done, Sakura was in position to punch the boulder and the rest of us were off to the side. It took a few minutes but finally Kakashi received word that they were all in place and he got in place also.
Kakashi ripped the paper off and ordered for Sakura, who ran up and punched the boulder, causing it to break up into many pieces. We waited for all the pieces to fall before Kakashi gave us the signal to go inside, we all did and landed to see two people sitting on Gaara like he was a couch.
“So, I wonder which of them the Jinchuuriki is.” A blonde guy stated. It took Naruto a second, but his expression got angry, his eyes turned red and the whiskers on his face grew larger. I placed my hand on Naruto’s shoulder to comfort him in a way.
“You monsters…! Where do you think you’re sitting?! I’ll kill you!”
I frowned and turned towards them, too. One of them was in a puppet, from what I could tell, at least. And the other was normal-looking and had long blonde hair with some tied up in a ponytail. The blondie tried to talk to his partner, but it seemed as if his partner puppet was more interested in Chiyo. Which made me realized that he was probably her grandson, and that means that blondie is the one who took Gaara.
“Gaara, what’re you doing sleeping leisurely in a place like this?!” Naruto yelled to the unconscious Gaara who was, as I said before, being a couch for the other two. He tried his hardest to make Gaara get up, but it failed terribly.
“That’s enough, Naruto.” Kakashi demanded, and I continued to try and comfort Naruto. “You should know…”
“That’s right, you do know. Don’t you?” The Blondie asked. “That he’s already long dead.” He took his hand and knocked on Gaara’s face… awkwardly enough and I cringed slightly.
I have to admit, they were pretty good at provoking Naruto. It only took a second before he charged at them; luckily Kakashi is here to keep him in check and he ran out in front of Naruto. “Calm down… if you charge ahead without thinking, we’ll be finished.”
The two Akatsuki members started to talk to themselves, for some reason they started to mention art in their conversation and I found out blondie’s name is Deidara. Whose name seemed really familiar, though I was positive I had never seen him before, even in my own world on the Naruto show. It didn’t take long for even just mentioning art turned into an argument about it.
And I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrow at the silliness. “A—…are these guys for real? They’re fighting over art.” I said to my team, quietly and barely pointing to them as well.
“Art is a very serious matter, little girl.” Deidara told me in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.
“Whatever you say, blondie…” I retorted and turned away towards Kakashi, who in return sent a warning look my way.
“Naomi…”
“Kakashi-sensei…” I mimicked with a small grin.
“Don’t provoke them so carelessly.” He ordered.
I didn’t say anything back but I carried a small pout on my lips. I was having fun, provoking them. Though, I highly doubt that would’ve provoked them.
“Deidara, it seems you don’t understand what true art is…” His partner, Sasori, told him.
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand.” He shot back, and I could tell Naruto was once again getting impatient.
“No! Eternal beauty is true art.”
“Don’t be a fool. Art is an instant of beauty.”
“Knock it off!” Naruto shouted at them and pulled out a scroll. As he opened it, a small ‘poof’ was heard and he threw a giant weapon at them, which was deflected by a tail that came out of Sasori’s cloak.
“Do you want to make me angry?” Sasori said to Deidara, completely ignoring Naruto.
“I just told you… it would probably make you angry, didn’t I?”
“You know what happens when I get angry, don’t you?”
I nodded my head slowly. “It turns you into the hulk, right?” I answered for them, except with a question.
They tried their best to ignore my complete strangeness—though, let’s be honest. That’s really hard. “How about it, Deidara...?”
“Art to me is…” He stood up off of Gaara and glanced at his hand before clenching it and releasing something into the air. “…explosiveness itself!” He did a handsign and the small thing that had been thrown into the air was now a giant bird instead. It flapped its wings a few times before landing loyally next to its owner, blondie. “It’s a far cry from your silly puppet shows!”
Sasori’s reaction to this was anger and he immediately shot his tail towards his blonde partner, who quickly jumped into the air along with his bird, before landing on this bird, which said bird also had Gaara in its mouth. “See you around, Sasori-Danna.”
Deidara’s bird om nom, nom, nommed on Gaara before flying over our heads and out of the hideout. And Naruto, who was not capable of holding back or containing his anger anymore, ran after him with Kakashi behind him.
“Well, that’s cool… I guess I’m stuck in here with old lady, puppet boy and pinky.” I commented while nodding my head.
“I heard that you retired long ago.” Sasori said. This was addressed to Chiyo, obviously.
“I suddenly wanted to see my grandson’s face again.” She replied, and everything was silent again as Sakura stared into Sasori’s eyes, and seemed to be somewhat scared. Chiyo caught onto this easily. “Sakura, do not fear.”
“Chiyo, the old lady is here!” I cried excitedly.
Chiyo, the unamused old lady, glanced at me with a hint of annoyance in her eyes. “Don’t you have anything else to do?”
“Sadly, no… maybe if there were a third member of the Akatsuki here. Or if Sasori-chan could kindly point me in the direction of their other members… such as Itachi, then I would leave you be.” I explained to her with a mockingly sad tone in my voice.
A low growl escaped from Sasori, probably because I called him Sasori-Chan. “Unfortunately for me, and you, all of the members are absent…”
I snapped my fingers together and sighed sarcastically. “Well, darn.”
Chiyo stepped forward. “I’m here, so you step back.” She told Sakura before bringing her hands into her sleeves and pulling out magical floating kunai which she soon shot towards Sasori. It didn’t matter anyway, considering he blocked him with that strange tail, though she controlled them enough that it did cut his Akatsuki robe.
“If you’re going to defy me, then I guess I have no choice.” The cloak ripped apart and it showed the full puppet, it had a mouth on its back, which was what the tail came out of and on the arms there was a strange looking iron large bracelet. “Will you join that kid as additions to my collection, Chiyo-Baasama?”
“Naomi, I think you should follow after Kakashi and that kid. This might be a bit too dangerous for you.” Chiyo advised.
“You just want to get rid of me.” Chiyo sent me an ‘I’m-serious’ kind of look and I gave in, turning to the exit. However, I was stopped short as I looked over to Sakura, who looked at me, too. We both nodded at our silent words and I was off to find my sensei and best friend.
Though, that’s easier said than done.
I looked up to see a red arch kind of thing, except it didn’t arch… anyway; I looked up to find exactly who I was looking for.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that hard.
I jumped up to join them and gave a small wave. “What’s up?”
“Naomi, what’re you doing here? Weren’t you supposed to stay in there?” Kakashi asked as he narrowed his eyes towards me.
“Well, Chiyo doesn’t like me… so she sent me out here to help you guys follow blondie over there.” I explained to them.
“Well, I’m sure we’ll need your help.”
I nodded my head at Kakashi. “Though, I’m pretty sure blondie is weaker than Sasori-Chan.”
“It seems like they’ve started.” Deidara commented from his spot on his bird. “Is just that little girl and that old hag really up to the task of taking on Sasori-Danna?”
Deidara is somewhat annoying, and he had some feminine features, but… “He’s really adorable… handsome, actually.” I blurted out accidently, Naruto’s head snapped towards me in disbelief.
“Mimi-Chan, he… look what he did to Gaara!” He lowly growled out, immediate guilt filled me somewhat.
“I know that! I’m a teenager though, do you blame me?” I shot back, crossing my arms over my chest and puffing my cheeks out. Like the mature teenager I am.
“That’s real mature, yeah.” Deidara sneered, though it was obvious he was amused by us. I stuck my tongue out playfully at him.
“Sensei, you should go to Sakura.” Naruto said, trying his best to ignore me. “I’ll save Gaara!” And with that, Naruto jumped up to Deidara. He moved out of the way and a small explosion erupted from the rocky wall that Naruto was near. Blondie sent a small bird towards the same spot and Kakashi rushed up and threw a shurikan at it.
It still detonated, but everyone was out of its way. From the smoke, a kunai whizzed through the air, only to be deflected by Kakashi again. Naruto easily dug his way out from the wall he was pushed into and glared up at Deidara. “I won’t let you have Gaara, no matter what!”
I jumped up to Deidara’s level and tried my best to land a hit on him, he easily dodged it by moving the bird and threw shurikan at me, one grazed my shoulder but otherwise, I was unharmed. “Can you handle three people at once?” I asked with a smirk on my face.
He glanced my way but didn’t say anything towards me. More rocks fell as Naruto pushed himself further out of the wall. “I’m taking Gaara back!”
“You sure are a weird Jinchuuriki. I heard that Jinchuuriki were gloomy misanthropes. Not counting this guy, my comrades have defeated two Jinchuuriki.” Deidara mused. “It seems not even one comrade or villager attempted to save them.”
“He really likes to push buttons, doesn’t he?” I said mostly to myself.
“In fact, it seems there were actually some people who were glad.” Naruto tried his best to break free of the wall. “Gaara died after the one-tail was extracted. That will soon happen to you, too!”
I hadn’t seen Naru this angry since… Sasuke left, maybe? Not even that probably.
Naruto finally broke free and he joined me on the water along with Kakashi. “You, return Gaara to us!”
“I don’t think it works like that, Naru—“
“I won’t let you get away!” Naruto yelled, cutting me off as he ran after Deidara who had gotten further away.
“Naruto, wait a minute!”
“Kakashi-sensei, you go look after Sakura!” Naruto called back.
I sighed along with Kakashi. “Good grief…” We both started to run after Naruto. Kakashi easily caught up, it took me a bit longer but I did, too.
We continued to follow him. Naruto soon went from running on water to jumping on trees which were connected to the rocky walls. “That’s kind of cool.” I commented to Kakashi, who had no time to really admire them, considering he had to keep up with Naruto. “I wonder who made them… or if they naturally are like that? Either way, it’s still cool.”
I stopped admiring the trees and started to follow my team. It was a few minutes of jumping on the trees until up ahead where Naruto was, a small blast erupted once again. Kakashi threw shurikan to stop the small birds from damaging Naruto any further. It exploded, however and ruined one of the trees.
“Aw! The tree! Why, Sensei? Why the tree…?” I cried to him.
Naruto climbed back up so he could stand on one of the trees. “I’m not about to let him get away!”
Kakashi and I once again tried to catch up to him, Kakashi was faster than me so as he rounded the corner, a small bird exploded in front of his face but he emerged from the smoke free of scratches.
“Wait, you jerk!” Naruto called to Deidara as he continued to chase after him once finding out that Kakashi was okay.
As we continued to follow Naruto, even more small explosions happened as Deidara tried to separate Kakashi from Naruto. “He’s really out to get you.” I commented to Kakashi as he came out from the smoke once again, unharmed.
After a bit more of jumping, a loud noise of rocks caving in caught our attention. Kakashi tried his best to reason with Naruto to calm down just a bit, but in the end, Naruto sped up and was barely able to see him anymore.
We continued to follow him anyway, and as we did, small cricket-looking thing landed on the trees, Naruto passed them with no problem, and Kakashi did too, I thought, until it jumped out in front of him and exploded, and he stopped his tracks on a tree as I landed next to him.
There were tons of them in front of us. “Kakashi…?”
“Wait here, Naomi.” He ordered before concentrating chakra to his feet and tried to jump past them, they all moved to one spot and exploded in his face, which he blocked his face with his arms. He jumped up and the crickets followed, exploding once again, he landed on the ground. “Naruto, wait!”
“You’re too slow, Kakashi-sensei! I’m going on ahead!” He called back.
“Don’t do anything reckless on your own!” Kakashi warned and then turned his head towards me. “Do you think you can follow him?”
“I can try.” I answered, and quickly dropped all the way to the bottom where the water was and tried to run past the small crickets, they didn’t bother me since their only target was Kakashi.
I used my chakra to try and keep up with Naruto considering I was much slower than he was. I kept my presence low as I could, I ran across the water, keeping my eye on my foxy best friend. A loud explosion caught my attention and I glanced back. Slight worry coursed through me but I ignored it once I decided I still needed to follow Naruto.
Deidara came to a stop, and Naruto did too. I hid from their view under the trees. I couldn’t hear anything they were saying, I guess I’ll just have to make sure Naruto doesn’t get killed until Kakashi gets here.
Naruto suddenly lunged forward but was stopped by Kakashi. I quickly jumped up to where they were. “Oh man… and I had totally convinced myself that you had died.” I smirked slightly at his comment and the look on his face.
“Sorry, it wasn’t the real me that blew up.”
“Sensei, Naru. Can we keep him? He’s too funny.” I asked excitedly.
“No!” Naruto yelled to me before turning back to Kakashi.
“Next time, you should get them to tell between a clone and an actual person. If there is a next time, that is.” Kakashi said in a matter-of-fact tone, Deidara started to leave once again.
“Hold it!”
“That goes for you, too.” Kakashi said to Naruto, grabbing his shoulder to stop him from moving. “It’s okay. We’ll definitely get Gaara back.”
“Do you want me to go back into hiding to follow him, just in case?” I asked quietly, so Deidara wouldn’t hear.
“No. He won’t go anywhere if Naruto isn’t following him.” He told me before turning back to Naruto. “Naruto, you’re not accustomed to this type of enemy. Not only that, but he’s a long-range type. There are only two ways to defeat this type of enemy. One is to draw the enemy into a close-range fight and defeat them, and the other is to outdo the enemy with a long-range attack and defeat them.”
“But, how do we do that?”
“No matter what method is taken, your unit needs either a comrade who specializes in long-range attacks or one who can use support Ninjutsu for long-range battles. In the event of having neither, it’s impossible to defeat the enemy. Well, it’d be different… if you were as smart as Shikamaru, though.”
“Okay, so then what about you, Kakashi-sensei?”
“Oh, me…?” He said nonchalantly to him. “A Jonin who’s as smart as Shikamaru and possesses support Ninjutsu for long-range battles…”
“Then we’ve got what we need!” They continued to talk back and forth and soon I just stopped listening. It had nothing to do with me, really.
I looked up to Deidara for some distraction to see that he seemed to be in deep thought. I think that I would’ve really liked the Akatsuki. It’s too bad that they’re the enemy, that and he killed Gaara… plus, they’re after Naruto-kun. But if you think about it, if I would’ve been transported somewhere near the Akatsuki, and if I had a special enough Kekkei Genkai, I probably wouldn’t have known anyone in Konoha. And that thought alone of not meeting them made me feel sad.
“This isn’t the time for me to be taking it easy.” Deidara mused, and I sweatdropped at him. So much for thinking he was in deep thought…
Naruto and Kakashi immediately devised a plan and now we were once again off to follow the blondie. Kakashi brought his hands up to do a hand sign. I glanced at Naruto to see he had completely calmed down and I sighed in relief. “Kakashi-sensei, are you ready yet?”
“Hold your horses.” Kakashi said back to him. “I don’t have as much Chakra as you. It’s going to take time.”
A few minutes, Naruto asked once again. “Aren’t you ready yet?”
I laughed quietly at Naruto. “You’re so impatient.”
“I’m almost ready.” Once he said that, his eyes opened and he lowered his hands. I glanced at him to see he had the Mangekyou Sharingan.
I made an ‘Oooooh’ sound as Naruto’s mouth formed in ‘o’ before he talked. “That’s the thing you were talking about before?”
“Right, it’s my new Sharingan.”
“Quite the fancy sensei we have.” I commented with amusement in my voice.
“Now, let’s go.” Kakashi ordered and we sped up.
“He sure likes to play chase.” I said to my teammates as we continued to follow him. I had barely used any chakra, but I think I might pass out just from chasing blondie for so long. It was somewhat tiring.
We continued to play our games of chase even though in my mind I was complaining about it. Why did he get to ride on a bird while we jump from tree, to tree, to tree, to tree… you get the point, yeah?
“Get back a little, you two.” Kakashi ordered, and we both listened, letting up on our speed a bit. Not that it really mattered for me, since I was the slower of the other two and had been using my chakra to keep up.
Soon, it seemed as if the area where Deidara was got blurry and almost like he was being sucked into a black hole. And it also made him look rather funny. Though, after some short time, I got a bit dizzy from it and shook my head to get rid of the dizziness.
I looked back up to see Deidara’s arm fall right off and I winced a bit. Poor blondie…
I was happy to see the strange looking blurry area around Deidara was gone, now I wouldn’t be dizzy. Well, at least until Kakashi started it once again.
We had followed Kakashi all the way to the end of the awesome valley with trees, and into a forest. The Mangekyou Sharingan’s technique faded away and I stood a bit away from Kakashi as a precaution. “It takes a lot out of you.” I said in observation which he nodded his head at.
A bit in the distance, I saw Naruto jump at Deidara with the Rasengan, to avoid it, Deidara jumped away and the Rasengan went right through the bird’s head. Naruto used his shadow clones to safely recover the head and landed on a branch before digging his fingers through the clay bird to get to Gaara.
They finally dug him out, and one of them, whether it is the real Naru or a clone, shook him, but when no response came, they shouted out Gaara’s name again. They had shouted it so many times it didn’t seem like a word anymore.
I left the spot where my team was to a few trees over where Deidara was hiding. I jumped next to him on another branch and grinned, he looked a bit surprise that I was there but yet was ready to avoid anything I throw at him, but instead I turned away from him. “Don’t die, okay blondie? I’d like to see you again one day, perhaps over a cup of tea.” I told him in a quiet voice so no one but him would hear me.
His eyebrow twitched and he looked at me in even more surprise. “What?”
I was going to answer but Naruto interrupted. “I’m going to kill you!” He said to Deidara who decided to ignore me and smirk at the boy.
“I’ll take you on another day, maybe.” He replied to him and I jumped back onto the ground and to my team.
“You let your guard down.” I heard Kakashi say to Deidara as I jumped onto the branch that the said sensei was on.
Suddenly, a Naruto with his hand curled into a fist jumped from behind Deidara and aimed for him. The blondie couldn’t dodge quickly enough so Naruto hit him square in the face. “I told you that you let your guard down.” Kakashi stated, and I winched once again. I might not get that tea meeting with him if this keeps going on.
Naruto used his shadow clone jutsu and grabbed onto him as they fell to the ground, causing it to shake at the impact. Dust flew up but soon dissipated, once it did, Naruto came down on Deidara to the gut. He then proceeded to punch the Akatsuki member over and over again. One of the clones spun Rasengan in Naru’s hand and he used it on Deidara, but instead of blood and skin, it was clay particles.
The clones’ disappeared and slowly red… maybe fluffy, chakra started to surround my best friend. My eyes widened as I realized what it was and my head turned to Kakashi for help as the red chakra took its shape as a fox. As it finally made its full cloak form, Naruto punched the clay substitution hard and it exploded into pieces, not to mention dirt flew up once again and covered the clearing for a few seconds.
Once it cleared, I saw that the entire ground below us was crumbled into several pieces with Naruto in the middle of it. His eyes searched wildly for something and slowly another tail grew. The clones that were near Gaara and Kakashi clutched their throat violently.
“Kakashi, this isn’t good.” I warned quietly. “You have to do something.”
Naruto punched a tree, and it broke into pieces as well and flew many miles back. At that moment, the clones disappeared with a ‘poof’, Kakashi finally jumped down and tried to reason with the chakra-covered Naruto. Though, it didn’t go over well with him and he jumped towards Kakashi, ready to attack him with no mercy.
Luckily, Kakashi is quicker than that and dodged it. He brought out a small piece of square paper that had some writing and stared at it. He rushed over to Naruto and placed that paper on his forehead, almost immediately the chakra dissipated and Naruto’s former red eyes turned into his normal blue ones and the whiskers on his face lightened back up to small, thin lines.
After Kakashi made sure Naruto was okay, Sakura and Chiyo jumped down beside them. As they conversed, I kept my eyes focused on Gaara’s lifeless, hunched over form. I just wanted to see some movement from him… he was the Kazekage and he can’t die.
My eyes tore away from Gaara’s body to the sudden noise behind me to find black blurs clashing with each other. My guess is that it was Deidara and Gai’s team. This meant that my tea date chance was getting slimmer and slimmer.
Everything happened so fast I could barely tell what was going on. I had to admit, the Akatsuki member’s speeds were amazing, to say the least. Blondie and Gai’s team finally came to a stop near the headless bird. Deidara bit off a piece of the clay bird and started to chew it. Maybe I should invite him to play with play-dough instead of a tea date…
Deidara’s body suddenly started to be filled with tons of bubbles and he was now gigantic. “Everyone get back!” Neji ordered to his team and they all jumped back to us, the giant explosion followed them, however.
Kakashi pushed me behind him as the light of the explosion seemed to fill the area. To make sure my eyes didn’t have to experience the bright light, I covered them until I figured it was safe.
I slowly fluttered my eyes back open to see everyone else was confused, which in return, made me confused too. I looked up slightly to see the same technique of the Mangekyou Sharingan from before, and immediately I felt dizzy again. For a second I thought I might even faint, but I tried to keep my dizziness and consciousness in check.
Kakashi fell over almost right after saving us from the explosion, and Naruto quickly caught him. “You okay, Sensei?”
Sakura stared in confusion at Kakashi. “What in the world did you do?”
“I blew the explosion into another dimension.” Kakashi explained between breaths.
My vision wavered slightly and I tried to blink a couple of times to regain it, I rubbed my hand over my eyes as an attempt too. Why was I so dizzy?
“More importantly, is everyone okay?” I barely heard Kakashi say that but as much as I wanted to answer, I couldn’t find my voice.
“Is something wrong with Mimi-Chan?” Was the next thing I heard before I fell to the side and suddenly passed out.
--
End of chapter five!
This was so lonnnng. 16 pages and 8,411 words… D: which will be turned into 13-12 pages?
So, tea dates, blurry visions, potentially dangerous flirting with the enemy, what have I heard Naomi into?! Actually, I feel bad for making her flirt with Deidara…BUT WHATEVER. I’ll redeem her soon enough.
I’m sorry I didn’t upload for a while, I just knew how long I was going to make this and somewhat didn’t want to write it. I do hope this makes up for it though! And I hope everyone enjoyed. :D
I can’t wait to write the next chapter, I’ve been planning it since the beginning of this sequel. I can say I’m almost overly excited for this next chapter. I just hope it’ll withstand my expectation.
So, until then my lovely readers! :D