Edited: 29/03/24
Reupload: 30/03/23
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Old (left) – New (right)
¬ Vine Cage (landscape jutsu) = Vine Ensnarement Jutsu
¬ Natural Hearing (tree dance) = Leaf Whisper Jutsu
¬ Root Grab (landscape jutsu) = Root Snare Jutsu
¬ Steel whip (tree dance) = Steal Whip Jutsu
¬ Natural surveillance (tree dance) = Natural Surveillance Jutsu
¬ Plant army (tree dance) = Plant Army Jutsu
¬ Liana clones (tree dance) = Liana Clone Jutsu
¬ Shallow plant (landscape jutsu) = Plant Phasing Jutsu
¬ Tree tracking (landscape jutsu) = Tree Tracking
¬ Tracking tools = Tracking tools
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"More intruders," Black Zetsu spoke up.
If it was Guy and his team before then this time it can only be one group of people.
Naruto. Kakashi. Sakura. Some sand shinobi.
They're coming.
I couldn't help but to smile knowing who was coming.
"What're you smiling at down there?" Deidara asked with a glare before throwing a kunai down at me, just skimming the side of my leg. I barely felt the sting amongst the burning in my body so it went almost unnoticed by me, had I not looked at it, I likely probably wouldn't have known that it skimmed me at all.
"You can throw as many kunai as you want but that won't change the fact that I know they're going to beat your asses," I sneered at him, barely holding myself up before dropping to the floor again.
"You didn't cover your tracks very well, did you, Deidara?" Pain asked, giving him a glare as he ignored my comment.
"Well— as I said, the jinchuriki host seemed more powerful than we thought," he said awkwardly, trying to cover up his mistake with an excuse.
"You're a bumbler and a fool, your methods are too crude for any secret operation," Sasori insulted his partner without even a moment of hesitation.
"Crude?" Deidara questioned looking away with a huff, "those clumsy traps of yours were hardly subtle, my friend."
"Why you—" Sasori started, clearly irritated.
"Stop bickering amongst yourselves. Focus on the jutsu," Pain interrupted.
While they're distracted, this is my chance to get one of my little plant guys out of here and find someone, anyone, to tell them where we are specifically. I managed to put my hands together and make a small hand sign.
"Plant army jutsu," I whisper, thinking of one little plant man. It popped up out the ground next to me and I told it to go to the entrance by using my body language alone as best I could. It seemed to understand what I wanted and wobbled all the way over there and slid through a crack in the wall without being noticed. I let out a small breath of relief and dropped back down to the floor.
"Natural Surveillance Jutsu," I whispered again, transferring my sight to the plant outside, I winced under the sudden light from the sun but quickly got past it. I don't want to look up to see Gaara in pain anymore. So being blind in my own body is fine for now, not that I really need to see anything in there at that particular moment anyway.
"Now then, who to send this time," Pain pondered.
"Me!" Hidan persisted, "this time it must be me!"
"This time a leaf shinobi should do," Black Zetsu spoke up, if I remember this scene from the show, I'm pretty sure that Itachi glanced over at him with a clearly displeased look on his face. Oh how I wish I could've seen that first.
"Very well, it's decided then," Pain agreed.
Outside, I couldn't see any of the teams. Just the flow of the water around and the trees across from the cliff the little plant was sat on.
Ok.
This is fine too.
When I see them, I'll put a transformation jutsu on the plant and force my voice through the plants mouth rather than my own. I know that if the Akatsuki look at me they'll just see me mouthing words like a mad man but at least I'll be able to communicate to the outside and warn them before the last of my chakra is gone. I just hope they hurry and get here. I can already feel my chakra draining far too quickly. Not sure I'll be able to keep this up for too long.
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"It appears Itachi has made contact with the enemy. And I see Kisame is engaged in combat," Pain announced, "and it would seem that the poison has made the rat's eyes blind. Look how pale they are now."
"That's a different effect. I guess in some people, things are different," Deidara shrugged.
Stay quiet, y/n, you can't tip them off. So just stay quiet.
Kankuro's PoV
I couldn't help but to stare out the window hoping that they would just return soon.
I hate being stuck in bed and of all things I'm worried about how y/n might be faring, I left her alone. A newbie at using chakra, or well, newbie in the terms of she has no memory of her past and so she's been retraining her body to the state of a ninja again. Not to mention, she's definitely not an offensive nin, a defensive nin and a tracker perhaps but not offensive, not at this particular point in time at least. If she got stuck in a fight, she'd have to rely on her taijutsu but I'm almost certain she was exhausted or at least tiring when we separated. So there's no way she could've fought in that state. I hope they find her. I may find her mildly suspicious, after all, somehow she seemed to know about the attack before it even happened not to mention she somehow knew how it was going to end... no—it doesn't matter right now, that's something to talk about later—I may find her suspicious, but it doesn't mean I want her to die because I rushed things...
"Don't worry about them. I'm sure they'll be fine," Temari spoke up, perching on the end of my bed. I shook my head with a sigh.
"It's pretty obvious that you're lying through your teeth to make both of us feel better. I know you too well for you to lie to me," I told her. She just sighed and nodded slightly.
"Of all the people out there right now, I'm more worried about y/n," I told her, she tilted her head to the side as if asking why, "She isn't a fighter... she barely has a grasp on her chakra... If she were to be trapped in a fight or flight situation, she would not run, based on her personality, but also... she wouldn't be the one coming back here with a success."
"I see. And I suppose we must also consider that if she got hit with that poison as well she'd be left vulnerable and alone so who knows how long she'll be able to survive," Temari hummed before pausing, "wait— do you mean to say that she has no offensive jutsu at all?"
"From the jutsu's she's revealed to us. I believe that they're either long distance or defensive. Although her tracking is also on point," I told my sister, recalling the jutsu we'd seen in the past. We both looked at each other worried.
Neither of us really said it but I think we were both thinking it. Based off what we know about y/n, it's likely that today she may not return alive or at least not able to fight anymore. All we can do now is hope that this isn't the case.
"If she gets back, I'm teaching her offensive jutsu," Temari stated, shaking her head in disapproval to her lack of fighting jutsu.
"I hope she comes back. Her and Gaara, and the leaf ninja. All of them," I looked down at my hands that were still shaking uncontrollably. Especially because now I'm sat here unable to do anything while they've gone to fight for us in our place... please come back. All of you. Alive.
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Your PoV
After a while, Itachi confirmed that it was team 7 who'd arrived and was engaging with him while Zetsu was sent to destroy some clones they'd made of other people, likely sand shinobi that they'd replaced in order to pull this whole thing off in the first place. All but Pain were feeling frantic about the two leaf nin teams getting closer to the cave, but Pain calmed them and indirectly confirmed that Sasori and Deidara would be the ones to "finish" them off in the end. And finally, they then finished extracting the tailed beast from Gaara's body and the forms of the Akatsuki just seemed to stand there in silence for now.
I didn't see Gaara's last moments, but I did hear them, and it took a lot in me to not try get up to fight them again. Even if I did, what good would it do now? Gaara was gone and I could feel it, I wasn't too far behind him either. Oh well... I tried. Can't say I didn't now, I suppose...
Outside, I finally saw Team Guy drop into sight and stood around waiting, obviously for Team Kakashi to join them just moments later.
"Late as usual, Kakashi," Guy stated as Kakashi straightened himself up.
"Well, we ran into a little trouble along the way," he replied in that usual Kakashi kind of way.
"Naruto! Sakura!" Lee greeted them brightly.
"Wait a minute, by a little trouble, you don't mean me, do you Kakashi?" Lady Chiyo asked.
Ok, if I leave them to do as they do now, they're just going to stand around and talk for a while so I pushed as much of my chakra as I could into the little plant man and transformed it to take a more humanoid figure to move towards them. This was, as expected, received with a hostile defence towards me. The only thing I could really do was try show I wasn't a threat, so I put more chakra into the form to form more of my features and put my hands up before pointing to the sand shinobi symbol on my arm.
"You're a sand shinobi?" the brown-haired girl asked. Tenten.
"Y-yes," I awkwardly stumbled over my words, it was surprisingly a lot more difficult than I was expecting to get them out, "My name is f/n l/n, and this is one of my jutsu. My real self is in there, behind the boulder with Gaara. Let me just say I'm dying, probably. And pretty quickly as well. I was poisoned, I don't think I'm going to be able to hold this jutsu up for too long."
They all looked at me with nothing more than a mix of suspicion and surprise. I didn't really expect them to believe me outright but honestly I didn't really know what else to do more than this. It's not like I can just stand my ass up, walk over to them and invite them in for a get to know me tea party.
"Byakugan!" the boy with pale eyes and long dark hair muttered quickly before looking towards the boulder behind me. Neji.
"Are you on the floor?" he asked slowly, I nodded, "your chakra is... You're losing a lot of chakra and really quickly."
"I know. It's because I'm doing this jutsu right now, I'm sustaining the tracking jutsu I gave to Kankuro but I suppose I can stop that now since you've made it here, and because, again, I've been poisoned," I explained before cutting off my chakra flow to the training ring I'd made, it crumbled from around Kakashi's finger. Neji's eyes returned to normal, and the others just watch on.
"I'm Might Guy, this is my team, Tenten, Neji Hyuga and Rock Lee," Guy introduces the team, pointing at the each of them.
"We are Team 7, I am Kakashi Hatake, this is Naruto Uzumaki, and Sakura Haruno," Kakashi introduced his team, "oh—and our sand shinobi—"
"Lady Chiyo. I know," I cut him off before pausing and nodding to them curtly, "I'm glad to meet you, even despite the circumstances. Now, listen closely, I need to explain the situation to you. It is imperative that you understand because soon the Akatsuki will attack and attempt to destroy you here and now."
"Please continue," Guy nodded, falling equally serious.
Ok. Here we go.