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They watched the compound quietly as they waited for night to fall. It was not long soon each fell asleep from the exhaustion of the lengthy chase since they left Leaf Village. Only Naruto kept a faithful watch as he thought of the four years that had passed since Sasuke left. ‘That demented Sasuke, stupid power crazy idiot,’ Naruto scolded under his breath. Idly, he wondered how much Sasuke had changed since then; after all he himself had changed a lot. From the time when the mission failed, he pushed himself hard and was a rival to Lee for the most hard-working genius. Now even girls began to gawk at him and his ‘beautiful toned muscles’ they termed it.

As his brain dully shifted onto other subjects, he noticed Tsukishi and Akara leaving the compound. Suddenly he saw a group chase after them. Those eyes could only belong to two people and it was definitely not the older one. He quickly aroused them from their slumber explaining what he had seen. He watched their reactions; neither of them seemed surprised that Sasuke had ended up joining Orochimaru.

“Naruto, I’m sorry. We won’t go far Sasuke. We have to get to Orochimaru first,” Jiraiya calmly said. Naruto angrily slammed the tree trunk with his fist, earning a nice dent in the trunk. Kurenai flinched from the tension created between both teacher and student. “That’s final,” said Jiraiya firmly. Naruto growled angrily but said nothing for he knew that it was the only decision to guarantee bringing Sasuke back.

“Most unimpressive,” Orochimaru remarked turning around as the door was flung open. “I can’t tell if you’re here to kill me or get Sasuke or perhaps both. Kukuku- Too bad. For in any case, you won’t get any further. Kukuku-” he laughed sinisterly.

Jiraiya frowned and smirked. “Don’t see you faithful servant here.”

“Oh, he’s off with a mission. Someone has caught my eye. A very interesting specimen from a very interesting clan in fact,” Orochimaru chuckled. Without any warning, Orochimaru’s tongue flew out and grabbed Jiraiya’s foot. He heavily slammed Jiraiya through the open door and into a tree.

“Jiraiya-sama!” Kurenai yelled unable to move from her spot when the new four gates intercepted them.

“You won’t get any further,” the one with white hair said.

Slowly, Orochimaru walked towards them. “Come on Naruto. Don’t be scared. Don’t you want to fight me?” he mocked as he inched menacingly even closer.

“Naruto! Don’t!” Kurenai ordered.

“I was trained for this,” he snarled and rushed towards Orochimaru. “The rest are yours!” he said.

Four Naruto(s) rushed towards Orochimaru. Two of them grabbed him while the others used Rasengan on him.

“It’s a nice attack, sadly, I can’t see who you are attacking,” Orochimaru commented appearing behind them. The ‘Orochimaru’ that the clones had been holding onto turned into soil. Naruto growled. The clones disappeared as they threw shurikens at Orochimaru.

“Shadow Replication!”

“Nice. Shadow Shuriken Replication,” Orochimaru countered. “It’d have been a nice fight. Pity I got other things to do now. Kukuku- I’ll be seeing you around,” he sniggered as his body sank into the ground.

“I won’t let you go! Earth Prision!” Naruto yelled placing his left hand on the ground. The earth around Orochimaru swiftly bound him.

“Kukuku- it won’t work on me,” Orochimaru said. Snakes appeared and bound Naruto as he vanished into the ground. Naruto winced as the snakes bound even tighter. Concentrating, he pulled the Kyuubi’s chakara and burst the snakes apart.

“My silly comrades. Did I not tell you not to come?” Sasuke said. His hair was slightly longer but still just as spiky. However, his face had changed; his cheeks were sunken making his eyes have an odd evil look about them.

“Sasuke! You bastard!” Naruto yelled.

“Spinning Claw!” Kiba yelled as he finally finished the three sound Nins that appeared when the Orochimaru disappeared along with the Four Gates. Kurenaibent over Jiraiya and slapped him trying to get to wake up.

“Kukuku- I can easily beat you up and move on to the next few.”

“This is not the way to get power even if you wanted. Have you forgotten everything?” Naruto hollered furiously.

“There was nothing worth remembering back there in the first place.”

“Power comes from protecting the ones you love,” Naruto said struggling to control his anger. “Can’t you even remember Sakura-Chan?” A look flashed through Sasuke’s cold eyes. ‘He controls Sasuke’s will’ Naruto growled and rushed towards Sasuke. Reflexively, Sasuke used the phoenix spirit fire Jutsu. With some rapid seals, Naruto used appeared behind him.

“Over her you idiot!” Naruto yelled as his left foot made contact with Sasuke’s head. Sasuke fell onto the ground. “I underestimated you,” Sasuke snarled dusting the dirt off him. A cold realization as Naruto stared defiantly into Sasuke’s two drops Sharingan. He immediately averted his eyes to settle somewhere near his neck. “Kukuku-, it won’t work on me again,” Sasuke laughed as he flipped away from Naruto’s charge. “Shadow Snake hands!”

Four snakes shot out of Sasuke’s sleeve and wrapped around Naruto. Suddenly two arms broke from the ground beneath Sasuke and pulled him into the earth. The Naruto Sasuke had grabbed disappeared in a puff of smoke.

‘Shit!’

“Clawing whirlwind!” Kiba and Akamaru spun toward Sasuke. Sasuke blew multiple fireball towards them.

“Where are you looking?” Naruto bellowed, punching straight into Sasuke’s head.

“Urgh!” Sasuke moaned falling cold.

‘Naruto has improved much,’ Jiraiya thought thinking of the fight he had just watched.

‘His speed is practically matchable to Lee’s-’ Kurenai commented to herself.

“How do we tie Sasuke up?” Naruto asked. Jiraiya stood up and flashed a few hand seals; the earth wrapped around Sasuke and harden instantly.

Slapping a few paper writings onto the earth, Jiraiya motioned them to leave. Kiba swung Sasuke over his shoulder and they departed.

—-
She blinked at the sight of trees whizzing past her. Struggling slightly, she found herself bound very tightly. She couldn’t even more her legs separately. /Great- Kidnapped by a sound with me not having the faintest idea why/

“Quite struggling- or I’ll break you other arm,” he said to her gruffly and hit her hard. She grimaced and looked at him only sort of free limb. It was bound tightly with two splints to hold it straight. /Must be a medic ninja. Hmm- wouldn’t have bothered if he were simply using me as a bait/ she glumly thought and wondered if it was just him on this mission. Closing her eyes, she listened carefully to the surroundings for perhaps another rhythmic landing and jumping of ninjas. Two were on her left and one on her right, but they were far. Without knowing which direction they had been heading, she had no idea which way to travel should she manage to escape. She shifted trying to increase the Chakra in her ears. She discovered that there was something preventing her to shift her Chakra flow or increase it or doing anything more than the normal flow. Things began to look real bad as she started to plot her escape. Death seemed better than to be brought to an unknown place for an unknown cause. She bit her lip as she carefully stretched her broken arm down to the ninja’s pouch. With some great effort, she shrivelled her body and sprang towards her kidnapper’s head to smack it hard. He was stunned temporarily releasing her just a little bit, but that was enough. She reached into his pouch as she fell and grabbed a few kunai. They were different from normal ones, hooked and seemed to be made to cut ropes or something close to that.

Landing on her feet, she tore the ropes that bound her feet quickly. He glared fiercely at her and pounced towards her but she had already started running. Her breath quickened and in no time she was tired. That something was still preventing her from putting chakra into her feet and jump like all normal ninjas moves. She heard the rhythmic landing not to far behind her. He was rapidly catching up. Whoever were the other three ninjas, it didn’t seem as though they had been alerted unless-. Making a hasty decision, she turned towards the direction of the two ninjas and fled. She prayed fervently that she was not making a wrong decision.

Suddenly, perhaps due to her exhaustion, she tripped over the roots of a tree. She cursed every second that she allowed her kidnapper to gain distance. “Well, well, looks like you’ve finally given up. It was such a boring chase that I could have almost fallen asleep,” the silver hair ninja peered at her through his glasses. Her heart seemed to threaten the break from its bone cage. She pulled the cloth from her mouth. /I hope, I hope! Please help!/ she screamed shrilly for help. The ninja grabbed her broken arm and pulled it so sharply that she shrieked in shock and pain. She gritted her teeth and kicked him desperate to be free.

“Little girl, this is completely sound territory. No one will save you,” said him with a rather cruel expression. The pain in her arm was agonizing that for a moment she thought she had hallucinated and saw something wrap around the ninja’s ankle. She gasped in shock as she and the ninja was flung to the tree. Frantically she tried to free her broken arm.

“I don’t think that’s quite true-,” said the ninja with pure white hair that touched the ground. “Ah- Kabuto- I have to admit, I was wondering a moment ago what mission Orochimaru sent you on.”

/Sannin! Not good./ Kabuto thought. “I was thinking of taking the long way home,” he replied pulling Ameki towards him only to find Naruto holding rather tightly on his arm. “Well, I guess I’ll take the short way home then.” He flashed a few hand signs and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Ameki heaved a sigh of relief and turned to the foursome.

“Thank you,” she bowed earnestly at them before looking up.

/Konoha’s headbands!/

“Where are you from?” Jiraiya asked. She reached up to her forehead and felt her sweat drenched skin instead of cold metal.

“Konoha-” Tiredly she sank to the ground. They stared at her with mixed expressions. Well, she did look rather odd Ameki admitted to herself. It’s not everyday that you see a girl half about in ropes and sporting a broken arm. Kurenai walked over to her and ripped a paper that was sticking on her. The ropes that bound Ameki unravelled.

“This paper is not usually used on normal civilians. This means that you’re a ninja.” Ameki almost instantly felt the smoothing relief of her Charka converting and filling her energy-deprived parts. Even her broken arm felt whole again, the infuriating pain had disappeared. She pulled the splints apart and swung her arm. Her arm was more or less a whole piece again.

“Who are you?” Naruto aggressively asked.

“Hagane Ameki,” she replied unblinking at them under their scornful looks. Jiraiya smiled slightly.

“Ah- so you’re Hagane Ameki.”

“She doesn’t carry any features of the Hagane clan,” Kurenai muttered.

“I don’t look like my clan-” Ameki stiffly replied.

“Then we can’t say for sure that she’s really Hagane- and why will she be here in the first place-”

“That doesn’t matter-” Jiraiya answered.

“But-”

Jiraiya stared at Kurenai who glared. Finally they graced across the trees on the road back how. Jiraiya and Kurenai made no sound as they jumped and landed on the tree branches. It was as if they were tiptoeing across, but of course they were not. Ameki shook her head to clear her jumbled thoughts. She wasn’t making much sense. All she wanted to do now was to snuggle in her brother’s arms and feel safe. She froze in mid-thought. /That’s odd- I never was very close to Kotetsu-onisan. He never hugged me and I never hugged me- I wonder why those thoughts suddenly appeared-/ The scar on her back shot up in pain. /Wha-/ It felt like her whole back was on fire, but she bore the pain silently by biting her lips and tears streaming down her face. In a way, it was good that neither of the foursome gave her much attention.

Kiba shrugged the heavy load off his back and onto Naruto’s hands. Akamaru had been driving him crazy with his constant whining that was not at all normal. He had the right mind to properly ask him what was wrong once they were safely into Konoha’s territory. With Kurenai fuming and Jiraiya staring sternly it was definitely not the time to stop. Lazily, he shifted his gaze across the landscape. The sudden stench of blood overpowered his sense and he caught the glimmer of red somewhere to their left as he tripped in shock. He quickly flipped and somehow managed to land on his feet before springing back to the front of the group. “Blood-” he turned to Jiraiya.

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