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“So Ameki is gone,” Tsunade gravely said after listening to their explanations and deductions. “I’m afraid that we have no current free ninjas to chase after whoever who did that. I’m sorry Kotetsu, but for now we can only hope for the best. Take the rest of the day off. Just don’t be silly and try chasing after her yourself.”

“I understand,” Kotetsu said bowing as he left. Izumo caught Tsunade’s eye as he left nodding in agreement.

“You know- Ameki isn’t my real sister-” Kotetsu muttered to Izumo throwing the empty beer can away. “It’s not that I don’t treat her as my sister, but it’s just that she’s different from our clan. Just- different-”

Izumo’s eyes widened in surprise; he had always known that Ameki was different from the clan in certain ways. He had never guessed that it was mainly due to the fact that Ameki was never really Hagane to start with. “Do you- still hate her?” he asked carefully choosing his words.

Kotetsu threw his head back and laughed. “How could I? What I believed could never be proven in the first place. Besides she was so easy to look after-” he lowered his head. “-And she helped me so many times without me asking- to hate her would be- foolish-” They lay on the floor quietly, their minds both brooding over that incident.

/Flashback/

“You idiot! You stupid-” Kotetsu paused finally lost at words to continue yelling at Ameki. He swore a string of vulgarities at her.

“Kotetsu! Calm down!”

Kotetsu threw his palm heavily across the six-year-old girl. Yet she still looked expressionlessly at him, the red shade spreading across her right cheek. “Murder! You killed her!”

Izumo grabbed Kotetsu frantically trying to hold Kotetsu down. “Kotetsu, that is unproven,” Sandaime said eyeing the scene before him.

“Only her will know. You know very well that your mother was no weak ninja. She would never be able overpower a fully-fledged Special Jounin.”

Kotetsu angrily glared at Sandaime and then at Ameki. Six-year-old Ameki stood there staring blankly at furious Kotetsu. Rain pelted onto them mercilessly, drenching them thoroughly and washing the blood away.

“(1) Hana Okami-” she replied in her quiet voice, strangely unperturbed by Kotetsu’s slap or anger.

“That’s completely impossible-” Kotetsu grinding those words through clenched teeth. He waved Izumo away taking menacing steps towards her. The scattered purple petals Wisteria petals crushed beneath his sandal. “You know very well that flowers can never harm. Liar. Don’t ever let me see you.” He spun around stonily marching back to town.

Izumo hastily checked Ameki’s wounds. “Don’t worry, let him cool down first. Tonight, you’ll stay over my house.” Ameki passively looked at him with her gunmetal grey eyes.

“Kotetsu-onisan said that flowers could never harm. But Ameki was not lying-” her voice was steady, calm unlike someone’s would be who had just witness the brutal death of a woman torn screaming apart in front of her. Somehow her silence and stillness scared him. It was extremely creepy.

/End of flashback/

——

“Naruto lead Kiba and Ameki back to town with Sasuke. Kurenai and I will go to investigate the scene. It’s so close to our borders and strangely I haven’t seen a single Anbu,” Jiraiya ordered. Naruto nodded and without a second glance, they split.

Naruto sped through the forest the lush greenery turning into an endless blur around them. All of them seemed to be in thought, Naruto noticed. “Pursuers,” Kiba said. “Eleven of them. Two platoon.” Naruto frowned thinking.

“Right, this is the plan, Kiba. You will continue with Ameki. I will fight them since I have the highest chance of making out there alive. Kiba, you’ll have to fight if there’s anymore. I hope to stop all though.” Naruto stopped on the branch, Kiba acknowledging his command. /All the hours of playing shogi with Shikamaru is starting to pay off-/ Naruto thought darkly to himself.

During his four years, Jiraiya forced him to sit down day after day to play shogi, a Japanese chess, with Shikamaru. Day after day, Shikamaru called him idiotic correcting his move after move, forcing him to think several steps ahead. Even the crows started to seem as though they were calling him idiot! ‘How long was it?’ Naruto asked himself. ‘Six months? Ten months?’ He grumbled making an obvious fake trail away from the original. He hid himself well, keeping an eye on the route and straining to hear the pursuers.

“Well well, looks like they weren’t that stupid after all,” a particular ninja commented after three of them were shocked by the electricity generated by the four seals. “Are you coming out or what?”

Naruto grinned to himself. /Just one more/

The ninja walked forward. Naruto pulled his shurikens out. /Just a little closer-/

“Look out!” the ninja yelled. Naruto leaped out the bushes throwing his shurikens while flashing many numerous seals. He had trained plenty out of hours and definitely is no longer as stupid as he was to scream the name of the attack out anymore. He laughed to himself. /Shadow Shuriken!/

“Urgh-”

/Eight left/ Naruto counted the bodies. There was one short. /Must be the moronic one to prevent ambush again/ “well, well, looks like you’re the one that fell for it,” he smirked. The ninja waved his hands and the ninjas behind retreated back to the original trail. “Not so fast.” Naruto made his shadow clones. Suddenly he noticed someone behind him /Shit! /

“Kya-!”

Kiba turned his head. “Did you hear that?” Kiba asked incredulously. Ameki nodded. “There are some pursuers! We must quicken our pace. You’re a ninja right? Good, I’ll do my best. What ever you do, you must not let them get Sasuke,” Kiba said. He passed her Sasuke. They streaked through the forest going at a pace that made her feel as though her legs were about to drop off. The trees were not just a blur they now had no shape. Just an endless green mixed with a little brown though hardly noticeable flying past them. The pain in her back was still ceaselessly infuriating her. “Hurry!” Kiba said finally stopping. He turned and began to ready for confrontation.

Ameki glanced back nervously, forcing herself to pick the pace up. Konoha was not very much further. Another half an hour at that pace and she should be safely into the walls of Konoha. /Should that was/ she thought.

Akamaru growled. “Steady now, Akamaru,” Kiba muttered. Now that Akamaru had grown up to almost half of his height, he looked intimidating by himself. There was an odd scent, completely unidentifiable. “Eh? What’s wrong Akamaru? Akamaru!?”

He glanced at Akamaru’s whining form. His hair prickled with an acute fear that he had not felt since bumping into Gaara’s team during his chuunin exam. His legs screamed to flee as the scent not only got stronger-it grew bigger. His hands trembled unconsciously as he stared intently into the rapidly darkening forest. The screeches of the nesting birds overwhelmed his ears shutting his sharp sense of hearing. /What the hell is that thing/ He asked continuously as he saw the first shape from the dark surroundings. /Akamaru is of no help now- /

The Dummy’s guide to Ambushing

Always be smart.

Camouflage!

Use tricks

Use wire traps

Use paper seals

Use a dummy

Use an illusion

If all else fails, just act cool and wait for death

Naruto paused at that last thought. /Wait for- death- Wow, how interesting. / he made a mental note to write to the author. With no time to set any traps or even dummies, he leaned against the tree, coolly watching the growing blobs.

“Yo-” he called as they began to pass him. He pulled the loose string attached to the opposite tree with his kunai and successfully tipping the first two. He spun around, his drawn kunai meeting his enemies’ shurikens. The glints of the weak sunlight reflecting off the metal weapons not stopping as he met his opponents with plenty vigor and enthusiasm. He struck his kunai into ninja, twisting it to make the bone snap. /That scent, it’s- not from them- /

All of a sudden, the shrieking birds had turned to an eerie silence that only served to increase the foreboding feeling. A presence seemed to loom behind him, the scent rapidly increasing in size and concentration.

He growled plunging his claw-like nails into his enemy’s face listening to following scream. Naruto turned glaring at the two remaining sound nins with his blood red eyes. “Come,” he motioned at them with his hand a motion very similar to what Lee often does.

The sound nin pulled his cloak up revealing the metal arm. Six large holes were drilled through it. The sound nin smirked, now discarding his cloak as he advanced towards Naruto. Naruto soared towards the sound nin, raising his arm to punch the sound nin. However suddenly he remembered that that arm looked not only familiar to a particular sound nin that he watched during the matches of the chuunin exam, he was quite sure that it worked the same way as that sound nin did. He rotated his charka, using a skill that he mastered just a month ago. The sound nin gaped at him watching Naruto mid-air flip, he quickly swung his metal arm out, meeting Naruto’s punch. Naruto could practically feel the huge change of direction of the charka in the sound nin. He quickly leapt away, barely missing the charka missile.

“Pretty good,” the sound nin commented smugly.

Naruto smirked, “ Don’t look so complacent.” The looming shadow appeared behind the sound nin. His clone swiftly jabbing into the back. The sound nin moaned, unable to move anymore. “Don’t worry I’m sure our ANBU will find you in an hour or two, and in three hours, you’ll be able to move again.” Naruto smiled cheerfully. His once bright blonde hair had darken slightly over the years, producing an almost duplicate of the fourth hokage. ‘Well then,’ Naruto thought, sealing the kyubi back. His nails returned to its original length and the whiskers-like lines faded to look somewhat like scratches. ‘Damn, let seven go,” Naruto swore picking up the back pace to Kiba and Ameki. He ran with all his might hoping to reach Kiba and Ameki as soon as possible.

“Hn, don’t lose you concentration young boy,” the sound nin said. He pulled his katana out bringing forward as he rushed towards Kiba. Metal screeched against each other. Beads of perspiration clustering each individual’s face. The sound nin spun around pulling out two shurikens.

“AKAMARU!” Kiba yelled unable to stop the shurikens’ path as it flew towards the dog. Furious, he reached over and clawed through the sound nin’s face. He turned towards remaining five with a look that looked possessed.

“Run!” The ninja told the rest of them. “GO!” The two ninja managed to dodge Kiba’s crazy blows slipping past him. The sound nin pulled a flute out and with a grimace he blew a slow tune. The other two not too successful had their face maimed by his sharp claws.

“You know why we’re called sound nins?” the sound nin smiled his pearl white teeth showing above his mask. Kiba glared at him, his hands covering his ears.

Her heart pounded so loudly that she swore those pursuing her were bound to have heard it. The flower shaped scar that was hurting her seemed nonexistence in compared to the need of reaching the safety of within the borders of the hidden leaf village. As the shape of it began to loom closer, she heard the distinct crack of branches as it bent to support her pursuers. She flipped to her, landing on the trunk of the tree. The dull thud of shurikens falling onto the branches appeared to announce the beginning of her fight. She crouched down as if to leap towards them and suddenly jumped backwards. A chain that she had pulled out flew towards them. On each end of the chain was a sharp blade. /Metal dance!/ She fed the chain her charka, pulling it smoothly around as she had always practiced in her long training sessions. Twisting it as it embedded itself into the ninja’s arm, she pulled bits if the ninja’s flesh along with it.

“Hn, I can’t believe u just got hit by a brat,” the sound nin gloated at the other. She pulled it back watching the sound nins movement.

/There is greater importance of bringing Sasuke back than fighting these two/ she quickly calculated her risks of staying and fighting. Taking her chance, she turned and dashed towards the borders of the hidden leaf village. Though so close, the distance appeared to be impossible. She bound Sasuke tighter to her, his weight pressing on her diminishing stamina. The sounds of pursuers yet grew and was swiftly catching up. So did the pain in her back increased as they grew nearer. She spun away unable to dodge all the shurikens. She bit back a shout while the shurikens buried it sharp blades into her flesh. She tripped on the branch falling fast and painfully onto the roots of the gnarled tree, its pretty petals falling over her.

Kiba could no longer keep the tune out of his ears. Like a termite it was burying into his brain, it felt like needles were inserted into him. “No-” he bent over unable to cope with the pain.

All of a sudden, it stopped. Naruto smiled at Kiba who had looked up warily at the disappearance of the tune. The sound nin fell to the ground, a kunai straight through his neck. Crimson blood pooling around the barely living sound nin. “Let’s go and find Ameki now,” Naruto grinned at him.

“So we meet again-” Akara drawled upon catching the sight of Jiraiya’s white hair. She dropped the corpse that she was holding and wiped her mouth that only served to smear the scarlet blood over her cheek.

“You-” Kurenai started but incapable of finishing her sentence. She could only stare shell shocked at Akara. Akara smiled wider knowing Kurenai had put the pieces together, her blood stained teeth beaming through her sneer.

“What do you want?” Tsukishi demanded from the branches above. His grey eyes emotionless watched them with a sharp intensity. “I hardly imagined to see you twice,” he paused with a faint smirk, “alive-“ His eyes traveled behind Jiraiya. “Well, with your team killed its hardly not imaginable.”

Jiraiya frowned. “They left with our charge. I see the reason of the strong blood scent. Leave our borders now.”

“We’re hardly interested in Leaf Village,” Tsukishi remarked before playing a soft tune with his flute. The wind picked up and the spiraling leaves began to form two large wolves with fur and all. The two wolves tilted their head respectfully towards Tsukishi and his brother. Deftly, the trio saddled the two wolves. Akara laughed manically as they ran through the woods leaving two stunned ninjas behind.

“Ameki!” Kiba called, turning her over. Naruto surveyed the two dead sound nins. Thankfully, Sasuke still remained with her. Though strange, it seemed as though the two sound nins had been torn apart. Their limbs were scattered all over the place. Only the falling petals made the place look less gruesome.

Kotetsu’s lips pressed so tightly that it formed a straight line. Naruto was discussing the details with Tsunade. Neither had any vague idea on what could have happened. The only last solution was to wait for Ameki to come round.

“The ANBU could find no other weapon apart from the chains of Ameki. There is no plausible explanation at the moment,” Shikamaru reported.

Kotetsu knew that there could only be one reason. He himself had been at the scene to inspect the details. That meant that all those years that he had thought he had maligned her were false.

End of Chapter

Hana Okami- When broken apart and put together it means flower wolf. Hana (flower) and Okami (wolf)

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