Gaarafan12
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Part 0
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
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Naruto moved closer to the edge of the tree limb he was positioned on to get a better look at the target. They had taken up positions around the house the subordinate lived at and were observing. Naruto thought they should take a more ‘head on’ approach, but Kakashi had decided to wait and observe to have a better idea of the enemy and give their backup time to arrive.
Sakura had motioned that the target was in the house around ten minutes ago. Annoyed that he was still sitting around doing nothing while this creep who attacked his friends was in there Naruto edged forward again in anticipation. Naruto stopped after getting a look from Kakashi. Naruto was positioned in a tree directly in front of the house, Sakura was covering the back from a nearby rooftop, and Kakashi was about 50 meters to Naruto’s right.
Naruto was feeling uneasy again, the whole time they had been in position, or in the village for that matter, he hadn’t seen a single villager. The day they had all arrived the place had been alive with people, shops were busy, and children played in the yards. But today not a whisper of life was present. Could all of the villagers been clones? Had the plot to replace Gaara gone so deep into this place that the village itself had been fake?
As Naruto contemplated the possibility, he decides to check for chakra. Becoming perfectly still even in the awkward position in the tree, Naruto quickly and silently balances the tree chakras in his body and opens his eyes in sage-mode.
Immediately after completing the technique, Naruto senses everyone’s chakra around him. “Ghaa!!” Naruto jumps from his position to a tree between him and Kakashi, a clone’s chakra had been coming at him from behind. But the tree was still and vacant.
He focused his mind again to search for the chakra but what he found confused him. He sensed the chakra right on the tree he had just come from, but no one was there. He also sensed a clones chakra coming from behind Kakashi and called out to him. “Kakashi, there’s clone chakra coming from that tree and right behind you!” Kakashi gives Naruto a tired look before lifting his headband opening his left eye. Looking behind him Kakashi senses the chakra too, and jumps to the tree Naruto is on. They stand back to back, Naruto facing the clone chakra on his tree, and Kakashi his. Both of the tree’s appear empty, “Kakashi sensei, is it genjutsu?” Naruto asks not taking his eyes off the tree.
“No, it’s the same chakra all of the other clones had, and there is no disruption is your chakra. There are two clones here, we just can’t see them.” Sakura joins them in time to hear Kakashi.
“Are you serious, so first they make clones of us, then they make invisible clones?!” Sakura. “Who the hell are these people?!”
“Not people, person.” While trying to figure out the invisible clones, the target had left his house and stood facing them in the empty street. Kakashi and his team drop from the trees to face their opponent.
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Temari and Kankuro stood on the ship’s deck keeping their eyes open for any threat. It had been quiet ever since leaving the island, but they couldn’t truly relax until the leaf ninja arrived as an escort. Although neither of the sand siblings would admit it, they were both worried about team Kakashi back on the island.
They had planned every part of their plan on a worst-case-scenario basis, and they had still been surprised. Whoever had organized the attack on Gaara had managed to create as many clones as Naruto was able to conjure, and had made them clones of their party. Temari had never heard of someone making a clone of another person. There was genjutsu, that could change a person’s perspective; but Kakashi would have been able to see through it.
She couldn’t help but wonder what the team was facing back on that island in order to protect Gaara. “Temari look!” Kankuro interrupted her thoughts and brought her back from the island far behind them and back to the ship.
Kankuro was motioning for her to look to the sky, high above them flew three massive birds. They weren’t normal birds, but ink creations, Sai’s signature.
“It’s Sai!” Kankuro yelled. The two Naruto clones on the deck turned their heads to the sky to see as well. “Sai! What’s up!” One of the clones yelled!
As if in response a much smaller ink bird appears and flew up to Temari and landed at her feet. Kankuro and the clones gathered around the bird as it melted into a message from Sai, who had already passed the ship and flew strait toward the island. “They must not want to waste time stopping.” Temari thought aloud.
The message settled and said, “Ship carrying Leaf ninja right behind us to escort Kazakage and team to Konoha.”
“Well that was to the point…” Kankuro scoffed, with a laugh.
“Have you met Sai?” One of the Clones responded and they all laughed.
“I wonder if Hannah is feeling better.” A clone finally said after the laughter had died.
“I think she’ll be fine, she just had one bad cut on her shoulder; and I’m sure the escort will include a medical ninja. They will take care of it when they get here. She was mostly tired.” Temari said looking back to the door that led to where Hannah and Gaara slept. “Let’s let her rest until they get here, then the medical ninja can check her out.”
“I wonder how far they are? Granny Tsunade moved quickly. Hey!” the Naruto clone ran to and up the ships mast avoiding ropes and climbed into the ships lookout. “I wonder if I can see them from up here!” Climbing past the lookout the clone stood atop the highest pole and put his hand over his eyes as he gazed over the calm waters.
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Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi stood in a triangle formation with Sakura facing the man in the street; and Kakashi and Naruto facing the clone chakra.
“The man of who you speak, the man who creates these,” the man spoke raising his hands to the two trees which Naruto and Kakashi faced, “Is Zutara, the Master of Clones!”
“Are we supposed to know who that is or what?” Naruto growled at the man without taking his eyes off the tree where he sensed the clones chakra lingering.
“You should, you copy his technique!” The man responded angrily pointing at Naruto.
“What’r you talking about, stop tryin to mess with my head and tell us why you attacked Gaara!!” Naruto spat back at the man turning to meet his gaze.
As he did the man was taken aback for a moment, looking into Naruto’s eyes with a cross formed from the sage-mode mixed with his demon hatred. Kakashi sensed the anger building in Naruto.
“That doesn’t concern you; you should worry about yourself first!!” As the man finished his threat, the clone chakra that Naruto and his sensei faced charged out of the trees and at the team. Naruto summoned a clone and quickly formed a rasengan, and Kakashi almost instantly brought up his lightning blade and the two ran to meet the invisible clones in battle.
Sakura swiftly crossed the space between herself and the man engaged him, the man moved faster than she did but her large scale attacks kept him in range. Neither Naruto or Kakashi made contact with their enemy’s when they should have. Naruto thought he had passed right through them, but when looking closer saw that the clone had used the instant when Naruto had been more focused on this own jutsu than to the clones chakra to change directions and land on a nearby tree. Just as Naruto was able to relocate the clone a large burst of fire erupted from the spot. Naruto dodged the attack with no room to spare.
Kakashi was facing the same problem, although he was able to focus on the enemy’s chakra while performing a jutsu, he had no idea when it would attack with a jutsu of its own. Since the enemy was a clone, its chakra didn’t fluctuate when forming a jutsu, the amount of chakra he used was pulled directly from its creator meaning it didn’t need to build up chakra; therefore there was no way to anticipate an attack or the severity of that attack.
If I could use a clone to keep track of the stupid guy, then maybe I would be able to hit him, but I can only keep four of us in sage-mode at a time. I still have three clones in sage mode with Gaara. If they haven’t been dismissed yet, that means the Konoha escort hasn’t reached them yet. I can’t risk letting them go to use them here, they may need them. I’ll just have to try and focus harder to keep track of him; I just need another pair of eyes!
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“I see something!” The Naruto yelled from atop his lookout position. Temari and Kankuro had been waiting on the ship’s deck ever since Sai had flown by.
Nothing eventful had happened, Gaara was still asleep, and they hadn’t heard Hannah wake up either. It had been pretty quiet, so the clone’s voice made Kankuro jump. Temari looked in the direction the clone was pointing; and sure enough floating on the horizon was a ship. This ship was not adorned with any special flag or elaborates wood working; it was built for speed and had served its purpose. They had been traveling since their escape from the island at around midnight last night and it was now four in the afternoon from the look of the sun. It would be a full day before their ship would be able to make it back to the land of fire.
As the ship drew nearer, Temari and Kankuro could see several figures on its deck. The boat had several sailors running around manipulating the sails and doing specific duties. It even had a captain steering, their boat had been steered by a Naruto clone… It was only then that Kankuro realized how bad that could have been and how lucky they were not to be in the middle of nowhere. The ship’s crew dropped its anchor and the leaf ninja boarded the boat carrying the Kazakage and his family.
The first to cross to the other ship was Shikamaru, who goes immediately to Temari’s side. Despite her best efforts to hide it, she was really glad he was here. Kankuro smirked at being right on the money about him coming to her aid like somekinda knight or something when he noticed the next two people boarding the ship. Oh great, it’s that crazy guy and his lookalike student…
Kankuro thought as they both enthusiastically walked to him and began rambling about performing their duties in record time and how it was good training or something. The rest of Shikamaru’s team came over now, Ino and Choji.
“Ino is a medical ninja, and Lady Hokage thought she should take a look at the Kazakage.” Shikamaru reported to the group. “Were any of you hurt during the, well whatever happened?”
“Don’t worry we’ll fill you in on the details after she’s seen Gaara.” Temari answered, looking to the door the led into the ship. “Hannah had a couple of cuts, I cleaned them pretty well but I’m not a medic, she has been sleeping since we left.”
Ino gave a quick nod, and tried to look confident. She wasn’t anywhere near the level of Sakura yet, but she could handle this. Temari, Shikamaru and Ino walked into the hallway and walked to the farthest door that was Gaara’s.
They were met by the two clones of Naruto’s, still in sage-mode guarding Gaara. Shikamaru scoffed, “Man, Naruto is able to keep clones together this far from him…”
“Sorry but we gotta ask you both a question before you can go to the Kazakage.” The Naruto closest to Gaara says. Shikamaru looks at Temari questioningly, and she reassures him. After confirming the identity of both Ino and Shikamaru, Temari tells the clones it is ok to leave now. The clones look at one another, then Gaara unsure.
“We are fine here, Naruto may need the extra chakra and we know he will want to know that Gaara’s escort is here.” The clones contemplate Temari’s words for a moment more looking one last time at their friend before telling everyone to look after one another and disappearing into two billows of smoke.
Temari passed through the clearing smoke to where her brother slept, he looked peaceful. She briefly thought about how upset he would be when he woke, but at the moment he was safe, and that was all that mattered. She did not regret their decision and was secretly thankful to Naruto for his actions. She would have to make a point to try and protect Gaara’s and Naruto’s friendship.
Shikamaru moved to Temari’s side and Ino moved to the opposite side of the bed and began. The familiar green glow of chakra surrounded her hands as she moved them to hover over the Kazakage. After a couple of minutes Ino moved her hands back to her sides and smiled at Temari who was anxiously waiting for her report.
“He is fine, he didn’t have any adverse reaction to the anesthesia Naruto gave him.” Temari had to stop herself from sighing in relief, but Ino’s next words made Temari even more anxious. “Honestly, he should wake up any time!” Ino said the words with a smile, but Temari lightly chuckled and quickly took charge.
“Okay then! He’s good, now we better get out of here, I don’t think he is going to be very happy when he wakes up and I don’t know about you but I don’t want to around about that time.”
Shikamaru gave an amused sigh. “Good point, lets head back up top and let you guys brief us on the situation.
Ino followed Shikamaru out and Temari linger only a moment to look down once more at her brother. There never seemed to be a moment when Gaara was not in danger, and it was her job as the oldest to keep her family safe; and with a small smile she realized, she didn’t have to bear the job herself.
Over the years Gaara had made friends like Naruto Uzumaki who wanted to protect him just as she did. And now in a time of need, these friends had come to help her keep him safe.
When she reached the top of the stairs and walked up on deck, Temari realized the leaf boat had brought enough crew members to take care of their ship as well. The crew was busy doing taking care of things leaving all of the ninja time to sit and go over what had happened.
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Naruto felt the surge in his chakra when the clones on the ship disappeared. He saw everything they had seen as if it had been him and saw that everyone was ok. Things were going according to plan there, but here things had gotten tricky.
He and Kakashi sensei were still engaging the two invisible clones, and Sakura was after the original target. Naruto didn’t know how the other two were fairing because he had his own hands full. He hadn’t been able to get a solid hit on this guy so far and had had more than one close call.
One piece of valuable information he gathered from his clones was that Sai and two others were on their way to back them up. “Kakashi sensei! Sai is coming to back us up and the escort from the Konoha reached Gaara’s ship!”
This was good news to Kakashi too, Sai would be able to reach them quickly which meant that they just needed to stay on the defensive until they arrived and could engage the enemy. Kakashi moved back closer to Naruto and Sakura followed suit and fell back too.
“We need to conserve our chakra and keep them here until Sai arrives. I do not think they will retreat, because their mission is also to eliminate us, just as ours is to eliminate them.” Kakashi explained to his team. They stood in a line facing the targets. The village subordinate was standing in between the two masses of chakra that Kakashi and Naruto could detect forming a line of their own.
The village subordinate laughed as he began to speak again, “You have mastered his jutsu well.”
“And just who is this ‘master of clones’ you keep rambling on about anyway?!” Naruto yelled back.
“Zutara was named after his Grandfather, the man who invented the multi-shadow clone jutsu.” The man sneered. “He created the jutsu as a means to protect Konoha in case of war. But the world was in so called peace at the time and the second Hokage deemed it forbidden jutsu. When Zutara voiced his disbelief in the peace between the villages he was ignored. So he left the village to let it revel in its ‘peace’ while it lasted. He moved to this island where he continued his work in secret. He called a rouge ninja and a price was put on his head, all for disbelieving in a false peace. He was able to create new more powerful clones and experimented with their power on those sent to eliminate him.”
Naruto listened to the man speak and recognized the familiar hatred in his voice. “When Zutara was killed, no one knew he had a son, or for that matter a grandson to carry on his work. The so called peace killed Zutara and soon after his son, leaving his grandson alone on this island, banished from society.” The man looked far away lost in memories as he continued. “And now, the five great nations celebrate a time of ‘true peace’.” The man growled in anger with the last phrase.
“There is no such peace!! You all fool yourselves! Your peace makes war for others, villages crumble and disappear, and families are ripped apart for what? For a couple of years that the great nations can pretend to trust one another until some petty reason brings them back to war. And those who realize this are labeled a threat to their precious ‘peace’ and are disregarded. He will bring down your precious peace. As soon as one nation is seen as a threat, all of the ties of trust will be severed between them. And the world will once again fall into chaos, that is the world’s true form, untrusting and willing to fight. And this will all start with you, and that Kazakage. Konoha and all of the other hidden villages will be brought to their knees and the true peace will finally reign.” As the man finished his speech the two unseen clones lurched forward to let out their creator’s fury.
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Gaara felt his body regaining consciousness and tried to reenter reality and separate it from his dreams. He opened his eyes slowly, staring straight up at the wooden ceiling. He could feel a faint sway and could hear the ocean, he recognized where he was; He was on the ship they had come on to get to the island. But why was he here?
As soon as the thought entered his mind, the events flooded back to him. Naruto had protected him from an unknown threat and then insisted he retreat back to the land of fire. Gaara had refused and then, oh yes, Naruto had come back down and given him some shot, and that was all he could remember.
So he was back on the ship, meaning Naruto had taken advantage of Gaara’s state to force him to leave the island. He was going to have to remind him that he was the Kazakage…
Sitting up, his body was still heavy from the long slumber. He briefly wondered how long he had been out. Moving to the edge of the bed, Gaara more closely observed his surroundings. Next to his bed sat his gourd of sand, there was signs of people coming and going from his room recently. In between the door and the bed was a small pool of dried blood, and a kuni which had been tossed into the corner also covered with dried blood. That meant two things, one, they had met resistance getting to the ship and someone had been injured; two, they had been on the ship long enough that the blood had had time to completely dry which meant they were a fair distance away from the island.
Standing up, Gaara moved to the door and into the hallway. He could hear the voices of his brother and sister above, and others he couldn’t make out. As soon as he opened the door and moved out onto the deck above, his eyes began adjusting to the sun.
Everyone stopped talking immediately at the surprise of his presence. He looked around at each of their anxious faces. Temari and Kankuro knew what was coming and was braced for it. As upset as he was he decided now was not the time to show it. Many leaf ninja were on the ship with his siblings, Rock Lee and his sensei, Ten-ten, and Shikamaru’s team were all in a circle speaking. Kankuro was the first to speak, “Hey Gaara, glad you finally woke up!” he said with a forced laugh.
Temari sent a glare that matched his own in Kankuro’s direction before speaking, “How do you feel?” She spoke gently, whether out of concern or fear, he didn’t know but he disregarded the question either way.
“What happened, who was injured?” Gaara spoke clearly, demanding the truth. Temari looked down not knowing what to say. Finally after sending a pleading look at Kankuro who didn’t speak she began.
“After Naruto drugged you,” She began with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, “Kakashi took over and decided because you had been rendered defenseless, and our top priority had to be to get you off the island.”
She paused expecting him to comment, but he stayed quiet not wanting to lash out at her and let out his anger at her, he knew it wasn’t her fault she was just the unwilling messenger. She continued after he didn’t respond, “Kakashi formulated a plan and we set off immediately. But after we got about halfway to the docks we were confronted with thousands of clones, of ourselves. It was too late to turn back and we pressed on fighting our way to the docks. Fortunately Kakashi had planned the mission and we were able to get through it.
”She wanted to stop there, not going into more detail but he continued to look at her and she knew he expected more. After a short sigh, she continued. “After we reached the docks Naruto and his clones, carried you onto the ship with Sakura, they cleared the ship while the rest of us formed a defensive line fighting off the clones. We were able to keep the clones at a fair distance and all they were able to do was attack us with kuni and shuriken. Hannah was the only one with any kind of injury, and that was just a couple of shuriken to her leg and a larger cut to her shoulder. The rest of us just had couple of smaller cuts. Anyway, After Kankuro, Hannah, and myself got on the ship and made it out a ways away from the island; Naruto summoned his toad and used a combined attack to get rid of the rest of the clones as we got away. He left four clones with us on the ship until the escort,” she spoke regarding the leaf ninja, “arrived and then we dismissed them.”
He took a moment to take in all she had said before speaking, “Where is Hannah?” “She is down below, she was pretty exhausted after the fight and Kankuro and I let her rest.” Temari answered carefully. As if on cue, Ino, who looked very anxious to leave, got up and spoke timidly.
“Speaking of, I promised Temari I would redress her cuts after we let Hannah rest a while, so I’ll just go… now.” Ino got up but acted like she was afraid to walk past him to get to the door. “Uh..Ten-Ten, would you come help me?” Ino looked down at her friend who was giving her a panicked look before she got up and they both moved around Gaara at a fair distance and walked down stairs leaving the door open.
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Ino’s heart was beating way too fast and as soon as she and Ten-Ten moved into Hannah’s room it started beating much faster. The adrenaline started pumping through her veins causing her to observe her own personal nightmare in a matter of seconds.
Hannah was not lying peacefully asleep like Gaara had been, her sheets were covered in sweet and blood, and she was breathing way too fast. She appeared to be asleep but her eyes were wide open with panic.
“NOOO!!” Ino screamed as she ran to her bedside. Ten-Ten gasped with horror at the sight as if to emphasize the situation. No, no, no this can’t be happening, this was supposed to be simple, come, make sure Naruto didn’t give Gaara too much anesthesia and go home, I’m not ready for this.
Ino began her inspection as everyone poured into the room behind her; she didn’t have time to answer any of their questions so she just blocked them out. In her mind she began assessing the situation, she was looking right into Hannah’s eyes but Hannah gave no signs of seeing her. Even as she shined her small light into her eyes her pupils gave no response.
She looked at her sheets once more and saw the blood was coming from her shoulder. Ino quickly pulled back the sheets and the bandages Temari had applied and looked hopelessly at the site. The cut was blood red, and the surrounding skin was black and purple like it was heavily bruised, the veins leading to it were large and pulsing.
Ino recognized the signs immediately which added to her panic. This was poison, and a bad one. It had been slow acting and neither Temari nor Hannah would have been able to recognize it.
But now it was attacking Hannah at full force. She had never seen or treated anything this bad, she was not particularly good at treating poisons anyway and even if she were she had been sent out immediately after returning from another mission and hadn’t brought any remedies, also they were in the middle of the ocean and she had nowhere to get the things needed.
Temari had moved beside her and was kneeling trying to get a response from her student. She didn’t know how to tell Temari there was nothing she could do, she knew enough to know that Hannah didn’t have much time and would never last the boat ride back. She couldn’t give up yet, she had to do something.
“You said she got hit with a kuni in the shoulder! Where is it?” She yelled at no one in particular, but her voice must have relayed her own sense of urgency because someone behind her ran out of the room and quickly returned handing her the knife.
She brought her medical chakra up and quickly inspected the poison that was left on the knife and in Hannah’s wound. She quickly confirmed her own worst fears; the poison was very strong, too strong for her to know how to fight; and she couldn’t even try to slow the poison’s effects because she didn’t have any herbs to make remedies. She was helpless.
No, surely I can do something, She thought desperately. What would Sakura do? Or Lady Hokage? Ok, first I will work on the wounds as best I can and report to Temari. She had moved back to kneel beside Hannah’s bed again and was doing what she could, but she could feel Temari’s eyes on her and everyone in the room had fallen silent.
“Temari, I’m so sorry,” She began, refusing to look her in the eyes.
“What do you mean? What are you saying?!” Temari’s desperate voice caused her to cringe away and a tear to escape.
“The poison is really bad, I, I can’t do anything!!” Her voice begged them to understand, for them not to blame her. “The only people capable of fighting this are Lady Tsunade, Shizune, and Sakura!” She was openly crying over Hannah now, “Even on our ship it’s a half a day’s journey back to the village, and she won’t last that long… I can’t even slow it down; I don’t have any kind of herbs or remedies out here! I’m so sorry, Temari I’m so sorry!”
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Part I
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Part II
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Part III
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Part IV
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Part V
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Naruto moved closer to the edge of the tree limb he was positioned on to get a better look at the target. They had taken up positions around the house the subordinate lived at and were observing. Naruto thought they should take a more ‘head on’ approach, but Kakashi had decided to wait and observe to have a better idea of the enemy and give their backup time to arrive.
Sakura had motioned that the target was in the house around ten minutes ago. Annoyed that he was still sitting around doing nothing while this creep who attacked his friends was in there Naruto edged forward again in anticipation. Naruto stopped after getting a look from Kakashi. Naruto was positioned in a tree directly in front of the house, Sakura was covering the back from a nearby rooftop, and Kakashi was about 50 meters to Naruto’s right.
Naruto was feeling uneasy again, the whole time they had been in position, or in the village for that matter, he hadn’t seen a single villager. The day they had all arrived the place had been alive with people, shops were busy, and children played in the yards. But today not a whisper of life was present. Could all of the villagers been clones? Had the plot to replace Gaara gone so deep into this place that the village itself had been fake?
As Naruto contemplated the possibility, he decides to check for chakra. Becoming perfectly still even in the awkward position in the tree, Naruto quickly and silently balances the tree chakras in his body and opens his eyes in sage-mode.
Immediately after completing the technique, Naruto senses everyone’s chakra around him. “Ghaa!!” Naruto jumps from his position to a tree between him and Kakashi, a clone’s chakra had been coming at him from behind. But the tree was still and vacant.
He focused his mind again to search for the chakra but what he found confused him. He sensed the chakra right on the tree he had just come from, but no one was there. He also sensed a clones chakra coming from behind Kakashi and called out to him. “Kakashi, there’s clone chakra coming from that tree and right behind you!” Kakashi gives Naruto a tired look before lifting his headband opening his left eye. Looking behind him Kakashi senses the chakra too, and jumps to the tree Naruto is on. They stand back to back, Naruto facing the clone chakra on his tree, and Kakashi his. Both of the tree’s appear empty, “Kakashi sensei, is it genjutsu?” Naruto asks not taking his eyes off the tree.
“No, it’s the same chakra all of the other clones had, and there is no disruption is your chakra. There are two clones here, we just can’t see them.” Sakura joins them in time to hear Kakashi.
“Are you serious, so first they make clones of us, then they make invisible clones?!” Sakura. “Who the hell are these people?!”
“Not people, person.” While trying to figure out the invisible clones, the target had left his house and stood facing them in the empty street. Kakashi and his team drop from the trees to face their opponent.
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Temari and Kankuro stood on the ship’s deck keeping their eyes open for any threat. It had been quiet ever since leaving the island, but they couldn’t truly relax until the leaf ninja arrived as an escort. Although neither of the sand siblings would admit it, they were both worried about team Kakashi back on the island.
They had planned every part of their plan on a worst-case-scenario basis, and they had still been surprised. Whoever had organized the attack on Gaara had managed to create as many clones as Naruto was able to conjure, and had made them clones of their party. Temari had never heard of someone making a clone of another person. There was genjutsu, that could change a person’s perspective; but Kakashi would have been able to see through it.
She couldn’t help but wonder what the team was facing back on that island in order to protect Gaara. “Temari look!” Kankuro interrupted her thoughts and brought her back from the island far behind them and back to the ship.
Kankuro was motioning for her to look to the sky, high above them flew three massive birds. They weren’t normal birds, but ink creations, Sai’s signature.
“It’s Sai!” Kankuro yelled. The two Naruto clones on the deck turned their heads to the sky to see as well. “Sai! What’s up!” One of the clones yelled!
As if in response a much smaller ink bird appears and flew up to Temari and landed at her feet. Kankuro and the clones gathered around the bird as it melted into a message from Sai, who had already passed the ship and flew strait toward the island. “They must not want to waste time stopping.” Temari thought aloud.
The message settled and said, “Ship carrying Leaf ninja right behind us to escort Kazakage and team to Konoha.”
“Well that was to the point…” Kankuro scoffed, with a laugh.
“Have you met Sai?” One of the Clones responded and they all laughed.
“I wonder if Hannah is feeling better.” A clone finally said after the laughter had died.
“I think she’ll be fine, she just had one bad cut on her shoulder; and I’m sure the escort will include a medical ninja. They will take care of it when they get here. She was mostly tired.” Temari said looking back to the door that led to where Hannah and Gaara slept. “Let’s let her rest until they get here, then the medical ninja can check her out.”
“I wonder how far they are? Granny Tsunade moved quickly. Hey!” the Naruto clone ran to and up the ships mast avoiding ropes and climbed into the ships lookout. “I wonder if I can see them from up here!” Climbing past the lookout the clone stood atop the highest pole and put his hand over his eyes as he gazed over the calm waters.
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Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi stood in a triangle formation with Sakura facing the man in the street; and Kakashi and Naruto facing the clone chakra.
“The man of who you speak, the man who creates these,” the man spoke raising his hands to the two trees which Naruto and Kakashi faced, “Is Zutara, the Master of Clones!”
“Are we supposed to know who that is or what?” Naruto growled at the man without taking his eyes off the tree where he sensed the clones chakra lingering.
“You should, you copy his technique!” The man responded angrily pointing at Naruto.
“What’r you talking about, stop tryin to mess with my head and tell us why you attacked Gaara!!” Naruto spat back at the man turning to meet his gaze.
As he did the man was taken aback for a moment, looking into Naruto’s eyes with a cross formed from the sage-mode mixed with his demon hatred. Kakashi sensed the anger building in Naruto.
“That doesn’t concern you; you should worry about yourself first!!” As the man finished his threat, the clone chakra that Naruto and his sensei faced charged out of the trees and at the team. Naruto summoned a clone and quickly formed a rasengan, and Kakashi almost instantly brought up his lightning blade and the two ran to meet the invisible clones in battle.
Sakura swiftly crossed the space between herself and the man engaged him, the man moved faster than she did but her large scale attacks kept him in range. Neither Naruto or Kakashi made contact with their enemy’s when they should have. Naruto thought he had passed right through them, but when looking closer saw that the clone had used the instant when Naruto had been more focused on this own jutsu than to the clones chakra to change directions and land on a nearby tree. Just as Naruto was able to relocate the clone a large burst of fire erupted from the spot. Naruto dodged the attack with no room to spare.
Kakashi was facing the same problem, although he was able to focus on the enemy’s chakra while performing a jutsu, he had no idea when it would attack with a jutsu of its own. Since the enemy was a clone, its chakra didn’t fluctuate when forming a jutsu, the amount of chakra he used was pulled directly from its creator meaning it didn’t need to build up chakra; therefore there was no way to anticipate an attack or the severity of that attack.
If I could use a clone to keep track of the stupid guy, then maybe I would be able to hit him, but I can only keep four of us in sage-mode at a time. I still have three clones in sage mode with Gaara. If they haven’t been dismissed yet, that means the Konoha escort hasn’t reached them yet. I can’t risk letting them go to use them here, they may need them. I’ll just have to try and focus harder to keep track of him; I just need another pair of eyes!
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“I see something!” The Naruto yelled from atop his lookout position. Temari and Kankuro had been waiting on the ship’s deck ever since Sai had flown by.
Nothing eventful had happened, Gaara was still asleep, and they hadn’t heard Hannah wake up either. It had been pretty quiet, so the clone’s voice made Kankuro jump. Temari looked in the direction the clone was pointing; and sure enough floating on the horizon was a ship. This ship was not adorned with any special flag or elaborates wood working; it was built for speed and had served its purpose. They had been traveling since their escape from the island at around midnight last night and it was now four in the afternoon from the look of the sun. It would be a full day before their ship would be able to make it back to the land of fire.
As the ship drew nearer, Temari and Kankuro could see several figures on its deck. The boat had several sailors running around manipulating the sails and doing specific duties. It even had a captain steering, their boat had been steered by a Naruto clone… It was only then that Kankuro realized how bad that could have been and how lucky they were not to be in the middle of nowhere. The ship’s crew dropped its anchor and the leaf ninja boarded the boat carrying the Kazakage and his family.
The first to cross to the other ship was Shikamaru, who goes immediately to Temari’s side. Despite her best efforts to hide it, she was really glad he was here. Kankuro smirked at being right on the money about him coming to her aid like somekinda knight or something when he noticed the next two people boarding the ship. Oh great, it’s that crazy guy and his lookalike student…
Kankuro thought as they both enthusiastically walked to him and began rambling about performing their duties in record time and how it was good training or something. The rest of Shikamaru’s team came over now, Ino and Choji.
“Ino is a medical ninja, and Lady Hokage thought she should take a look at the Kazakage.” Shikamaru reported to the group. “Were any of you hurt during the, well whatever happened?”
“Don’t worry we’ll fill you in on the details after she’s seen Gaara.” Temari answered, looking to the door the led into the ship. “Hannah had a couple of cuts, I cleaned them pretty well but I’m not a medic, she has been sleeping since we left.”
Ino gave a quick nod, and tried to look confident. She wasn’t anywhere near the level of Sakura yet, but she could handle this. Temari, Shikamaru and Ino walked into the hallway and walked to the farthest door that was Gaara’s.
They were met by the two clones of Naruto’s, still in sage-mode guarding Gaara. Shikamaru scoffed, “Man, Naruto is able to keep clones together this far from him…”
“Sorry but we gotta ask you both a question before you can go to the Kazakage.” The Naruto closest to Gaara says. Shikamaru looks at Temari questioningly, and she reassures him. After confirming the identity of both Ino and Shikamaru, Temari tells the clones it is ok to leave now. The clones look at one another, then Gaara unsure.
“We are fine here, Naruto may need the extra chakra and we know he will want to know that Gaara’s escort is here.” The clones contemplate Temari’s words for a moment more looking one last time at their friend before telling everyone to look after one another and disappearing into two billows of smoke.
Temari passed through the clearing smoke to where her brother slept, he looked peaceful. She briefly thought about how upset he would be when he woke, but at the moment he was safe, and that was all that mattered. She did not regret their decision and was secretly thankful to Naruto for his actions. She would have to make a point to try and protect Gaara’s and Naruto’s friendship.
Shikamaru moved to Temari’s side and Ino moved to the opposite side of the bed and began. The familiar green glow of chakra surrounded her hands as she moved them to hover over the Kazakage. After a couple of minutes Ino moved her hands back to her sides and smiled at Temari who was anxiously waiting for her report.
“He is fine, he didn’t have any adverse reaction to the anesthesia Naruto gave him.” Temari had to stop herself from sighing in relief, but Ino’s next words made Temari even more anxious. “Honestly, he should wake up any time!” Ino said the words with a smile, but Temari lightly chuckled and quickly took charge.
“Okay then! He’s good, now we better get out of here, I don’t think he is going to be very happy when he wakes up and I don’t know about you but I don’t want to around about that time.”
Shikamaru gave an amused sigh. “Good point, lets head back up top and let you guys brief us on the situation.
Ino followed Shikamaru out and Temari linger only a moment to look down once more at her brother. There never seemed to be a moment when Gaara was not in danger, and it was her job as the oldest to keep her family safe; and with a small smile she realized, she didn’t have to bear the job herself.
Over the years Gaara had made friends like Naruto Uzumaki who wanted to protect him just as she did. And now in a time of need, these friends had come to help her keep him safe.
When she reached the top of the stairs and walked up on deck, Temari realized the leaf boat had brought enough crew members to take care of their ship as well. The crew was busy doing taking care of things leaving all of the ninja time to sit and go over what had happened.
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Naruto felt the surge in his chakra when the clones on the ship disappeared. He saw everything they had seen as if it had been him and saw that everyone was ok. Things were going according to plan there, but here things had gotten tricky.
He and Kakashi sensei were still engaging the two invisible clones, and Sakura was after the original target. Naruto didn’t know how the other two were fairing because he had his own hands full. He hadn’t been able to get a solid hit on this guy so far and had had more than one close call.
One piece of valuable information he gathered from his clones was that Sai and two others were on their way to back them up. “Kakashi sensei! Sai is coming to back us up and the escort from the Konoha reached Gaara’s ship!”
This was good news to Kakashi too, Sai would be able to reach them quickly which meant that they just needed to stay on the defensive until they arrived and could engage the enemy. Kakashi moved back closer to Naruto and Sakura followed suit and fell back too.
“We need to conserve our chakra and keep them here until Sai arrives. I do not think they will retreat, because their mission is also to eliminate us, just as ours is to eliminate them.” Kakashi explained to his team. They stood in a line facing the targets. The village subordinate was standing in between the two masses of chakra that Kakashi and Naruto could detect forming a line of their own.
The village subordinate laughed as he began to speak again, “You have mastered his jutsu well.”
“And just who is this ‘master of clones’ you keep rambling on about anyway?!” Naruto yelled back.
“Zutara was named after his Grandfather, the man who invented the multi-shadow clone jutsu.” The man sneered. “He created the jutsu as a means to protect Konoha in case of war. But the world was in so called peace at the time and the second Hokage deemed it forbidden jutsu. When Zutara voiced his disbelief in the peace between the villages he was ignored. So he left the village to let it revel in its ‘peace’ while it lasted. He moved to this island where he continued his work in secret. He called a rouge ninja and a price was put on his head, all for disbelieving in a false peace. He was able to create new more powerful clones and experimented with their power on those sent to eliminate him.”
Naruto listened to the man speak and recognized the familiar hatred in his voice. “When Zutara was killed, no one knew he had a son, or for that matter a grandson to carry on his work. The so called peace killed Zutara and soon after his son, leaving his grandson alone on this island, banished from society.” The man looked far away lost in memories as he continued. “And now, the five great nations celebrate a time of ‘true peace’.” The man growled in anger with the last phrase.
“There is no such peace!! You all fool yourselves! Your peace makes war for others, villages crumble and disappear, and families are ripped apart for what? For a couple of years that the great nations can pretend to trust one another until some petty reason brings them back to war. And those who realize this are labeled a threat to their precious ‘peace’ and are disregarded. He will bring down your precious peace. As soon as one nation is seen as a threat, all of the ties of trust will be severed between them. And the world will once again fall into chaos, that is the world’s true form, untrusting and willing to fight. And this will all start with you, and that Kazakage. Konoha and all of the other hidden villages will be brought to their knees and the true peace will finally reign.” As the man finished his speech the two unseen clones lurched forward to let out their creator’s fury.
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Gaara felt his body regaining consciousness and tried to reenter reality and separate it from his dreams. He opened his eyes slowly, staring straight up at the wooden ceiling. He could feel a faint sway and could hear the ocean, he recognized where he was; He was on the ship they had come on to get to the island. But why was he here?
As soon as the thought entered his mind, the events flooded back to him. Naruto had protected him from an unknown threat and then insisted he retreat back to the land of fire. Gaara had refused and then, oh yes, Naruto had come back down and given him some shot, and that was all he could remember.
So he was back on the ship, meaning Naruto had taken advantage of Gaara’s state to force him to leave the island. He was going to have to remind him that he was the Kazakage…
Sitting up, his body was still heavy from the long slumber. He briefly wondered how long he had been out. Moving to the edge of the bed, Gaara more closely observed his surroundings. Next to his bed sat his gourd of sand, there was signs of people coming and going from his room recently. In between the door and the bed was a small pool of dried blood, and a kuni which had been tossed into the corner also covered with dried blood. That meant two things, one, they had met resistance getting to the ship and someone had been injured; two, they had been on the ship long enough that the blood had had time to completely dry which meant they were a fair distance away from the island.
Standing up, Gaara moved to the door and into the hallway. He could hear the voices of his brother and sister above, and others he couldn’t make out. As soon as he opened the door and moved out onto the deck above, his eyes began adjusting to the sun.
Everyone stopped talking immediately at the surprise of his presence. He looked around at each of their anxious faces. Temari and Kankuro knew what was coming and was braced for it. As upset as he was he decided now was not the time to show it. Many leaf ninja were on the ship with his siblings, Rock Lee and his sensei, Ten-ten, and Shikamaru’s team were all in a circle speaking. Kankuro was the first to speak, “Hey Gaara, glad you finally woke up!” he said with a forced laugh.
Temari sent a glare that matched his own in Kankuro’s direction before speaking, “How do you feel?” She spoke gently, whether out of concern or fear, he didn’t know but he disregarded the question either way.
“What happened, who was injured?” Gaara spoke clearly, demanding the truth. Temari looked down not knowing what to say. Finally after sending a pleading look at Kankuro who didn’t speak she began.
“After Naruto drugged you,” She began with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, “Kakashi took over and decided because you had been rendered defenseless, and our top priority had to be to get you off the island.”
She paused expecting him to comment, but he stayed quiet not wanting to lash out at her and let out his anger at her, he knew it wasn’t her fault she was just the unwilling messenger. She continued after he didn’t respond, “Kakashi formulated a plan and we set off immediately. But after we got about halfway to the docks we were confronted with thousands of clones, of ourselves. It was too late to turn back and we pressed on fighting our way to the docks. Fortunately Kakashi had planned the mission and we were able to get through it.
”She wanted to stop there, not going into more detail but he continued to look at her and she knew he expected more. After a short sigh, she continued. “After we reached the docks Naruto and his clones, carried you onto the ship with Sakura, they cleared the ship while the rest of us formed a defensive line fighting off the clones. We were able to keep the clones at a fair distance and all they were able to do was attack us with kuni and shuriken. Hannah was the only one with any kind of injury, and that was just a couple of shuriken to her leg and a larger cut to her shoulder. The rest of us just had couple of smaller cuts. Anyway, After Kankuro, Hannah, and myself got on the ship and made it out a ways away from the island; Naruto summoned his toad and used a combined attack to get rid of the rest of the clones as we got away. He left four clones with us on the ship until the escort,” she spoke regarding the leaf ninja, “arrived and then we dismissed them.”
He took a moment to take in all she had said before speaking, “Where is Hannah?” “She is down below, she was pretty exhausted after the fight and Kankuro and I let her rest.” Temari answered carefully. As if on cue, Ino, who looked very anxious to leave, got up and spoke timidly.
“Speaking of, I promised Temari I would redress her cuts after we let Hannah rest a while, so I’ll just go… now.” Ino got up but acted like she was afraid to walk past him to get to the door. “Uh..Ten-Ten, would you come help me?” Ino looked down at her friend who was giving her a panicked look before she got up and they both moved around Gaara at a fair distance and walked down stairs leaving the door open.
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Ino’s heart was beating way too fast and as soon as she and Ten-Ten moved into Hannah’s room it started beating much faster. The adrenaline started pumping through her veins causing her to observe her own personal nightmare in a matter of seconds.
Hannah was not lying peacefully asleep like Gaara had been, her sheets were covered in sweet and blood, and she was breathing way too fast. She appeared to be asleep but her eyes were wide open with panic.
“NOOO!!” Ino screamed as she ran to her bedside. Ten-Ten gasped with horror at the sight as if to emphasize the situation. No, no, no this can’t be happening, this was supposed to be simple, come, make sure Naruto didn’t give Gaara too much anesthesia and go home, I’m not ready for this.
Ino began her inspection as everyone poured into the room behind her; she didn’t have time to answer any of their questions so she just blocked them out. In her mind she began assessing the situation, she was looking right into Hannah’s eyes but Hannah gave no signs of seeing her. Even as she shined her small light into her eyes her pupils gave no response.
She looked at her sheets once more and saw the blood was coming from her shoulder. Ino quickly pulled back the sheets and the bandages Temari had applied and looked hopelessly at the site. The cut was blood red, and the surrounding skin was black and purple like it was heavily bruised, the veins leading to it were large and pulsing.
Ino recognized the signs immediately which added to her panic. This was poison, and a bad one. It had been slow acting and neither Temari nor Hannah would have been able to recognize it.
But now it was attacking Hannah at full force. She had never seen or treated anything this bad, she was not particularly good at treating poisons anyway and even if she were she had been sent out immediately after returning from another mission and hadn’t brought any remedies, also they were in the middle of the ocean and she had nowhere to get the things needed.
Temari had moved beside her and was kneeling trying to get a response from her student. She didn’t know how to tell Temari there was nothing she could do, she knew enough to know that Hannah didn’t have much time and would never last the boat ride back. She couldn’t give up yet, she had to do something.
“You said she got hit with a kuni in the shoulder! Where is it?” She yelled at no one in particular, but her voice must have relayed her own sense of urgency because someone behind her ran out of the room and quickly returned handing her the knife.
She brought her medical chakra up and quickly inspected the poison that was left on the knife and in Hannah’s wound. She quickly confirmed her own worst fears; the poison was very strong, too strong for her to know how to fight; and she couldn’t even try to slow the poison’s effects because she didn’t have any herbs to make remedies. She was helpless.
No, surely I can do something, She thought desperately. What would Sakura do? Or Lady Hokage? Ok, first I will work on the wounds as best I can and report to Temari. She had moved back to kneel beside Hannah’s bed again and was doing what she could, but she could feel Temari’s eyes on her and everyone in the room had fallen silent.
“Temari, I’m so sorry,” She began, refusing to look her in the eyes.
“What do you mean? What are you saying?!” Temari’s desperate voice caused her to cringe away and a tear to escape.
“The poison is really bad, I, I can’t do anything!!” Her voice begged them to understand, for them not to blame her. “The only people capable of fighting this are Lady Tsunade, Shizune, and Sakura!” She was openly crying over Hannah now, “Even on our ship it’s a half a day’s journey back to the village, and she won’t last that long… I can’t even slow it down; I don’t have any kind of herbs or remedies out here! I’m so sorry, Temari I’m so sorry!”
