Feral Dreams

The dimly lit halls stretched on in all direction, the sound of leaking pipes could be heard coming from several rooms out of sight and the residual echo of the rain could be heard from far away. Moldy grey stone walls framing over-wide hallways, lined with what seemed like hundreds of small side rooms, apparently the facility was an old emergency shelter in some very obvious states of disrepair. Without making a sound, the six slid through the flickering shadows, peering into rooms and hallways, like grim reapers on the prowl.

The security detail seemed very relaxed on the inside, they walked in two or three man groups and were inattentive as well as disorganized. It wasn't worth it to raise the alarm yet so they decided to avoid conflict and maintain stealth until it was necessary to fight.

Several side rooms contained weapons, food, or medical supplies. With some quick work they left substantial amounts of explosive notes waiting as a present for the first person to open any of the doors.

Almost an hour had passed of them aimlessly searching the countless small rooms before they came across a security room. Inside was a simple desk with several monitor displays and a switchboard, the ninja sitting at the desk looked thoroughly bored and was completely unaware of their presence. Sakura placed a hand on Naruto's chest to halt him from moving in, when he looked at her curiously, she simply slid a small pouch out of one of her concealed pockets as though it would answer his inquiry.

When his inquisitive look didn't disappear, she just smiled at him and poured a small amount of fine red powder from the pouch into her gloved hand. Concentrating chakra to her mouth, she blew out, pushing the powder into a small whirlwind in the air. The tiny tornado silently spun until it was just above the man's head, then dissipated causing a fine red cloud to gradually cover his face.

Seconds after the cloud had moved past the man's nose, he began to cough, it was only a light cough, but it quickly escalated to wheezing and a shortness of breath. The man began to panic, clutching at his throat in an attempt to breath, he tried to stand but his legs would no longer support him as he fell to the ground, foaming at the mouth. After several more seconds of vain struggling, the man went limp, twitching at random intervals.

She stepped in, dusting off her hands, "Heart attacks are much cleaner than anything you do." She said plainly to the confused but impressed onlookers.

After a moment of amusement at her methods, Naruto waved the others into the room then closed the door behind them. "Sakura, do your stuff."

With a curt nod to him, she stepped up to the door forming several quick seals, "Kokoro Wasureppoi no Jutsu." The door knob glowed a light blue for a moment, then faded back to the tarnished brass color.

"Hinata, eyes open, I want to know as soon as someone comes within 50 meters." On reflex to the command she activated her blood limit without question as he turned to the others to dish out orders. "Sasuke, Sakura, work the switch board and see if you can find the room they're being held in, it's probably high security so if there isn't a camera in the room there should at least be guards outside it." They also immediately moved to action, flickering through what seemed like hundreds of cameras on the seven usable screens. Turning to the last two, they stood at attention waiting to be issued orders. It seemed a little odd to them that Naruto was taking charge since Sakura was actually the team leader, but she was going along with his ideas so who were they to argue with them. "Are you two good for some reconnaissance?"

Kiba just grinned in response, Ten Ten however quirked her head, "How do you plan on us doing reconnaissance when we just locked ourselves in?"

Naruto just grinned back and with one hand, pointed up. Their eyes followed his hand to see a ventilation grating with a lazily spinning fan. Ten Ten frowned in apprehension, "You're kidding me, right?"

"Only somewhat," He tossed what looked like a wound ball of string at Kiba and a blank scroll at Ten Ten, "Actually, you're going to draw us a map of the vents using Kiba and that chakra line to get measurements." To respond to their unvoiced questions, he walked up to Kiba, grabbing the loose end of the ball in his hand and pulled it out about a meter. When it stopped moving, a dull blue display, no more than two inches wide, appeared floating over the ball registering the number '1.3m'. He then placed the finger of his off hand on one side of the string and pulled it across so that it took the form of an upside-down L. At this point the small display changed slightly, showing '1.3m/0.4m(le)'.

He released the string and let it slide back into place, looking up, he grinned at Ten Ten's dumbstruck face in contrast to Kiba's over excited one. "Let's just say I trust your drawings more than his stick figures." Kiba's excitement dropped to a scowl for a moment, but even he couldn't argue that his penmanship didn't suck. "I want you two to get a full layout of as much of the ventilation system as you can, the cord only has 300 meters so you probably wont be able to get the entire facility, if you come across any points of interest, find some way you can notify each other so they can be marked on the map. Remember, just because the security is cheap in this facility doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and the enemy are still shinobi, so be careful."

They both nodded, a little too flustered at Naruto's sudden ability at taking charge to question him for anything. Kiba had Ten Ten stand on his shoulders so she could pop open the air vent and crawl in, it was fairly large so she could sit without to much difficulty. She passed her hand down to give Kiba a hand up, keeping her head low so she didn't hit the slow revolving fan.

Once he was up in the vents, he tied the loose end of the chakra cord to his belt, shed his bulky jacket and took off down the shaft. Ten Ten just sighed as she brought out her brush and ink vial so that she could start drawing out the facility.

Now that everyone was hard at work on their tasks, Naruto propped up the dead shinobi and began to examine him. He didn't wear a headband or any other object that could relate what village he was from and weapon pouch was half empty consisting of standard kunai and shuriken.

"Naruto-kun," Hinata's voice pulled him up from his task, he looked into her heavily veined eyes, waiting for her to inform him of the situation. She took a step back at his intense look, but continued to speak, "Ano, there are two men coming down the hall to the west, they're discussing something regarding the north."

"Are they headed towards us or just passing by?" Panic could be noted on his voice, if more ninja show up there could be unforeseen problems.

"They just turned down this hallway, I can't tell if they're coming here." Her voice dropped to a whisper, Sasuke and Sakura had taken note of the conversation and stopped speaking for the moment to conceal their presence.

The voices of the two men could now be heard through the door as they gradually came closer. "Come on Tama, if Naguchi doesn't get their surrender, you know he'll just have the north branch wipe them out." The mans voice was deep but a bit raspy as though he were getting over a bad cold.

"I just don't get why he'd kill them though," The second man's voice was of a higher pitch but still with a definitive masculine feel to it. "they supply us with most of our food willingly. Wouldn't killing them just be kicking ourselves in the ass?"

"Yeah, well since he got his hands into the heads of the sand twins, he's been hell bent on moving his plans forward as fast as possible." The voices stopped in front of the door, "Anyway, let's grab Masu and get something to eat."

The tension inside was rising as they knew the men on the other side were reaching for the door. They were all confident in Sakura's genjutsu but there was always a chance that the man would have an exceptionally strong mind and break it. They heard the creak of the door knob as pressure was put against it from the outside, then time stopped for a moment, the knob didn't turn, but neither was the pressure removed.

"Hmm, you know what Tama, maybe it's better we don't bring him along, it would be bad if someone found out that no one was manning the cameras. We'll just bring something back for him." They saw the tension on the handle retract and almost in unison let out a small breath of relief. Without warning, a fist knocked against the outside of the door several times in quick succession causing Hinata to let out a stifled 'Eep' as Naruto's hand covered her mouth to silence her.

The high pitched man's voice could be heard this time, "Hey Masu, we're grabbing some food. What do you want?" Inside they began to silently panic, none of them had heard the man's voice so they couldn't mimic him. After a few seconds of silence, the fist hit the door again, "Hey Masu, you asleep? I said what do you want to eat?!"

Naruto looked around madly for something they could do. "Shit!" he thought, "We're taking too long." he jumped over to the desk and grabbed what looked to be the man's coffee cup, he eyed the dull sludge for a moment before giving in and pouring it down his throat. The others looked at him awkwardly as he inhaled while drinking it and started to cough and splutter loudly.

The knock came again but quieter, "Hey Masu, you okay in there?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Naruto croaked in an odd wet rasp intermingled with coughing. "Coffee just went down the wrong pipe."

"Ah, that sucks, so what do you want to eat?" Obviously the act was working since the voice seemed appeased by the answer.

"Nothing, I ate a few minutes ago." He continued to cough, god he hated the taste of coffee. "Go on, I'll see you two later."

"Sure, we'll come by an hour before we head on shift to kill some time." Their footsteps and conversation could then be heard moving away down one of the other hallways.

Naruto continued spluttering, trying to rid his mouth of the overly bitter taste of the at least day old coffee that had been on the desk. Sasuke walked over to him, putting a small canteen in front of his face of which he happily popped open and drained, clearing his mouth of the vile taste. "Not a bad idea blondie."

"I didn't see you do any better." He retorted, passing up the now empty canteen.

The minutes ticked by, the security cameras had displayed several areas with detailed security shifts, but nothing that seemed to give the impression of prisoners being held. Twice already Ten Ten had called down for them to pass her up another blank scroll of which she continued to dutifully draw out the facility. Hinata had stopped them on two other times where people were passing but in both cases the people had just been maintenance staff bringing supplies from one place to another.

"I guess we're waiting on Kiba to find them at this rate." Naruto stood cross-armed with his back against the door. "Hey Sakura, how did your genjutsu work again?"

Sakura who was sitting at the desk with her feet up, randomly flipping through camera displays, didn't look at him when she responded. "Whoever touches the door from the outside is implanted with a mild subconscious message telling them for one reason or another that they don't want to enter the room. It's actually quite simple if..." She continued to drone on the subject of proper applications of genjutsu while staring at the computer monitors, not realizing that after she had finished the simple description, Naruto had stopped paying attention.

He brought up his left hand to look at the thin black ring around the base of his index finger. He disliked having anything on his hands, but as long as he kept it on he could be certain that Hinata would do her best. It just felt awkward to have, even though the hair was sleek and soft, he had always hated wearing any kind of rings or bracelets.

Hinata watched him stare intently at the ring of her hair around his finger, she felt something rise in her chest that she couldn't actively describe. Noticing that he was being observed, Naruto leaned his head slightly to look in her direction, "What's up Hinata-chan?"

Her face flared bright for a moment and she attempted express an apology, but in her embarrassment she was once again unable to string more than a few mouse-like squeaks together. Thankfully she was rescued from further embarrassment by the timely sound of Ten Ten dropping down from the vent.

"We've got a map." She said plainly as she smiled, holding the map up to Naruto.

He mentally sighed, he had been looking forward to teasing Hinata a bit, she acted really cute whenever she got embarrassed. "Oh well, work first." he thought to himself as he took the three rolled up scrolls and moved to the desk where he could spread them out.

Kiba dropped down from the vent landing on all fours and breathing rather heavily, "Hey Naruto, this thing is awesome!" He produced the chakra line from one of his pockets and tossed it at Naruto, who despite his back being turned, caught in one hand and stuffed away into his coat. "Where can I get one of those?" he added before shaking the accumulated dust from the vents out of his hair and leaning up against the wall.

Naruto looked over at the haze of dust that Kiba left standing in the air and grumbled something before replying, "Iruka makes them, they take a while though, so don't expect him to be able to make you one any time soon."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll manage." He smirked, sliding his hands behind his head and closing his eyes, "So what's the plan?"

Naruto looked back to the now unfolded scrolls and began marking small notes around the various areas the Ten Ten had called attention to. The map was actually incredibly detailed in such a way that ever length of vent was listed with an exact length, and every grate was marked off. After several minutes of going over the map and comparing certain 'Hot Spots' with camera displays, he called the five of them to pay attention, "First of all, great job with the map Ten Ten, when we get back, first bowl of ramen's on me." He smiled at her to which she just shook her head in amused disbelief. "There are three places that seem to fit the bill. Two of the rooms have three guards each with two cameras facing them from different angles, there are no cameras on the inside and only a slot on their door that appears to be for food. The ventilation shafts are too small to enter the rooms directly and the size of the rooms work out to be about big enough for three to five people." He stopped a moment to allow them all to establish mental images of the correct areas, he flicked four of the security monitors to display the security cameras he had spoken of. "These rooms are two hallways down from each other so there is only around a 65 meter separation. The third room is farther off and is completely unguarded, however apparently according to Kiba and Ten Ten, there is a fairly powerful seal keeping it shut."

"So basically what you're saying is that we're only getting one chance at this before we need to fight our way out." Interrupted Sasuke.

Naruto sighed, it certainly did look that way, but he had a plan, "Not quite," he waited a moment, taking in their reactions, "We are going to do them systematically, but someone is going to need to stay here and keep watch for us. Ten Ten, would you be willing to?"

She quirked her head in an inquisitive manner causing her long braid to sway like a pendulum. "Sure, but why me? I'd figure that I would be more useful to make sure that no one gets away when we jump them."

He rubbed the back of his head, a guilty grin on his face, "Well honestly the best people to stay behind on this type of stealth portion of the mission would myself or Kiba, but neither of us have the patience to sit around monitoring you guys and if something went wrong we'd snap because we wouldn't be able to help. Sakura will be needed for her medical jutsu, Sasuke is better than any of us with stealth, and we'll likely need Hinata's Jyukken to paralyze some of the shinobi. Your ranged support would be useful in all situations, but we need someone who can keep their cool to stay behind and monitor us." He paused a moment, letting them all have their own proud, smug, or embarrassed reactions before he continued. "So, can I count on you?"

She hated this, not only did he just guilt trip her into staying behind, but he did it so well that she couldn't do anything but accept. She narrowed her eyes at him in irritation, "Fine, but it's not ramen you own me anymore, it's sushi, the good kind!" Her scowl softened as he mumbled something involving accepting his inevitable defeat.

"Sakura, we need the headsets." At Naruto's instruction, Sakura reached into her side pouch and pulled out six tightly wound wires. Taking five of them from her, he passed the spare four to the others before unraveling his own. The wires when unraveled were around two and a half feet long with a bead at one end, another about a foot foot down from the first and a small clasp at the far end. After a bit of untangling, he place the first bead inside his ear, then clipped the wire around the back of his neck so that the second bead was pressed to his throat. Once it was comfortable, he began to adjust something on the bead against his neck while listening intently to his earbead. After a few seconds, he seemed satisfied and looked back to the rest of them, "Okay, set your frequencies to 142 then check your gear, we move in three minutes."

At the command, they all began to adjust their headsets to the proper frequency.

"Good luck." Ten Ten waved them off one by one as they all climbed their way into the ventilation shafts. Once they were all gone she let out a dejected sigh and sat down in the moldy chair, aimlessly watching the patrols move around.

Through the cramped shafts of the ventilation system, Kiba silently scurried ahead of the group, leading them to their first destination. After around 150 meters of winding vents, Kiba stopped near one that looked down on three individuals who were holding what looked like standard batons.

The opening to this vent was very small, while the guys should be able to squeeze through, it would take time. Naruto looked back at Sakura and Hinata thinking on which would be the better option, using Sakura's poisons in the vents would be right up with suicide and her physical attacks would notify everyone in a mile radius that they were here. Hinata however should be able to deploy any of her Jyukken techniques without extra attention being drawn.

"Hinata," He whispered, the slight vibrations being picked up by his receiver and heard properly by the others. "Can you knock out three guards quickly and silently?"

Her reply, though a little more strained and uncertain was just as quiet, "Ano, I should be able, but are you certain I won't mess it up?"

Stoically, he nodded, "I trust you completely, I want you to get all three, but if you can't don't worry about it. Sasuke," The Uchiha in raised his head attentively, "give her back up, without Ten Ten around, you're the best with range."

"Sure thing." Was his only reply.

Though she trembled for a few moments, a slight nod from her confirmed her willingness to take part. The tiniest of smirks pulled at the corner of his lips as looked back down through the hole for a moment before contacting Ten Ten, "Hey Ten Ten, are we clear for the next two minutes?"

It took a few moments, but shortly they heard Ten Ten's voice over the headsets, "Set yourselves up in the mean time, there's a patrol going down the next hallway but they're moving away. They'll be out of range in about 30 seconds, if they stop or anyone else starts to show up, I'll communicate right away."

Being vigilante of her warning, they silently removed the grating without letting any of the screws fall down and slid it back up and into the ventilation shaft. Naruto and Sasuke moved to either side of the opening and Hinata, with her Byakkugan active, moved between them so that she was standing over the hole. They grabbed her arms and slowly lowered her down into the hall below. While she was being lowered, she began to slide her legs backwards so that she was relatively flat against the ceiling, this put her slightly off balance, but she was strong enough to hold herself straight and the two supporting her could compensate appropriately for her balance. Once she had her head through and the only part of her that was still in the vents was her arms, she channeled some chakra into her feet, spreading them out and sticking them to the ceiling. One at a time she slipped her arms out of their grip and grabbed the ceiling using her chakra, after a few moments of silent adjustment to her grip, she was ready to drop down.

"Breath in, breath out, I don't need to kill them so there's nothing to panic about, I can just knock them out." Hinata mentally gave herself a pep talk as she made ready to drop, "Well, it's now or never, everyone's counting on me to do this, breath in, breath out." She closed her eyes for a second, letting out a deep breath she had been holding in. She knew she was only a few feet above their heads, and if she let them get away, everything was over... Her eyes snapped open as she dropped down into the group.

The three guards never saw it coming, with hardly a rustle of clothing she had dropped into a standing position between them and slid into her Jyukken stance. While the guards on either side jumped in recognition and began ready themselves against her, she struck with an open palm against the man in front of her, hitting him at the base of the neck and dropping him like a puppet with his strings cut. She pivoted on her heel to change her target and quickly lunged forward a half step, striking the man on her right in the chest with her palm and elbow. He stepped back a little to reduce her blow, however the impact of her Jyukken sent him sprawling unconscious to the ground. Using the impact of her palm against the man on her right, she pushed off and spun herself around with a leg sweep, taking the feet out from under the man on her left. Once he hit the ground, it was just two strikes to the neck with the Jyukken and he was out like a light.

After a quick examination to make sure the three wouldn't be up any time soon, she waved up at the others to come down. Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto squeezed through the small opening and dropped down into the hall, leaving a slightly disgruntled Kiba waiting for them in the vents. Unfortunately his build made it almost impossible for him to fit through this opening and none of them really felt like having to wait for him to force his way back up if they needed to run.

With laughable ease, Sasuke disabled the alarm on the door and opened the lock. Preparing for the worst, everyone readied themselves as he quickly pushed open the door... it wasn't what they were expecting. Both side walls were lined with shelving units covered in small jars, and there were five large green crates against the far wall, other than that the room was barren.

Sakura and Hinata started walking along opposite walls, taking stock of the objects on the shelves, meanwhile Sasuke went about dragging the three prone guards into the room and Naruto examined the crates. The crates were filled with around forty of some strange metal tube bound to a wood base, the entire unit was was around three feet long and weighed only a few pounds. Putting the object back in the crate, her turned to the girls, waiting to hear about their findings.

Sakura's face was set in a scowl, "All these are all poisons," She made a sweeping gesture with her arm indicating the shelves along the walls, "They vary from deadly to weak, ingested to contact, fast acting to slow acting, there's probably enough in this room that if they don't waste too much, they could kill every man, woman, and child in the fire country." She turned to face the mass of jars, rubbing her chin in thought. "It should normally take months to make this much while using a massive team with access to incredible facilities, but there's no way they have the proper facilities in this place, and I really doubt they have enough experts among their ranks to be able to form a large enough team."

"So basically you're saying that either they're actually incredible poison makers, or that they're being supplied by someone." Naruto's voice pulled her from her thoughts.

She turned back around to face him, "Yes, but there's also the time factor. We received this mission last week, the poison makers were kidnapped five days prior to that, according to the information provided by Kazekage-sama this group has only existed for about two months." She pulled a small glass vial off the shelf to her left, if contained grainy brown liquid that looked similar to gravy, "This is teseno, it's a contact poison that is 80% fatal even when the antidote is applied within the hour. It needs to be left to set for three full months and if anything shakes the pot it's in during that point, it will neutralize completely."

The three others gave the little vial a closer look, the brown sludge looked like nothing more than a garnish for meat. "So you're saying that this group is probably a subsidiary of a larger organization that's supplying them with weapons, correct?" Sasuke stated bluntly in a bored tone that defied the intrigue in his visible eye.

"Naruto," She called his attention back to her, "Can you three handle the next room on your own? I want to stay here for a little while and neutralize these, just breaking them could do some major permanent damage to the area if they somehow leak into the groundwater."

Naruto glanced down both the heavily encumbered walls then brought his eye back to the smaller pink haired girl in front of him, "Start now!" She immediately began to turn but was caught off guard when his hand with three raised was pressed into her face. "You have three minutes to break down anything extremely dangerous, after that we blow the room. Don't waste any time!" She nodded and started to run back and forth between the shelves. "Sasuke, Hinata!" They both looked up at his call, "Get back into the vent and tell Kiba to wait for Sakura before coming to meet with us. I'll be along in just a minute, so wait for me." They both nodded and headed back into the corridor.

She watched from the door, peering around the edge and being curious even though she had little need to be. Naruto stood near the back of the room while Sakura ran back and forth between all the various vials and jars. Hinata could hear her name being called but she didn't really care, whoever it was would stop in a minute.

She watched as he performed a Kuchiyose and summoned a toad that came about up to his waist. It had two large gourds and wore what appeared to be an overlarge housecoat. "Hinata!" damn, someone was still trying to get her attention, she just wanted them to be quiet, but for some reason she felt that the voice had reason for it's urging.

He spoke to the toad with a friendly tone, rubbing it's head affectionately, apparently whatever he asked it to do it had agreed upon immediately. She smiled to herself at how even summoned creatures couldn't help themselves and just want to help Naruto out. Her smile slipped as her mind slid into her darker thoughts, feeding off her own insecurities. "I wish I could be needed as well..." She whispered against the wall, she craved his recognition but whenever he gave it she just couldn't bring herself to believe him.

Her thoughts continued to darken until she was hastily brought back to reality by something large with black and orange highlights appearing directly in front of her. She had been so lost in her own little world that she hadn't actually noticed that after he finished speaking with his summon, he had got up and walked towards the door. Naruto looked down at her curiously as her mind cracked and her first instinct was run. She turned and made it only a half step before she collided head first in the Uchiha who was hanging down from the ceiling. There was a solid thunk from their heads colliding as she fell backwards against Naruto's chest, caught a little off guard, he barely managed to grab her shoulders to prevent her from sliding off of him onto the ground.

Sasuke rubbed his forehead muttering, "Yeesh, pay attention when I'm talk to you Hinata." Sasuke scolded the stunned Hyuga.

"I'm really sorry Sasuke-kun." Her head tilted in an attempt to bow her head, however she hadn't realized that she was still being held in place. At this realization, her eyes widened in shock and she jumped a few feet away from them. Turning to face them both with a startled look on her face, she bowed low enough that her hair traced the floor, "Gomen, gomen, gomen, gomen, gomen, gomen, I didn't mean to do any of that." Sasuke just rolled his eyes in response and pulled himself back up into the vents, Naruto however just crossed his arms and looked at her.

"Hinata!" His voice was quiet but had a distinct power to it.

Her body twitched in reaction, years of conditioning from her overbearing father told her that this voice meant she was in serious trouble. She tensed, waiting for what she expected would be another scolding at how worthless she was.

"We're on a mission now, don't get distracted by anything."

She felt a deep flush rise in her cheeks, why did you always do things to embarrass herself? If only there were a rock to crawl under right now, maybe it would help pull her out of this situation.

"I'll tell you what," A firm hand gripped her shoulder, causing her head to rise somewhat, "Until the end of this mission you are not going to become distracted and you'll continue to do your best. Additionally, once this mission is over you are going to sit down and explain to me why you're spacing out in such dangerous situations." Her shoulders slumped, she really didn't want to have to explain that.

Seeing her body slump even more from it's bowing position, Naruto determined that maybe he hadn't used the best approach for this. He kneeled down in front of her, placing his free hand onto her other shoulder, "Listen Hinata," His voice was calm and kind like it normally was, "I don't want you or anyone else to get hurt. That means I can't have you lowering your guard in dangerous situations. We could die at any second down here and the only things we have to keep ourselves alive are ourselves, our wits, and our training." He waited a moment to let his words sink in, she shuddered a bit, thinking back to what could have happened if Sasuke had been an enemy instead. "I'd happily die to make sure that all of you could get away alive, but I'd rather we all get out of here in one piece." She looked up into his clear blue eyes, seeing the tiny reflection of her own pale ones, he smiled at her stood up, offering his left hand. "You promised me you'd do your best."

She let out a small laugh of relief as she took the offered hand, "And I know that you hate liars." He pulled her to her feet, the dark mood having completely left her.

"Naruto!" Their radios crackled in unison, snapping them out of their thoughts.

"Yeah Ten Ten?" He answered enthusiastically, glad for a chance to change the subject.

"Unless you'd like the oncoming patrol to interrupt your date, I'd recommend making yourself scarce in the next 30 seconds.

Their eyes snapped wide as they quickly went into action. Within five seconds, Hinata was up inside the vents and Naruto had already created two shadow clones. They took a quick look at the unconscious guards inside the room, then quickly henged themselves to look like them and closed the door.

Seconds later, a group of three ninja turned the corner and walked towards Naruto and his clones. The seconds ticked by as they came closer, closer closer, Naruto could feel sweat forming on his brow, but was thankful that it wouldn't show up on his illusion. As they moved past, one of the ninja gave a slight nod to one of the clones, under the pretense of not breaking their cover, the clone returned the nod. Soon they were well past the clones and had turned the corner to continue their patrol.

Letting out a ragged breath, he dismissed his illusions and clones, "Ten Ten, we in the clear?"

The radio was silent a moment, then crackled to back with Ten Ten's voice, "You guys are good for now. Get moving to your second target."

"Thanks." He replied into his radio before turning and opening the door again. Sakura was gathering together some things from the shelves while the frog he had summoned was busy spraying the room with oil.

He looked up at the small opening leading to the ventilation shaft, he knew it was tight, but he still had to get back up, so with a little squeezing, Naruto slid his way back into the ventilation shaft. Guttural growls were the first thing to meet his ears after he slid himself away from the opening, a glance over to Kiba confirmed his suspicions that apparently he was pissed about something.

"You three!" Kiba's growling quieted down as his curiosity overwhelmed his rage, at least for the moment. "Move ahead to the second room, neutralize the guards in the quietest manner you can, then wait for the two of us to arrive. Hinata," He looked at her, the other two following his gaze, "You're in charge until we meet back up with you guys." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hinata tense up and strangely enough, saw Sasuke let out what seemed to be a sigh of relief. "Hinata, you need to take charge here because without Sakura or myself there, they'll need your calm and simple decision making. Both of those two," He gestured towards the two males, "will always act first and think later, so I need you to think for them." He let them absorb the various degrees of insults and compliments for a moment before going on, "So why haven't you three left yet, didn't I give you an order?" They scurried off right away, disappearing around a corner.

Without anyone around, the vent seemed smaller and less comfortable drawing a small shudder from the normally, heavily active man. Soon enough they would be returning home, happily discussing their lives and their plans for the coming week. But things could just as easily go wrong, they could all be killed or even worse, captured. He had to make sure nothing went wrong, he needed to protect them all. His eyes lost their shine as a scowl moved to his face. While in his imagination induced stupor, he failed to notice the arrival of the small pink haired girl, for whom he had been waiting.

Just by looking at his face, she could tell where his thoughts were, he was petrified of losing anyone who he cared about. She reached forward and grabbed his hand lightly, snapping him out of his stupor and forcing him to look into her eyes, "Naruto," her tone was soft and warm as she smiled sadly, gripping his hand a little tighter, "All those things you told Hinata, well we need the same from you. We need you to continue being strong, but we need you to trust in us as well... remember Naruto, we're you're family."

He smiled at her remark, he was glad that he had friends like Sakura, an amused thought popped into his head which on instinct, he voiced, "You know something funny?" Confused, she looked at him with an eyebrow raised as if to instigate a response. "I can see Sasuke doing almost the exact same thing you're doing, except instead of holding my hand I see him decking me."

She thought on that idea a moment, it definitely seemed like something that Sasuke would do. Shaking the thoughts from her mind, she figured it would be best to finish this subject quickly and get on with the mission. "Just be quiet a do what you're big sister says." she said quickly, lightly smacking him in the back of the head.

"Big sister?" She smacked him again, a little harder this time. "Fine, fine, whatever you say." He stuck his tongue out at her and quickly crawled off down the vent towards where the other should have already taken care of the next group of guards.

"Hey Naruto, what about the..." She cut herself off as she looked back out the hole and saw three guards attentively standing in front of the storage room. She quickly crawled along to catch up with him, poking him in the back when she was close, "When did you create the shadow clones?" She hadn't noticed him perform any seals or channel any chakra.

"Hmm? Oh, I made the spare ones just after summoning Gamakito."

She thought about it a moment, but in the end it made sense that she wouldn't have noticed it, she had been to busy running around dealing with the more lethal poisons. It wasn't really important anyway, so she dropped the issue and just continued to follow Naruto's lead.

Around a minute later, they turned a corner to arrive face to face with a thoroughly bored looking Sasuke. He eyed the two of them and with a distinct note curiosity, "Everything done?"

Naruto nodded, "We have another 15 minutes before the fires start, you guys done over here?"

He gestured his thumb over his should towards the vent opening behind him which was substantially larger than the one near the previous room, "Kiba dealt with the guards and Hinata is checking out the door to make sure there's no alarms. We were waiting for your two before we popped it, come on." He shuffled his way over to the opening and dropped through it.

Dropping down after him, they saw Hinata working away at the door and Kiba leaning up against the wall opposite her, keeping watch. She glanced back at them, acknowledging their arrival and waving them all over.

Naruto moved in front of the door, causing Hinata to step off to the side to allow him to go first, "Well, let's get a move on. Besides, it can't be that much worse than the last room." The door quietly opened inwards revealing what was inside... Naruto hated being so wrong.

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Kokoro Wasureppoi no Jutsu = Forgetful Mind


Hey everyone, I hope you like the story thus far, I'm still new to this so please review and give me any kind of constuctive criticism, good or bad. I honestly just want to make this an enjoyable story and I'll take any words of wisdom or encouragment that I can. If everything goes like it did for this chapter, I should have another chapter up next week.

Thanks for reading!
The_Keeper