New Beginnings NOW COMPLETE

A/N: Thank you to those who reviewed! YOu know who you are. I hope you like it, please let me know!

It was still early when the phone rang, Kakashi had been cooking breakfast for the others when he heard it. He hadn’t wanted to wake the others but he suddenly felt something important had happened, something bad.
He turned the stove off before he picked up the phone.
“Yes?” he demanded quickly.

“Oh Kakashi thank god, I need help, no one else is answering,” the frantic woman sobbed.

“Ria what’s wrong?”

“Its Nico, I can’t find her anywhere, there’s no note and I can’t get on to anyone else. I wouldn’t ask but with the attacks and the monster and everything I just don’t know what to do and-”

“Ria, stay right where you are, we’ll handle everything so don’t worry about it. I’ll send Iruka over to stay with you. Please don’t call anyone else, we’ll let the police know and everything,” Kakashi ordered kindly.

“Thank you Kakashi,” she sighed, “I have the boys here with me, they’re all ok but no one saw or heard her leave.”

“Ok well you just go rest, we’ll handle it. Bye,” Kakashi said hanging up quickly before she could say anything more. The jounin went to wake his team, things were happening far more quickly now and he knew what it would do to all of them if the strange blue haired girl was killed.

He woke Sakura first, told her calmly to get dressed in her usual mission clothes, arm herself and everything, then he woke Iruka and told him the same, he woke up Sasuke and told him to do the same to Naruto, obviously the boy was a little fragile at the moment and he figured it was better just to let the Uchiha handle him.
Kakashi went to get dressed himself, the time for blowing their cover had come, there would be no need to pretend any longer.


The ninja all gathered in the lounge room all looking slightly confused in their regular gear which felt odd after being undercover.

“The time for cover is gone, we have to finish this now. Nico has disappeared,” he told them in a businesslike tone, trying not to be affected by the loss of colour in Sasuke’s face as he clutched at his boyfriend’s shoulder as well as the strong reactions from all the others.

“When?” Naruto demanded, suddenly looking far more in control. Iruka marvelled at the strength of their relationship, already they balanced each other and compensated for whatever the other was currently lacking, they had made the perfect choice in each other.

“We don’t know, first we’re going to split up, Sakura and I will go back to the park to reinvestigate the park and the cave, Sasuke and Naruto I want you to scout the area around her house and the surrounding area. Iruka I need you to go examine her room and the house and comfort Ria, she sounds on the verge of collapsing,” Kakashi ordered, “Any questions?”

They all shook their heads, “Good get going then, keep in constant contact I want to know immediately if anything changes.”


Iruka reached the door and hesitated, pushing the doorbell didn’t seem like the most tactful thing he could do right now. Instead he knocked on the door.

Kae answered the door, “Thanks,” she said simply.

“No problems,” Iruka gave her a small smile as she led him into the kitchen where Ria was sitting.

She jumped up at the young teacher, “Oh Iruka, I don’t know what happened, I never heard anything.”

“Calm down Ria, the others are all out looking,” he tapped his earpiece, “As soon as they know anything they’ll let me know.”

“Thank you,” she sobbed falling into the chunin’s arms.

“Now Ria, would you like a cup of tea or coffee or something while we wait?” he asked pleasantly stroking the older woman’s back comfortingly.

“Now you listen to me young man, this is my house and if anyone is going to offer drinks around here it’ll be me,” she pulled away sniffling slightly, “What would you like?”

“Could I have a cup of tea please?” he asked politely, “We didn’t have much time for anything other than a quick breakfast.”

“That’ll never do,” she frowned disapprovingly as she sat down, “Torya get in here now and make Iruka some breakfast, Kani you can come and make us a pot of tea thank you!”

The boys wandered in looking worried, Torya gave him a little smile, “Why didn’t you use the bell? I changed it especially.”

Kani rolled his eyes, “Not everyone is as stupid as you Tor.”

“Aww come on,” he whined, “Isn’t anyone even slightly curious?”

“No, get cooking young man or Jules can stay in the spare bedroom from now on,” Ria threatened.

“Right one breakfast coming up.”

“That’s alright you don’t have to,” Iruka protested.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m still doing my apprenticeship in the kitchen but I’m sure it’ll be edible,” Torya winked.


The two boy’s circled in around behind the family’s home checking for any sign of any sort of struggle.
“Well the window isn’t open,” Naruto observed, “And there doesn’t seem to be any sort of marks of a visitor in the yard. If she was taken it wasn’t here. Where to next?”

“Let’s have a quick look around the streets here and see if we can find anything suspicious,” Sasuke said in a dead voice.

“Sasuke, we’re going to find her,” Naruto said calmly, “She’s ok I know it.”

“If we had just listened to Dan in the first place we never would have had to worry about this,” he fumed.

“Well we didn’t know did we? And no one was awake enough last night to be thinking clearly.”

“It’s our job to think clearly! It’s all our fault!”

“All the more reason to find her quickly,” Naruto told him grimly.


The park seemed the same as the last time they had visited. They circled around to make sure they didn’t miss anything. When they were certain they went to investigate the cave, in the back the door they had discovered last time was slightly ajar.

“This is Kakashi, we’re in the cave, the door is slightly open so we’re going to go in and investigate. If we don’t contact you in 10 minutes call for reinforcements and seal off the area,” he ordered into his communicator.
He looked at Sakura, “You ready for this?”

She nodded with a fire in her eyes.

“Good let’s go.”
They each pulled a kunai from their weapons pouches and Kakashi slowly pushed the door open and they walked deeper into the cave, eyes everywhere at once.


They circled the area three times before they spotted it poking out from under a bush. Naruto was the one who spotted it, “Is that a mobile phone?”

Sasuke felt his guts clench up, “That’s Nico’s phone,” he whispered, “She never takes it anywhere. What’s it doing out here?”

Naruto picked it up, it was still working and luckily for them it was turned on. He felt kinda guilty looking through her messages, until he realised that there weren’t any.
“Maybe someone called her…” Naruto suggested, he looked through her call records, “The last call she received was at eight this morning from Diran…”

“The only reason she would ever wake up that early is if someone asked her to,” Sasuke said quietly, “And I think Diran is one of the few she would do that for. She has a crush on him.”

“Where would he take her?” Naruto asked.

“I don’t know! I don’t know anything about the bastard!” Sasuke fumed, “But when I get my hands on him I am going to kill him.”
The raven’s chakra whipped wildly around him.

“Woah teme, no target fixation remember? Until we know for sure it could be anyone,” Naruto tried to calm him, “Iruka? We found Nico’s phone, the last call on it is from Diran, we’re going to go check out the school’s records for his address and then go see what we can find.”

“Ok good luck.”

They made their way to the school office once more.


Sakura and Kakashi followed the silent pathway down the tunnel they had already explored to the altar. Once more there was a photo however this time the blue coloured hair lying on the altar was unmistakable.

Sakura gasped, “So she was definitely taken then…”

“Looks like it,” he examined the photo, “It’s a school photo so whoever is behind this is either in her class or has access to the school’s photo library.”

“I think too many people have disappeared from our year level to be anyone other than a student with a grudge,” Sakura said thoughtfully.

“We had better go explore the other passage.”

“Without back up?” Sakura asked a little nervously.

“We can’t spare anyone right now Sakura,” Kakashi told her, “Alright Iruka we’re fine, we are fairly certain Nico was taken, the photo on the altar has been changed to one of her and there’s blue hair next to it.”

Iruka sighed, “Alright keep me up to date.”

“Yeah, we’re going to explore the rest of the cave now, if you haven’t heard from us in 10 minutes you know the procedure.”

“Alright Kashi, please be careful.”

“Of course love.”