New Beginnings NOW COMPLETE

A/N: Thanks to anyone who reviewed ^_^ Let me know what you think once again!

“What are they saying?” Ria demanded gripping her tea cup tightly.

Iruka sighed, “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Please Iruka I just need to know, no matter what,” her gaze was determined but scared.

“Well they haven’t found her but they found her mobile, the boys are going to see if they can find Diran and see if he knows anything, the last call was from him at eight this morning,” Iruka explained.

“And? What else Iruka?” she demanded, “I know there’s more.

“Ok well first off, you probably need to know that we are ninja on a mission to solve the mystery behind the people going missing. We have been investigating since we got here and we found a cave in the park after Amaya went missing. Deep in the cave behind a secret door there is an altar, after she went missing there was a photo of Amaya and a strand of her hair on the altar,” he explained uncomfortably.

She nodded for him to go on.
“And Kakashi and Sakura have just gone back to reinvestigate and on the altar they found…they found a…”

“Nico’s photo was there wasn’t it?” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

Iruka looked away sadly, “I’m sorry Ria, they’re doing everything they can to find her. We will do our best I swear.”

“Thank you Iruka,” the broken woman said wiping her eyes.

Please hurry everyone, Iruka thought.


Sasuke and Naruto made their way to the opposite side of town where Diran lived according to the school records. They arrived in front of a large mansion and Sasuke stepped confidently up to press the doorbell (which made a regular sort of chiming noise), a tall blonde woman answered.
“May I help you?”

“Hello my name is Sasuke I was just wondering if Diran was home,” Sasuke smiled politely.

“Oh, I’m not entirely sure Sasuke, I’ll just find out for you, wait here,” she left the door open and went to a nearby phone and dialled a short number. It was about a minute before she hung up, “Well he’s not answering his phone so my guess is he’s out. Did you need to see him for something?”

“Oh we were just going to go over our homework together that’s all but we can do it later if he’s out,” Naruto grinned at her, “I don’t mind at all.”

The lady gave a small laugh, “Well good luck, if you find him ask him to call and let me know whether he’ll be home for dinner, if you could.”

“Of course,” Sasuke said.

“Thank you, nice to meet you,” she smiled before closing the door.

“Right where else could he be?” Naruto asked.

“I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him,” Sasuke ran his fingers through his hair.

“We just need to sit down and work out what we know about him, come on teme,” Naruto led him away.


Kakashi and Sakura walked slowly down the long winding passage, it was far longer than the passage to the chamber containing the altar, it didn’t seem to be a natural path, there were marks which showed it had been forged by some sort of tools. Or claws, his mind added wearily.
Never before had Kakashi been this worried on a mission since his first real mission with Team 7. Having someone to go back to changed things.
He shook himself from his thoughts, this was no time to be daydreaming of a tanned brunette with beautiful long hair and-
He shook his head again and tensed when he saw a slight lightening in the passage ahead. He gestured to Sakura to slow down and she nodded as they silently crept towards the light, paying extra attention to the shadows as well. As they got closer they each moved to one side of the doorway.

Kakashi took a peek around into the lightened cavern.


“It’s no use!” Sasuke exploded, “All I know about him is that he’s Nico’s friend who she has a crush on. I think the most I’ve ever spoken to him was that time we were sparring.”

“Teme! That’s it, he’s her sparring partner, maybe he called her into the dojo for a little early training,” Naruto said excitedly.

“Oh come on, who would fall for that?” Sasuke snorted.

“Uh, I would, if you called and asked me to come over for some early training I’d be right over,” Naruto said sheepishly.

Sasuke slapped his forehead, “Naruto you are an idiot. But you and Nico are practically the same person so I think we’d better have a look at the dojo.”


“Wake up Nico,” Diran said in a strange tone.

She opened her eyes to see Diran standing in front of an owl demon, “Diran look out!” she yelled.

“Look out for what? This?” he asked smirking, “Thank you,” he nodded slightly to the demon which took off out the window, vanishing from sight immediately.

“Diran what’s going on?” she asked looking around the dojo.

“I just thought I’d invite you here for a little sparring,” he replied examining a detail on the katana he was holding.

“I didn’t bring a weapon,” Nico said warily.

“Oh I know,” he chuckled, it was a chilling noise.

Nico tried to stand but a sharp pain shot through her legs and she collapsed, she cried out in pain and the chuckle became a laugh.

“Now now Nico, there’ll be no running,” Diran scolded.

“Diran what’s going on? You’re scaring me,” Nico said as she looked at her legs and saw the blood running from the backs of her knees.

“I told you, you’re not going to run away, we’re going to have a little sparring session.”


Kakashi jerked his head and the two of them slid silently into the huge underground cavern. The cavern was made of stone and seemed to be a natural cave. The edges of the room were all in shadows from the many candles and lanterns around the room. In the centre of the room stood a large statue of an owl demon, littered around the room were bones of creatures of all size, although it had been suspected, finding the human bones was still disturbing to say the least.

As their eyes adjusted they saw that the room was empty apart from the lights, bones and the statue. They cautiously made their way to the statue through the bones which crunched sickeningly under their feet, it was impossible to avoid them all.
Kakashi examined the statue while Sakura took photos with the camera on her phone, it seemed to be the same size as the demon which had taken the detective. It looked to me made of a rough stone, the feathers were so detailed as to look real.

When he looked down Kakashi saw something clutched in the stone claws, it was… a detective badge!
The jounin jumped away and hissed at the girl, “Sakura! Get away from it now!”

Sakura looked up in alarm before leaping away to land next to her teacher, “What is it?”

“I don’t know how but I think that statue IS the monster.”


Sasuke and Naruto made their way quickly to the school and found their way to the dojo. They paused at the doors to listen.

“Come on Nico, try harder, you should at least be able to land one hit before we finish this,” Diran’s voice said mockingly.

Sasuke relaxed but Naruto shook his head warningly, something wasn’t right about it.

“Why are you doing this you bastard?!” Nico screamed hoarsely.

“I thought you wanted to spar?” he replied lightly.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it! How could you… all those people…”

“Were in my way,” Diran finished, “You of all people should know Nico, I always get what I want.”

“Don’t you dare touch her!” Sasuke burst in angrily with Naruto slightly behind him.

Diran turned around, blade held low in a menacing way, they saw Nico with cuts all over her body holding herself up on the back of a chair.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”