[56] Almost

Kagami glances around nervously looking out for any signs of the boys. She left the village maybe an hour or two after they had, and she can tell they were in a rush because she can't sense their chakra's anywhere near her. She sighs, slightly irritated by it.

'None of them can get anywhere on time because they are slow, and when I need them to be slow they are all of a sudden the next Lord Fourths.'

'Wah! A fourth? Is Tsunade the Fourth Hokage?' Hashirama's voice echos through Kagami's mind, she wasn't expecting it and slipped on her branch a little.

'No, Lady Tsunade is the Fifth Hokage. Minato Namizake was the fourth, he was famous for disappearing and reappearing somewhere else in a flash, almost like teleporting.' Kagami gets back on track, speeding in the direction she can feel faint chakra signatures.

'Wow, Tobirama, Konoha has really moved forward.'

'Yet, there are still Uchiha.'

Sighs ring out from multiple people within the connection, Masaru sounding particularly done with the mans antics. Kagami goes to reply but comes to halt suddenly, the inertia almost throwing her entire body forward and out of the trees. She stares down in front of her, a massive expanse of ruined land, obviously a fight.

'It seems I'm going to be picking up bodies.' The girl jumps tot he ground and checks the pulse of the enemy.

Dead.

'Now to find the boys.'

s.h.o.u.t.

Kagami huffs as she speeds along. She has Kiba and Choji hanging limping off her shoulders, the weight of them not being the issue, more that they are odd shapes and its hard to move swiftly with them on her. She glances at the sky, watching the sun. She wants to get back before the sun sets, there is no way she is carrying bodies in the dark.

She drops tot he ground, leaning against a tree and placing the two boys down, sitting down herself to catch her breath. She contemplates for a moment, wondering if she should contact Masaru so a shinobi can come and collect the two boys, she is sure there are more ahead and she can't take care of them all.

'They need to get to the hospital, the sooner the better,' she glances around quickly before delving into the connection, fishing for Masaru's particularly. 'Masaru?'

'Yeah?'

'I need someone to come and pick up two boys, they are in critical condition and I assume there is more to come. I'm not going to leave them until someone makes it to us.'

'Gotcha, where are you approximately?'

Kagami looks up at the sky, and sighs when she notices its directly above her, meaning she can't be sure of her whereabouts.

'Thirty minutes out or so, I'll send a chakra signal before leaving.'

'Got it, medical-nin are on the way.'

Kagami gulps lightly, before pumping Yua's chakra from her body, completely aware that this could also make it to enemies who are nearby.

'Yua, risk it.'

'But Kagami,'

'If there was a time to do it, we better do it now.'

'If you say so.' Yua takes a deep breath before pulling up a silver shield around the two boys, protecting them from anyone just Konoha nin. 'Because we haven't trained this may weaken yours.'

'I'm fine with that, most people don't make it that close to me.' Kagami takes one last glance at the silver circle covering the boys, the chakra swirling around and giving her a glance of them every few seconds before she takes off, trusting her village to make it to them in time.

She decides to stop thinking about it and to just push forward, reverting back to the Root mentality. She quickly glances over everything as she blurs past, making sure not to miss anything as she does. She watches the trees as the blur past, looking for any movement in particular.

'Shikamaru, Naruto, Neji.' She looks out for anything that might belong to them. 'And Lee.'

She curses herself for forgetting about the boy, she needs to also watch out for him, he has pre-existing injuries that will hinder his performance in battle. She takes a sharp turn as she feels a sudden chakra pulse from her left, she heads straight towards it, praying it's one or all of the boys. She would rather help them fight than walk around picking them up.

She grunts as she appears ina clearing just in time to watch Naji fall, his opponent already out cold. She rushes forward and catches the boy before he hits the ground. He is dazed and unable to respond. She once again places her hands to the ground and brings up a silver tinted dome over the boy, making sure to pour chakra into it, hoping it may heal him a little until reinforcements come. She lets her chakra pulse out to tell the medical-nin that they are needed elsewhere before continuing on.

'I am gaining on them, the other three must be close if Neji was still fighting while I came.' She reaches out and feels two chakra's ahead of her.

Shikamaru and Naruto. Her mind races, had she missed Lee completely? Did he go another way? But, as her mind starts to spiral into a thinking frenzy, she feels the all too familiar chakra signatures of her once enemies. She keeps her guard up, trying to make out where they are heading. The pass right by her, maybe a hundred meters to the right of her, they already have an objective.

She takes a deep breath before sprinting forward, giving up on dancing through the tree's, she has people to find and she highly doubts they are going to care whether she came from the tree's for the ground.

'I need an analysis on anybody you have recognised to far.'

'So far, the enemies that have been unconscious were the same ones that held up the barrier during your fight alongside the Third.' Yua pauses, trying to channel chakra through Kagami without causing her body high impact damage. 'There is one more, a girl. My guess is she will fight Shikamaru and Naruto will go ahead to challenge Naruto.'

Kagami grunts, 'If you are right, we need to hurry.'

'That would be wise.'

Kagami pumps chakra through her legs, hoping that it makes even a slight difference to her speed. She knows she is fast, she was never one to boast, but she knows that she is an excellent kunoichi. Easily one of the elite. She was offered Anbu captain but turned it down, instead choosing to be the leader of a squad, she rather a squad to a whole division, she saw the toll it took on Itachi and she rather not have to experience it herself.

Kagami lets her chakra pulse out, felling for any difference around her.

Nothing.

Kagami is suddenly sucked into a rabbit hole of her own thoughts. Why can't she be an Anbu rank? Why does she have to stay as a genin? Why does Danzo want to speak to her? Who is she kidding she knows exactly why. But why now? Why not in a few years, or a few years earlier? Why does he have to ruin her life now?

She shakes her head, patting her cheeks lightly before focusing on the task ahead.

'Focus, Kagami. There is a task at hand.'

'Kagami?'

'Yes?' She replies to her summoning's call.

'Kakashi is being deployed now, he is coming after you. The three boys you left behind have been collected, and Lee as well. Be safe Kagami.'

'I'm always safe, Masaru.'

'You can't fool me, I can feel your anxiety from here.'

'Shut up.'

She returns to reality, halting immediately. She glances ahead, her eyes narrowing. Shikamaru is squatting not twenty meters in front of her but she knows better than to rush in. He will have a plan, and her heading into the fight will cause a disruption to the fight. She glances at the woman standing further ahead, a large smirk stretched across her lips.

She scowls at her, 'What an ugly woman.'

'Kagami, that is not a very nice thing to say.'

'Yua, you know it's true.'

'Just because it's true doesn't mean you need to say it.'

'I didn't say it, I thought it.'

' . . . . .'

' . . . . .'

Kagami suddenly cringes, a loud screeching sound ringing out around her. She covers her ears and glances up at the woman again. It's her weapon, that instrument.

'How pitiful, Orochimaru really can't do any better than that?'

'He did go for you.'

'What are you implying?'

'Nothing~'

Kagami cuts off Masaru just in time to watch Shikamaru incapacitate the enemy, her body dropping to the ground with a thud. She steps out of the trees, walking towards the now panting boy cautiously. His head snaps up in alarm to the sound of her landing next to him on the branch. Kagami just places a hand on his head, allowing Yua to try and heal his injuries. Not only has Kagami never trained with her chakra, it has been almost over ten years since Yua has used her chakra for little things.

The only time she uses it is either for minor things in Kagami's fights or so lock away and warn Tailed-beasts. Other than that she never needs to heal Kagami, the girl is too skilled for her own good.

"I'm fine, go help Naruto, he has gone after Sasuke." Shikamaru grabs Kagami's wrist and removes her hand fro his head. "I'll be fine until you come back, or someone comes to get me. I can tell reinforcements have been called, the forest is crawling with Konoha nin."

Kagami hesitates before nodding and turning back ahead. She turns back quickly and places a light kiss to his forehead before rushing off, wary of how long Naruto can hold up against Sasuke. Sasuke has always bee more skilled than the boy, but as Naruto seemed to be catching up to him, the curse mark appears and his power sky-rockets.

'How far?'

'Two kilometres, in the Valley of the End.'

Kagami rolls her eyes, 'Of all places, they chose the Valley of the End.'

'I don't think they chose the Valley of the End, I think it just ended up that way.'

Kagami scoffs anyway and rushes ahead, knowing how fast to move now that she knows where she is going. She rebounds quickly off the trees and runs the path she has run a thousand times before. Anbu used to train in the Valley of the End, Kagami always found it unnecessary and a waste of time and resources, of course, she never said this because the other Anbu seemed to enjoy it as a day off.

She reaches the river and follows it forward, sprinting along the bank as quickly as possible. She breaks the tree line, not stopping for a moment, her steps just leave land and land on water, splashing violently as she beelines for the boys. She almost immediately notices a strong orange chakra surrounding Naruto like a sort of cloak, a tail swaying behind him.

'Yua!'

'I know!'

Kagami skids between the two boys distracting them from each other. Sasuke curses and aims his next attack for the girl, but Naruto attacks him, throwing him backwards.

"Sasuke, stop making our lives harder." Kagami glares at the boy, reaching out and tries to grab his shoulder.

But suddenly she is yanked backwards, the air knocked out of her lungs. She grunts and twists around, trying to defect who's attack her. She freezes as she makes eye contact with Orochimaru. He smirks at her, his tongue wrapped tightly around her waist.

She pulls out her kunai and tries to cut his tongue off, by he manages to drop her in time. She surveys his arms, they are useless right now. She frowns, he will still be hard to defeat even with the handicap.

"I've almost got you Hatake-scum," Orochimaru smirks widely at her.

She glares at him, "Almost."

s.h.o.u.t.

[21st chapter of the month]

question of the chapter:

do you enjoy the frequent updates?

~shadow