Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Shinobi: Pride of Pride ❯ Chapter Four ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Shinobi:The Price of Pride

By: Hanasaki Rikku

Summary: With a clan like the Hanasaki, is it any wonder why Rikku is the way she is? She lost her brother and friend at such a young age, and things with Chizuko have seemed to only gotten worse. What does Itachi want and why does a certain Snake Sannin seem so interested in her life all of the sudden?

Rating: T/M. For violence (poorly written, but still there), language, and some other stuff I can't quite recall at the moment. Just be warned. Oh, that, and my horrible writing.

Genre: Romance/Action/Adventure/Angst

“Life is just one damned thing after another”

((CHAPTER FOUR))

With Rikku having gone off and disappearing, leaving her alone with only the Copy Ninja for company, Chizuko began to feel more than a little awkward. Sure, she had been mad at Rikku, but that was no reason for the idiot to go off and leave her alone with some man, some older man, she didn't even know. She admired him, yes, but only because of his famed strength and variety of jutsu knowledge. But she was still only sixteen, and that man definitely more than twenty, not to mention the fact she'd seen him around the village reading a non-too-innocent book, written by none other than the old bastard of a man who'd groped her the day before.

How dare Rikku leave her with some deranged pervert!

Okay…well, deranged was a little harsh, but still! It was no excuse! This was probably some way to get back at her for calling her a brat.

Stupid brat!

She scowled crossly behind her mask, proceeding to plot a very slow and torturous end for her so-called friend. Kakashi may have been a good Ninja, but he was still a pervert, and she'd be damned if she'd let herself be molested twice in the same week.

Distracted as she was in plotting her former teammate's advent demise, she almost didn't notice Kakashi slow down to a steady pace beside her, casting her a questioning look. She momentarily panicked, but forced herself to relax and offer a smile, only to realize he couldn't see her. She frowned, growling inwardly at her own idiocy. “Yea?”

“You okay? You seemed kinda edgy?” His voice was harder to discern with the wind howling past her ears, and she had to strain to hear what he'd said. Quickly thinking of something, she answered with an odd tinge to her voice.

“Fine.”

He nodded, prodding no further, and pushed ahead, taking the lead once again. With him at a safer distance, she sighed, reprimanding herself for being so stupid. Rikku would have laughed…though, most likely not. Rikku didn't laugh. She wasn't even sure the girl knew the meaning of the word.

Actually…I don't really want to think about her right now, She wasn't pleased with Rikku's behavior, and this heat was making her irritable, not to mention the clear lack of trees, or any form of greenery aside from the occasional weed, accompanied with rocks. Lots of them.

Having grown up in a place where one was surrounded with lush forests and grass, it was disconcerting to see something so completely….barren.

She was not accustomed to venturing far from the village, despite the fact that her sensei had deemed her team efficient enough to proceed from Genin to Jounin. She'd had many missions as Jounin, though the administrators had been reluctant to give her assignments of an A rank, doubting her skills for something that required assassinations and/or high level protection, which held the high possibility of battle against other upper level Shinobis. Because of this, they had been forced to remain under their sensei's tutelage until deemed necessary, even as Jounin ranking officials. It had been the most infuriating thing her life.

Well, aside from when she found her little brother Kenji chasing the family's cat, Kaldea, with her aian nakkuru.

Well, no, now that she thought back on it, it was quite amusing, even with the fact that the little imp had pinned the cat's tail to the door, so that the poor thing was left to dangle about aimlessly until she had gotten home. But it had been her mother's cat, and she had held the stupid thing rather close to her only because her mother had loved it, and she had lost her mother at an early age, to some sickness no one had ever quite heard of, but was said to have come from Kiri.

Stop daydreaming, Himura!

Before she knew it, they had come to a sudden stop, or more like, Kakashi had halted abruptly, which gave her only seconds to stop before she collided with the man. Scowling, she balanced herself and leapt to the boulder he stood on, following his gaze downwards.

There was an incredibly steep fall into the ravine below, with jagged rocks protruding from the sides every which way. Squinting down at an individual slab, she could faintly make out two forms.

“Should we go down and check it out?” She glanced at her team captain, waiting patiently for his response. She could feel a drop of sweat trickle down her temple, her hair matting to her neck in an annoying fashion, and wished wholeheartedly that this mission had been somewhere with a more pleasant climate.

“Might as well,” he responded after a moment's contemplation, nodding curtly to emphasize his point, gathering chakra at his soles and clambering downwards to the bodies, seeing as how attempting to leap down from each unstable slab of rock would have proved pointless. Chizuko, generating chakra at her soles, followed shortly afterwards, settling instead for a downward sprint, thus reaching the bodies before the silver-haired Jounin.

What she found shocked her. One on top the other, two men - of one she wasn't even quite sure of, seeing as how he seemed to have been mauled beyond recognition by Kami knows what - lay in a pool of what was presumably their own blood. The other didn't seem to have been physically harmed whatsoever, his eyes wide open in shock and horror, blood issuing from his mouth and staining his teeth.

For a second, emerald eyes flashed before her mind, causing her to pale considerably. It was only until she felt the presence of her captain that she managed to get a grip of the dread that had begun to spread within her like a poison.

Kakashi crouched down beside the men, a serious look in his eye as he examined the man below the mangled corpse of what was once a man. It took him only a second to identify the other. “Eiichiro Metani.” He murmured, standing, “Then this must be Tarukane Hirue.”

She blinked, mouth parting in shock; thankfully, her mask had hid her asinine expression, or she'd have died from embarrassment. “How can that be?”

Kakashi shrugged nonchalantly, his eye remaining on the bodies. “I can't be sure. Probably pissed off the wrong people. Mutsumi-sama asked us to dispose of the bodies and retrieve the scrolls they stole.” Finally turning away, he rubbed the back of his head in a noncommittal manner, “Send out a signal for Hanasaki-san.”

Chizuko nodded, drawing a tubular object from her item's pouch, giving it a sharp twist at its end, sending a brilliant flash spiraling into the air, serving as a beacon for their other member. After the flames had dissipated, she pocketed the flare so as not to leave anything behind and waited for the arrival of Rikku as Kakashi proceeded to extract the specified scrolls and ignite the bodies with a Katon jutsu.

It took Rikku less than fifteen minutes to find them, the serpent mask staring down at them vacantly from over the cliff's edge. She couldn't help but still feel a little incensed with the younger girl from their last quarrel, even if it had been for something she couldn't quite remember. If Rikku wanted to be a little brat, she'd simply ignore the other girl until she apologized. Their was no way in hell that damn Hanasaki was going to get the better of her just because she thought she was all high and mighty and whatnot.

Meeting up with the girl, Chizuko didn't bother to listen as Kakashi girl a briefed the girl on what they had found, sounding as bored as ever. Set on ignoring her dark-haired friend, she stayed closer to Kakashi as they started off in the direction of Iwa, which turned out to be a short distance from their location.

They recompensed the Kage, Mutsumi, and reassured her that the two criminals had been dealt with. After that, they headed back to Konoha; Chizuko somewhat disheartened that she hadn't been able to get in a good fight because the bastards they were after had been killed. Kakashi had seemed slightly amused at that, but insisted it was the best, this being only an exercise to see whether they were worthy to go onto ANBU anyway.

Traveling by way of trees, Chizuko was thankful for the thick foliage, doing well to hide the sun's blaring rays, which, in her mind, totally made up for the lack of action in her mission.

They had barely even crossed into Hi Country borders when she felt a familiar feeling of foreboding waft over her. Something was off…

They were being followed.

Looking ahead, she realized Kakashi had disappeared, which only confirmed her theory. Jumping down onto the ground, she stopped, hiding herself in the shadows of the thicket, behind the extraordinary width of a tree. Kunai in hand, all that was left was to wait.

((CHAPTER END))