“Anyway, after they escape the jail, the spy guy goes and attacks some random guard.” Naruto rambled on, “which of course is stupid, because that guard set off the alarm because of it…” He walked lazily down the dirt road. Hands resting on top of his head.
It’s a nice day, we probably have the time for a break. Ino thought to herself as she spied on her traveling companion. He had been talking about some movie he’d seen years ago.
“Ya! Like the action was super not good. Like, you could tell that the actors never fought before in their life. Like, the blood was too thick and red to be real, ya know?” As Naruto chattered his orange and black jacket gently swayed from the wind. A black t-shirt seen peaking out from where he unzipped the thing. A little vile rested on his chest, filled with glittering green shards.
Ino looked around the tree line, wondering just how much farther it was until they made it to Wave Country. They’ve only been traveling for 3 days now. Walking through various hamlets and villages. Each alike as the next; thatched roofs, herb gardens, village idiot, the usual. In her time traveling outside Konoha she had seen her fair share of such places and the mystique had worn off years ago.
Does he even breath? Ino wondered as the chattering continued uninterrupted. No wonder Sakura loved the quiet moments in the hospital.
The trees this far north from home had already changed color. She could spy red brown and only a sprinkling of green through the canopy. As leaves fell she occasionally would need to brush them out of her hair. Some times a leaf would catch on a hidden needle or some razor wire she wove inside her pale blond tresses. As they walked along the dirt road. A fork appeared, just like the other dozens they’ve already passed that day. The only difference is that this one made the Naruto stop.
He stood still. Stiller then she had seen him so far. He raised his right hand, perpetually bandaged, in a fist, signaling a halt. He turned to her and whispered, ”I Feel combat. Four clicks down the western path.” Ino saw that he now wore a deep red eye shadow, and his iris chanced from an ocean blue to a deep gold, with strange rectangular pupils.
Ino turned to the man fully, face serious, ideas of enjoying the day forgotten, “Report.”
Naruto fell to the ground in a meditative trance. “Fifteen combatants attacking a palisaded hamlet… The hamlet is resisting… Seems like only one defender is beyond the palisade.” Strange gold eyes stared through his golden hair, waiting for permission to engage.
“OK, Naruto. If you were the team lead, what would you do?” She knew what he would do. It was written all over his face. He wanted to go and save the hamlet.
He responded immediately, “I would engage with the intent to capture.”
Ino stared directly in his eyes, trying to read his soul. Noble, his intentions are, but are they in line with the directive of the mission. Her mission to make him the best Jonin she can make him.
She sighed,“OK. We’ll engage. You’re the heavy hitter and I’ll be cleanup. The goal is to minimize damage to the hamlet, and capture as many of the enemy combatants as possible. Go!” With her command they sprinted down the western road. Naruto immediately pulling ahead, he ran so fast a cloud of leaves and dust formed in his wake.
Instead of traveling by the road like her companion, Ino instead used the tree branches just as she was taught. Both at the academy and by her teacher. She was taught that traveling by branches was to disrupt the tactical thinking of the enemy. After all, most people travel by roads, so using a different means can disrupt or even circumvent ambushes. Apparently Naruto didn’t get the message.
In a matter of minutes Ino reached a large clearing in the woods. She saw a flash of blond in the bushes near where the road emerged from the tree line. It seemed Naruto was waiting for her permission to engage. She caught her breath in the branches and surveyed the situation.
There was small hill with a smattering of thatched huts ringed by a small palisade wall. A mob of bandits were at the gates, which was really just a cart loaded with unmilled lumber blocking the opening. The bandits were poking some fire hardened spears around the cart while the defenders were doing the same, but with sharp tools loosely tied to bent polls. The bandits were also being harassed with rocks, thrown by the women and children. Further behind the defenders was a man on one knee bleeding profusely. He wore the standard blue Konoha chunin combat fatigues and olive flak jacket. Blood soaked and bubbled through his jacket falling on the ground. A woman was running towards the downed shinobi some cloth in hand.
Ino knew they needed to act now to save her comrade. She held up her hand and made a chopping motion with it. As she did, a flash of orange emerged from the bushes. He hit the mob at the gates and scattered them like bowling pins.
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Five of the enemy combatants were thrown near her. Ino leapt, like an eagle swooping down to kill a rabbit. She reinforced her body with her chakra. Ligaments, bone, and muscle once but flesh now harder then granite. Her knee fell like lightning, she felt a downed bandit’s sternum and ribs crack and explode. Her fist connected with her opponents face. A nose previously broken, now pulverized, lips shredded from teeth tearing through. Ino stood, flexed her hand to dislodge teeth that tried to embed themselves into her knuckles. She absently kicked the downed opponent onto his belly, so he wouldn’t drown in his own blood.
As she stood, two of the bandits near her stood too. They stared at her, struck dumb by her ruthlessness. Ino picked the man closest to her, he had what was once a cast iron griddle, but now an ill fitting cuirass. She sprinted towards him, faster then the eye of the civilians could follow. Once again hardening her fist, she punched her opponent in the face. She felt the crunch of a cheek bone and nose through her fist as the man fell to the ground bonelessly. Another absentminded kick to get the bandit onto his belly while she surveyed her next prey.
Unfortunately, they clumped together and created a united front. Their spears shook in their fright. They were huddled together, trying to get confidence from their equally terrified comrades. Ino stood and weaved a basic clone jutsu. She had her apparition stalk forward while she used a small genjutsu to make herself unimportant and nigh invisible to the bandits. She quietly flanked the bandits.
Her clone casually prowled towards them, raised a bloody knuckle to her lips and licked.
Ino was able to sneak right behind them, but one lost his nerves. He turned to flee. She knew he was trying to route from the fear he showed on his pants.
Ino of course stood her ground, the terrified civilian did not. As he started to run from her clone he barreled into her. As he fell to the ground, Ino quickly turned her body to keep her still standing opponents in her sight. Her pony tail whipped around and slapped her fallen opponent in the face. The razor wire and needles woven in her hair racked across his face and neck. Ino could hear him scream.
Great, now I need to wash my hair quickly or it’ll get all clumpy and stained. In her haste Ino kicked a spear that was leveled her way, it broke. She spun into the surprised bandits guard, grabbed his neck and hip threw him into the last standing bandit.
With the last two bandits sprawled on top of each other, Ino pounced. One bandit received a throat punch, while the other was a bony landing spot for her knee.
With the last of her combatants disabled and hopefully still alive. She looked around to see how Naruto has fared with the other ten combatants. Which were all neatly hog tied and in a nice line near the entrance to the village.
How the fuck did he manage that so fast? Its been like 30 seconds! Of course she found her teammate off talking to the (rightfully) terrified villagers through their make shift gate. So Ino gave one last glance at all of her downed opponents, and confirmed they were down for the count. She sauntered her way up to Naruto and his audience to see what was happening.
“...ose guys off, to a bounty station and they’ll be out of your hair.” Naruto said, leaning back confidently, as if the villagers didn’t have their weapons trained on him.
“Then take them and leave! We don’t want any of your kind here any more! Look what you brought! Leave!” An old man screamed, his voice cracking, tears falling. His skin was darkly tanned, deep lines marring his face. He wielded a bent stick with a saw quickly lashed to one end, the teeth slowly dripping blood.
Naruto stood unconvinced. Hands behind his head, as if he was enjoying his day. Slowly he used his bandaged arm to scratch his cheek, “Well, we just saved your village from being attacked. And, you have one of our guys back there.” He started to look excited. As if helping people was the the most important thing. “And, Ino here can heal people. Like, cuts and stuff. Make everyone, um, nice and not bleeding.” He gave a megawatt smile, his eyes twinkling. The afternoon sun hitting him just right, he seemed like a movie star waiting for the heroine to kiss him.
The spokesperson looked at the rest of his people. After getting nods from various people he relented. The spokesperson tried to get some of the men in the crowd to move the cart out of the way, but, Naruto waved them off with a belly laugh. With one hand he pushed the cart aside like he was entering some cafe, not a cart loaded down with hundreds of pounds of lumber.
The villagers took a healthy step back after witnessing such a super human feet. Naruto either didn’t notice, or was ignoring their stares. He made his way over to the downed shinobi. Ino followed.
“Hay, what’s up man.” Naruto joked as he sat next to the bleeding shinobi.
“Nothin, but sky.” Blood stained the shinobi’s teeth, that meant that he had a bleed either in his lungs or upper GI. Since he was still breathing and able to talk without wheezing, that generally ruled out a lung puncture.
“Ino here’ll be healing ya right up. OK? She’s really good.” Naruto turned and looked at her for the next part, “ Apprenticed under Tusnade for a while. Right?”
“Yes, I studied under Lady Senju for five years.” Ino knelt down next to the injured man. She found the hidden emergency removal straps on the flack jacket, and pulled. With the armored jacket removed she could see a stab wound over his liver. Ino wore some latex gloves she had in her first-aid kit.
Before she continued she took some gauze and shoved it into his mouth. “This is going to hurt a little while I figure out what’s damaged and what I need to fix.” She saw his eyes steel, so she stuck a finger into his wound, he grunted in pain, tears welling in his brown eyes. She felt around for any debris, the would was not a through and through. She felt that the stab also made it into his stomach.
“This is going to be easy. So don’t worry.” She lied. This was going to be difficult for her to stitch back together.