Updated on: 2/4/19

I am so sorry for not updating sooner. I'm stuck with hw and other school things that I need to graduate at the end of this year. This is the next chapter and I hope you guys like it

Shika POV

We were moving quickly toward the ones who had Sasuke. I kept trying to get in contact with Hinata but we are still a bit far from her. "This is Choji's parting gift. Eat up." I said as I passed the bag to Naruto. He had one and gave it to Kiba. Neji then asked me about Choji's pills and I answered him "For this mission, he brought the top secret pills of the Akimichi clan. When you take them, you gain an explosive burst of power. They're the green, yellow and red-colored pills. In every one of those pills, there's an extremely huge amount of energy." Naruto got happy about it but he didn't know the side effects of taking those pills. Akamaru started whimpering so we asked Kiba what he was saying "You know that Akamaru can sense the enemy's power through smell. He's really worried about whether those pills can really defeat him." Neji explained the rational thinking of what  battle is and I added on to it. "Everyone thinks he is weak. But I know...more than Neji, me, or anyone else here, besides Neko,...he's strong." I saw Neko smirk "Speak for them Shika. I know full well the ability of Choji, I helped him train after all." she said and smirked at me.

Hinata POV

I was still following the enemy as they kept moving. I sensed the others getting closer but I don't think they did. I turned on my communication and contacted the others "Shikamaru." I said and he answered me "Hey Hinata. We're on our way to you right now" he said and I sighed in relief knowing that I was right. "He's late. That Jirobo" the guy with two heads said "Did you guys defeat Jirobo or did one of you stay back?" I asked and Shikamaru sighed "Choji stayed behind. We gave him the small bottle you left us and your hawk is leading us to you right now" he said and I nodded "Alright but hurry up." Suddenly I felt Rida, my other griffin, trying to contact me. I opened my mind and heard her "Mistress, I feel a dark power near the place the place where the your other comrade was left to fight" she said "Alright, go check it out but be very careful. If Choji needs healing then please heal him." I said and summoned her. She left just as quickly as she came making it unnoticeable for the enemy.

Choji POV

I was very tired after my fight with the big guy. I followed a butterfly to where my friends were but my vision was very blurry. I opened the small bottle that Neko gave me and Hinata's clone started healing me. After a while she disappeared and I got up. I was still very weak but there was nothing else I could do. I heard a caw from above and I looked up. I saw a different griffin than the one Hinata first summoned. I knew it was hers because she's the only one I know that has a griffin as a summon. The griffin came down in front of me as I fell to the ground. "You fought well child, now rest for I will heal you." she said and I closed my eyes.

Rida POV

The child fell unconscious as I put him on my back I healed him as I flew to to my mistress's village. As I landed I as Athena there too. I quickly went to the hospital and let a nurse take the boy off my back. Then I went to Athena and we talked for a bit "What are you doing here Athena?" I asked her "Mistress sent me to heal and help a few of her comrades, you?" "Same. We should be heading back to her just in case she needs us. I don't like the fact that she is following those enemies by herself." I said and she nodded. We started flapping our wings and went to find our mistress.

Naruto POV

We were going quickly to where the enemy was when suddenly Shikamaru looked behind me as if something was wrong "What's wrong?" I asked him. He didn't say anything and looked in front again. I looked at him weird but dropped it since we had to get Sasuke back "Nothing." he responded and I left it at that.

Hinata POV

I felt the others close by so I stood still and waited for them. Once they were close by and showed myself to them "They're close" Kiba said and I nodded. Neji activated his byakugan searching for traps "They haven't put any traps so you won't find anything Neji-nii" I said and he nodded in agreement. "They're underestimating us. The only person they think is catching up is that big guy" Shikamaru said and I spoke up "His name is Jirobo. Even if they are our enemy, they have names and we should use them." I said softly but I knew they heard me. Shikamaru nodded "They wouldn't set traps for their comrade." The others nodded and we kept moving. Naruto got mad that they were taking us lightly and so did Kiba. "We will take them by surprise" Shikamaru said and we started forming a plan. Unfortunately for us, the one with extra limbs noticed. "Sakon, Tayuya. You guys go on ahead." he said as he got ready to fight. I took out another small bottle ready to give it to the person who would stay. Shikamaru undid his transformation and went to kick the guy with six arms. But he ended up spitting out a Spider-web that kept Shikamaru stuck to the tree. Naruto attacked with his shadow clone jutsu but the same thing happened to him. Kiba and Akamaru tried to attack while he was in the air but he ended up dodging them. Kiba and Akamaru landed on a tree but that was a trap. "Look at your feet." he said and Kiba looked down to see that he was trapped. "Damn you! Its too early to think that you've caught us!" Kiba yelled. I looked at Neji and he nodded. I sent chakra to my hand just like Neji and he came out of the trees and tried to attack the guy with extra arms. Neko wasn't with us because she went to chase after Sakon and Tayuya. Neji ended up being caught and the guy made a cocoon around him. Naruto tried to cut the web with a kunai but it didn't work. I activated my byakugan and saw that the web was made of chakra so that meant that it can be cut with gentle fist. While he was distracted by Naruto I freed everyone except Naruto and Neji. I couldn't free them without being noticed. The guy took out sic things from his mouth. It looked like spider legs. I creeped me out but I focused on other things. He was going to play a game with Naruto and his clones. He was going to hit one of them until he got the real one. He started throwing until there were two left. He hit Naruto but it was a clone. And then he hit the last one. It happened to also be a clone so I was confused until I saw the real Naruto come down and try to hit the enemy but it didn't work. They landed on different trees but there was a string attached to them. The enemy pulled on Naruto but Neji came in and cut the string. Naruto was falling quickly so I shot my chakra strings and caught him before he hit the ground. Neji got him and brought him to where the others were, around me. "Thanks Hinata" he said and I nodded "Thanks for buying some time." Neji-nii said to Naruto. I turned to the guy and asked "What is your name? I know the girl is Tayuya and one head is Sakon. But what Is your name?" He smirked but answered me anyway "My name is Kidomaru. The fatass from earlier is Jirobo. The other head is Ukon but you don't need to worry about them because you're not getting past me." I let a light growl leave my lips but no one seemed to notice. I started getting ready to fight this one but Neji-nii stopped me "Go. I'll fight him." he said and I looked at him shocked "No, Neji-nii let me fight him. I might not be as good as you but I can make it. They might still need you with the others" everyone was shocked at my outburst but I didn't care. I might die fighting him but it is better than letting Neji-nii fight. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had let Neji-nii fight instead of me. "No, you're a better medic than you are a Hyuga. And that's good. Let me fight him Hime. I promise that I'll be fine but if I let you fight knowing that you might not make it will kill me on the inside." He said as he hugged me tightly "You promise I won't see your dead body unless you die of old age?" he chuckled lightly and nodded "I promise Hime. I have to make it anyway,not just for you but for Kimi as well." I nodded and let him go. I stepped behind him and stayed with the others. I saw Akamaru tremble in fear and rub Kiba's leg. When Kiba kneeled, Akamaru jumped inside his jacket and stayed there. "He's stronger than the fatass we left Choji with" Kiba said and we nodded "You said that we had to fight one on one to move on. I'll stay here and fight him as you guys move on. If we all stay here then Sasuke will get farther away." Neji-nii said and Shikamaru nodded "We can not allow someone from our ow village to go to someone like Orochimaru. Never. Also...Naruto...You have better eyes than I do." He said s he turned to look a Naruto with a small smile on his face. He turned away and said "Sasuke is in darkness. Hurry up and go." He said and I gave him one last look before jumping to another tree and waited for the others. When they started moving I followed then like we were doing before, with me hiding in the tress just in case. I noticed how they all looked back at Neji-nii and it made me happy that everyone is accepting the new Neji, my brother. As we moved forward I made another bottle with my chakra in it and gave it to Kiken to give to Neji-nii when finished. I looked at Naruto and knew immediately that he was still thinking about what Neji-nii said. I knew Neji will win this fight. Ever since he started opening up to me, not once has he let me down. He has made it his mission to make up for his mistakes from the past and keeping me happy is one of his ways. I know he won't fail even if Kidomaru is stronger.

Neji POV

I am doing rotation as Kidomaru sends spiders at me to look for my blind spot. Even if he did manage to find it, I know I can still beat him. I just have to play this carefully. His spiders are slowing me down since his spiders are wrapping me with their web. I stopped and Kidomaru threw at me one of his web-made weapons. I quickly reacted and covered myself in chakra as it came for my shoulder. The chakra deflected it and it hit the tree. I can tell that he noticed that I use a close combat type of taijutsu. He went into hiding and started attacking me again. He sent at me his weapons and spiders. When the spider amount was too much for me I decided to us the 8 trigrams: 128 palms technique to deflect them all. He ended up adding the numbers so I tried using rotation again. It didn't work and I got hit once since it made it through my blind spot. My only hope is that he didn't notice but I really doubt that's the case. the battle went on for a while after that. He eventually sent an arrow through m that sent me crashing into a tree behind me. I smirked and placed my chakra covered hand onto the web that attached me to him. My chakra went through the thread and all the way to his body. Having foreign chakra in his systems hurt him bad and he fell to the ground. I looked up at the birds and suddenly Hinata's hawk landed on my shoulder. He dropped the bottle of chakra on my hand and I opened it. Last I saw before going unconscious was Hinata's clone's worried face. And then it all went black.

Hinata Clone POV

Neji-nii had summoned me and then he closed his eyes falling unconscious. I quickly freed him from from the web thread and started healing him. He was in bad shape and I didn't have enough chakra to summon one of the griffins to send him to the hospital. I sent Kiken back to the original as I healed him. I used every bit of chakra in me to make sure he lived long enough for the group of medics that Lady Tsunade will send. I quickly gave Neji-nii a kiss on the forehead as I sent all my chakra to him and disappeared.

Hinata POV

As we were moving forward my clone sent me all her memories. I fell to the ground when I got them. Shikamaru and the others noticed and came to me "Hinata, what's wrong?" Naruto asked and my body shook in fear. Kiba stoked my back to calm me down and I was soon able to talk "Neji-nii won his fight..." Kiba and Naruto smiled at this but Shikamaru knew something was wrong "What else Hinata?" he asked "He won't be catching up with us. When he summoned my clone he was in bad shape" Neko got worried and kneeled down next to me. "How is he now?" I shook my head "I don't know. My clone used all her chakra to heal him so she couldn't summon neither Athena nor Rida. I don't know if he can live until we come back and send him to the hospital." I said on the verge of tears. Neko got up angrily and started walking back to where Neji-nii was "Where are you going?" Kiba yelled and Neko "I'm going to go heal him and then I go check on Choji. After that I will catch up with you guys..." I cut her off "Choji is fine. My clone healed him and was able to summon Rida so she could take him to the hospital to be checked. Only Neji is lying on the ground right now." I said and she nodded "I will go heal him and then catch up. We left no enemies back there so I will catch up." She told Shikamaru and he nodded "Alright but be careful" he said and she nodded and left. I finally got on my feet and we started heading towards Sasuke. Kiba stayed by my side until I was able to hide in the trees again. "They're close." Kiba said after a while of moving forward "Two enemies left. We've got three..." "Three enemies Shikamaru. Sakon, Ukon and Tayuya. Sakon and Ukon is the two headed guy." I said as I interrupted him. "Right. 3 enemies and 4 of us." he corrected himself "5." Kiba reminded him of Akamaru. "6, don't forget Neko, she's on her way as she promised." I added "6 against 3, I'm loving those odds" we all smiled and Shikamaru started explaining his plan. I kept having a bad feeling but I don't know why. I just hope no one dies today. By sundown we were still trying to catch up with Tayuya and Sakon and Ukon. Shikamaru decided to postpone a fight until sunrise but I don't know how that will go if we know they won't rest. Naruto and Kiba complained about it while I just listened. Shikamaru started explain how it was a bad idea to attack tonight because we would only have one moment to surprise them and that would be it. But that would only happen in daylight but at night we wouldn't be able to see anything. This argument went on for a while and then they finally stopped. After that we went on in pursuit of Tayuya and Sakon in silence.

By sunrise we were close to them to but it seems like they sensed us because they turned around quickly. They only saw Naruto, Kiba and Shikamaru while I was still behind the trees. "Why won't the person in the tree come out? Show yourself!" Tayuya yelled while looking at the tree that I was behind. I cursed myself for being caught but came out anyway. I stepped away from the tree and stood by Shikamaru. I looked at the barrel that held Sasuke inside and tried to look inside. Because of the seals I was unable to see through it but I knew he was there because on the chakra necklace I gave him before he left two nights ago. As Naruto pulled out a kunai and mocked Tayuya, I looked behind us and tried to see in Neko was coming closer to us. She was out of my range of sight but I knew she was coming. I looked back in front of me to see naruto and Sakon fighting. Kiba and Shikamaru distracted Sakon while Naruto prepared his rasengan. Sakon threw a series of fast punches at them which made them fly back. As Sakon got closer to Naruto I decided to start fighting. I made the last sign of the jutsu I was going to us Dragon and yelled "Lightning Style: Earth Flash" a wave of electricity shot from my hands and shocked Sakon. This ia a close range jutsu so him being close worked in my favor. I only got to shoot him back a few feet before Naruto pushed me out of the way and hit him with his rasengan. Sakon grabbed his hand first and avoided getting hit. Kiba suddenly came out of the trees going through Naruto's shadow clone but Sakon ducks before he is hit. Kiba's true aim though was the barrel Tayuya had and since Shikamaru caught her with his shadow possession jutsu,she won't be able to move. Kiba caught the barrel and Sakon screamed at her for not doing anything. When Sakon got too close to Tayuya, Shikamaru let go of his shadow possession and they both clashed. Kiba threw the barrel at Naruto and we started leaving in a hurry. I know they will end up coming after us but I can only hope that Neko makes it in time to help us.

Neko POV

I was going back to the others when I sensed uncle Kisame near by. I assumed he wanted to talk to me because otherwise he wouldn't be in Konoha territory. Once I found him I hugged him tightly "Hey uncle! What's up?" I asked happily because I rememebred the letter I last sent him about Kimi being alive. "Neko, we need to talk." he said seriously and I nodded and sat down as he did. "Leader-sama wants you to join the Akatsuki. He said you can either join willingly or by force, your choice. I convinced him to let me talk to you instead of the others." "Why does he want me?" "Because you can rival Kimi. He knows he can't ask Kimi to join because she is loyal to Konoha but he is hoping that if you won't join willingly then you will join because he will hurt everyone you care for. That will include the Hatake guy who adopted you and the red head from Suna." I nodded in acknowledgement "I don't want it to get that far so I have come to ask you to come with us and the lives of the ones you care for will be sparred." I thought about this for a while. I didn't want anyone to get hurt but if I leave willingly then I won't be able to come back home if the Akatsuki were to disband. I quickly thought of a plan and told uncle about it. He nodded in agreement and we went our separate ways. He went back to Itachi while I went to help the others while I still could.

Hinata POV

I could see Neko ahead of us as we were moving back to Konoha. She sensed us and stopped at a tree. Once we reached her we all stopped and looked at her for an answer to the unspoken question. "Neji is fine. He will make it and I have confirmed that Jirobo and Kidomaru have died" we all nodded and continued on our way. I sensed an immense amount of power coming from behind us and I decided to check it. I gasped at what I saw "We really need to hurry. Sakon has activated his curse seal and is coming for us with Tayuya right behind him" I said hurriedly and we all sped up. We placed paper bombs on the trees as we passed them. We sensed one of them go off and that made all the others go off as well. Suddenly Sakon comes out of the smoke and hit Akamaru. Next, he shot wires at him and tied him to the tree Akamaru was laying on. Sakon started aiming another hit as the paper bomb in front of Akamaru started setting off. Kiba got there as the bomb started going off. I went in front of them and used rotation as a way to prevent Kiba and Akamaru from being hit but I wasn't so lucky. I got hit by the explosion and was sent flying towards a tree and to make it worse, Kiba and Akamaru were also hit. I hit a thick branch instead of the trunk so I hurt my back and hissed in pain. Naruto helped me stand as I healed my wound. Once I stood up straight I noticed Kiba hold Akamaru but he was falling along with Sakon. "Kiba! Akamaru!" I yelled as I tried to reach them but Shikamaru and Neko held me back. "Let me go! I must help them!" I yelled and thrashed but it was useless. "Calm down Hinata! Kiba and Akamaru are fine. They'll be fine, I promise." she assured me as I calmed down. I nodded lightly as Tayuya approached us angrily. "Take the barrel and go!" Shikamaru ordered the three of us and we nodded. Naruto was the one to hold it as we were about to start going back home. She suddenly stopped and we looked at her confused. I activated my byakugan and looked at the barrel but there was nothing wrong so I looked up and noticed a boy falling down toward us.

He landed on the barrel and looked at me in the eye. This boy had white hair and pale skin. He had green eyes and two red dots on his forehead. He was wearing a lavender colored kimono and his expression was unreadable. He kicked the barrel, grabbed my arm and went to the barrel. "Hinata!" Naruto yelled but I was more focused on the boy dragging me. We landed on a tree not far from where Naruto, Shikamaru and Neko stood. "Kimimaro" Tayuya said"You're too late Tayuya" Kimimaro said and he stared at Tayuya. "Where are the others?" he ask and I answered before Tayuya could "Jirobo and Kidomaru are dead but Sakon and Ukon are down there with my friends." I said softly and he looked at me shocked "How do you know there names?" he asked me with covered curiosity "I asked Kidomaru before we left him to fight my brother, Kimimaro-san." he was even more shocked that I knew his name but h didn't ask how I knew it. "Why are you here?" Tayuya asked again since she was ignore the first time she asked. His face looked angry but his eyes were distant and cold. The same eyes that Sasuke has when no one is watching. "My body is broken. I am using my willpower to move." he said calmly and I looked at him with admiration. With my byakugan still activate I could see the problems in his body but he didn't seem to care right now. I tuned them out 'cause I didn't want to here there argument. I looked at the barrel and wondered what Sasuke must be doing in there. Naruto suddenly tried to attack Kimimaro but Tayuya came in front of him and punched him square in the face. Shikamaru and Neko caught Naruto before he could hit his head on a tree. "Give me my cousin back!" Neko yelled but Kidomaru simply ignore her. I was a bit frightened at what he would want me for. I know that even with all my training, I still wouldn't be able to fight him. Kimimaro left me with the barrel as he went and said something in Tayuya's ear. He then came back and put the barrel on his back and dragged me with him. I could tell that they wanted to come after me but they first had to deal with Tayuya. After a while I asked Kimimaro "Um...Kimimaro-san, what do you need me for?" it stayed quiet for a while before he answered me "It's faint but I can sense your chakra inside this barrel and I can also sense his chakra around you. You will also be going to Lord Orochimaru for this reason." I shivered in fear at the thought of going with Sasuke to Orochimaru. I feared that man deeply.