Red Is A Pretty Colour

62

Hiko's pov

I was waiting at the gates with Yamato, Sai and Sakura. We were due to head out on a mission that was originally supposed to be a secret but Naruto found out. Naruto then somehow convinced Tsunade to let him join the mission which was why we were all currently waiting for him.

"So, Naruto found out about the mission." Sakura said.

"I'm sorry." Sai sighed.

"It's okay Sai, really. I didn't think we'd be able to hide it." Sakura said.

"She's right, I live with him, he would have figured it out pretty quickly." I said.

"I had no idea he'd go straight to the hokage." Sai sulked.

"Lady Tsunade is not a person who gives in to pressure, she made the decision to allow him to come along. It had nothing to do with you." Yamato said.

"See, in fact it'll actually help because teammates communicate better with eachother." Sakura said. "But then again, Naruto's late as always. What's he doing?!"

"Your guess is as good as mine. At this rate he won't be coming after all." I said.

"You know what, I'm going to go get him." Sakura said.

"He's in the woods by training ground 3." I said.

"How do you know that?" Sakura asked.

"Sensory skills." I replied.

Time skip

We had been travelling for a little while before we realised we wouldn't be able to find Kakashi~Sensei and his team.

"Hold it. According to procedure Kakashi should have left signs for us to follow." Yamato said, looking around.

"Well I don't know about anyone else but I don't see ant signs." Sakura said.

"That's great, you think maybe he forgot that we're supposed to be following him?" Naruto suggested.

"No, he's not like you. We have to assume something happened to his team." Sakura said.

"Sai." Yamato said.

"Yes?" Sai replied.

"Get airborne and take a look around for me will ya?" Yamato said.

"Right away captain, ninja art: super beast scroll." Sai said, quickly drawing out a bird.

As the bird began pulling up from the page Sai jumped up onto it and took off into the sky.

"I'll be right back, okay?" Naruto said.

"What are you talking about?! Where do you think you're going!?" Sakura yelled.

"Nature calls!" Naruto yelled before running off.

I sighed before closing my eyes to see if I could sense anything. After a few moments I felt a trace of Shino's chakra and put a hand out.

"What are you doing?" Sakura asked.

I ignored here, infusing my chakra to hopefully attract Shino's bugs.

"Bugs?" Yamato asked as something landed on my open hand.

"They're Shino's. I guess they did leave a trail after all." I said.

"Let's go get Naruto." Sakura said.

"I'll wait here for Sai." I said.

When Sai got back we all took off again, following the trail of bugs. After around half an hour we came across some kind of barrier made by a red crystal.

"What is that?" Naruto asked.

"It's crystal, it's the enemy's jutsu. It's on such a massive scale, okay Sai." Yamato said.

"Right, I'm already on it." Sai said.

Sai created a bird and then took off up into the air. He circled the area for a moment before coming back down.

"It's covered along the top, at least a kilometer across." Sai explained.

"Kilometre? This is the work of a highly skilled opponent." Yamato said.

"Whatever, let's break it down." Naruto said.

"Hold on Naruto, we don't know that this barrier isn't rigged with some kind of leather self defence measure." Yamato said.

"Either way we're going to have to get through somehow, the others are inside the barrier." I said.

"If its just holding them like a prison that's one thing, if it's some kind of giant trap then it could be big trouble." Sakura said.

"Captain Yamato, can't we just bust this down like we did to the wall at Orochimaru's hideout?" Naruto asked.

"It's not the same I'm afraid, this crystal is much tougher, it has an incredibly dense molecular structure." Yamato said. "Unlike that clay wall the crystal has no weak spots. Perhaps if we tunnel under it."

Yamato attempted to go under the crystal but was knocked back.

"As I said, there are no weak spots anywhere, not even underground." Yamato said.

"Because of its density a jutsu concentrated on a single point won't do any good." Sai said.

"That's right, the force of the attack would just be dispersed over the whole surface. It'd do no good at all." I said. "For an attack to work it'd need to be wide ranging and pretty powerful."

"Sounds like fun." Naruto said.

"No way Naruto." Sakura said.

"Don't worry Sakura, it isn't that jutsu, it's a different one, one I've been working on in private." Naruto said.

I had heard about the jutsu he had invented that had become a forbidden jutsu from the moment he perfected it. I had unfortunately never seen it in action as I missed out on going on that specific mission. Being a jonin meant that I was often assigned elsewhere rather than being a part of team Kakashi full time.

Naruto then summoned two large toads.

"You summoned them!?" Sakura said in surprise.

"When did you learn to do that? Impressive." Sai said.

"So, what exactly are you gonna do with them?" Yamato asked.

"You'll have to wait and see, we don't have it perfected yet but we're going to give it a shot anyway." Naruto said.

We all got up into the trees whole Naruto and his toads prepared. The first time they tried the jutsu it failed. The second time however it created a huge blast and caused rain. The entire crystal cracked and then fell away.