Another Take (A Naruto Fanfiction) (Complete)

Ch. 34: The Downfall Of Us All

~It's not easy, making a name for yourself. Where do you draw the line? I never thought I'd be in this far~

Third POV

"Ah, hello, sorry I'm so late," Kakashi said, appearing in front of his team suddenly. "Today, you're going on a- Where's Kiyomi?" The jonin looked around, but there was no sign of his purple-eyed student.

Naruto frowned. "We were just wondering that," he said. The blond sounded worried. It'd been three days since Kakashi and Sasuke had been healed by Tsunade, who had been instated as Fifth Hokage.

"I haven't seen her since I was healed," Sasuke muttered. "And that was three days ago."

"She hasn't shown up for any of our training sessions either," Sakura added. "I assumed she was sick or something, but when I went to her house, her guardian said she was out."

Kakashi frowned. He hadn't heard from Kiyomi since... before his encounter with Itachi.

... Wait a minute.

Itachi had said that Akatsuki was searching for the Tailed Beasts. Is it so hard to believe that they'd also go for the Elemental Beasts? And if so, then Kiyomi might not be just missing. She might have been kidnapped. She'd been in the village when Itachi and Kisame were here, Sasuke had said so.

And back then, Itachi had told Kisame to take out the, "other three". He'd said that, then disappeared for a few minutes. And when the Uchiha came back, there was the tiniest smirk on his face. Kakashi had thought he'd imagined it, but maybe not.

"Uh, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked curiously, looking up at his teacher. "You have a strange look on your face. Do you know something?"

Kakashi shook his head, then reached into one of his pockets. "Nope, sorry Naruto," Kakashi lied easily. "But moving on, Team Seven has a mission. The details are on this scroll. I won't be coming with you due to the shortage of jonin in the village. Good-"

"Wait!" Naruto interrupted. "What about Kiya-chan? She's a part of Team Seven as well! We need to go find her now!"

"No," Kakashi said firmly. "You three will continue the mission with only three people. I have confidence in your skills. And don't worry about Kiyomi- I'm going to follow a few leads and see if I can find anything." Then Kakashi tossed the scroll to Sasuke, and vanished in a poof of smoke.

The team of Genin stood together in silence for a minute. Then Sakura shrugged.

"I'm gonna go get ready," the pinkette said in a slightly subdued voice. "When are we going to set out?"

Naruto didn't answer, so Sasuke did. "We'll leave in two hours," he said lowly. Sakura nodded, and walked off in the direction of her house, leaving the boys standing there.

"I'm worried," Naruto admitted. "Kiya-chan has an annoying tendency to get hurt in situations. And if she's missing now, who knows what's happened."

"Yeah, but we can't do anything about it," Sasuke grunted. "Right now, we need to focus on this mission. It shouldn't take long, and then we can go and search for her."

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Kiyomi's POV

One last jump, one last jump, one last jump.

Those words are the only things that encouraged me to stand there and let my summons' shadows touch my own for the last time. I haven't been counting the number of jumps so far, but judging by my nausea, it's been a good number.