Back to the Beginning (Naruto Fanfic)

Chapter 2

The midday sun was blaring down on the four man team as they ran through the trees. They were finally on their way home from a long mission and couldn't wait to relax.

"Can we take a rest yet?! I'm so tired!" The plea came from a boy with dark hair and onyx eyes, wearing a blue jumpsuit that had orange lining with a white and red fan on his back and he wore a pair of goggles just under his hitai-ate.

"Shut up, Obito!" The annoyed yell came from another boy who had white hair that seemed to defy gravity itself, you could only see half of his face due to the mask he always wore, his dark eyes being the only thing visible. He wore black ninja pants and a black short sleeved shirt with brown leather straps wrapped around both shoulders that held a short blade on his back.

"KAKASHI! We've been running all day and it's HOT!" Obito was yelling now, frustrated that his stupid teammate Kakashi was always belittling him.

"Shinobi need to endure all types of scenarios, Obito! So stop complaining about everything!" Kakashi's voice held an emotionless tone to it. Not caring about anything except the task at hand.

"Guy's please stop arguing. We're teammates, you need to get along." The quiet voice of a young girl went unnoticed. The brown haired girl was wearing a simple black shirt, black shorts underneath a pale pink skirt that was open on both sides, and she had dark red socks that came up past her knees. She had purple rectangular marks on each cheek. Her big brown eyes were sad as she glanced at her arguing teammates. She hated when they fought with each other, which if she was being honest, was all the time. She turned toward her sensei wordlessly asking for his help to diffuse the bickering. The older man seemed to be in his early twenties. He was wearing blue ninja pants, and a blue long sleeve shirt underneath his green vest. His hair was as yellow as the sun and he had the bluest eyes that anyone had ever seen. After seeing the desperate look in his student's eyes he turned towards the two bickering boys.

"Kakashi, Obito." His voice held authority that made both boys stop what they were doing, and he didn't even need to raise his voice above his normal speaking range. "I suppose that you missed what Rin said, so I'll say it again. You guys are teammates, you need to stop fighting. Since we are not overly pressed for time we will take a short break to renew our energy. Kakashi, there are more important things than running for as long as you can without stopping."

"Thank you, Minato-sensei!" Obito said through his heavy breathing.

"Hmph...whatever." Kakashi mumbled.

"Thank you sensei." Rin turned toward Minato with a grateful smile, thankful that the arguing had stopped for now.

The four man team or "Team Minato" as they call it, stopped where they were and descended from the trees onto the forest floor. They each pulled out a box lunch from their backpacks and began their brief break.

It was only a short while later that Minato got the strange feeling that they weren't alone in the forest. He tried to carefully watch around them without alerting the others, though the ever perceptive eyes of Kakashi didn't miss a thing.

"Minato-sensei? Is something wrong?" Kakashi spoke quietly so he didn't alert Rin or Obito. "You keep looking around as if you are specifically looking for something."

Minato glanced over at his perceptive student. "I don't think we are alone." Minato's voice was serious. This in itself spoke more to the situation than anything, since he was normally a very calm and kind man. "I feel a strange presence somewhere..."

He was barely even able to finish his sentence when out of nowhere a blinding white light appeared not too far away from their position. Team Minato was instantly on alert, their lunches and fatigue forgotten about. Almost as soon as it had appeared, the white light was gone, and Minato's strange feeling only got more intense, which he had to admit, worried him a great deal.

What is this feeling? Minato thought to himself. This is something I have never felt before. It's worrying. Minato decided that they had better go check it out, but that they had to stay on guard in case it was an ambush by enemy shinobi trying to catch them off guard.

It wasn't a long distance to where the light came from, but when they got to a small clearing in the woods they saw something they would have never expected.