Hagiko Uchiha

Hagiko Uchiha

Tsunade sat in her office, thinking to herself. Who should she send for this mission? It was only a C-rank mission, the first team she had thought of sending was team-7, but sending a genin team was probably the better option. It was a simple mission, guard a merchant while taking him back to the no-name village that he came from. Genin would have no problem executing this mission with ease, but she couldn't help but feel that this mission was meant to be carried out by the famous knuckle-head ninja, the mini Tsunade and the expressionless - and sometimes vulgar - onbu.

Tsunade pondered her options, and with a slam of her fist on the desk, it was decided. "Shizune!!" She called, and her assistant entered the room.

"Yes, Lady Tsunade?"

"Bring team-7 here at once. I have mission for them."

Shizune bowed, "Yes Tsunade-sama." She then exited the office.

=*=

Naruto complained about the mission.... A lot. He said that the mission was for babies.... For genin. But when Tsunade informed him that he was a genin, Naruto promptly shut his mouth.

They had been sent off. Their mission, to defend a helpless cabbage salesman against robbers and thieves on the way back to his home village.

=*=

"Well Naruto, this mission would have gone smoothly, if you didn't go and get us lost!" It was easy to see that Sakura wasn't happy. She had all the right to, after the mission was completed Naruto had been a little too excited to get back home, and led them into the thick woods. Sai tried to send an ink bird into the sky to see where they were, but they were too deep in, and the bird couldn't see anything without going too far. Now Sakura and Naruto were arguing about who's fault this was.

"Hey, I was home sick!" Naruto shot back, "they didn't have a single ramen stand there!And no one thought to hold me back! I think you should have known better to have followed me, BELIEVE IT!!!!"

"Well, at least it can't get any worse..." Sakura grumbled, but instantly regretted it, as the sky got dark, and it started to rain. Sakura fumed in anger. Thunder cracked, they heard a menacing roar. A huge gust of wind blew past them, almost sending them flying. But as soon as the storm was there, it was gone, leaving the sky it's bright blue color, as if the freak storm never happened.

Sai had a feeling this storm was caused by a justu of some kind.

The team became curious about this odd accurance (SP?), and headed in the direction of where the wind came from.

"Woah...." Naruto mumbled to himself. Woah was right. What they saw before them was amazing. The ground rose in layers, like a cake, with two enormous walls on the top. Naruto had to squint to see it, but he was sure that the walls were decorated with the Uchiha symbol.

"There was a fight..." Sakura said to no one in particular, she was right as well. There defiantly was a fight. On the top layer of earth the ground was crumbled and broken, it looked completely dimaulished (SP?). But that's not what intrigued them the most. Surrounding the second layer of earth, were the black flames of amaterasu. That only meant one thing: Itachi Uchiha.

Naruto, being the complete idiot he is got himself all excited and jumped at the chance to battle Itachi.

He ran towards the top layer, his friends following. They jumped over the eternal flames and headed towards the wall. They made there way through the rubble that was once the ground, and stopped in their tracks. Two bodies laid on the floor, one breathing unevenly, and one not breathing at all.

"Sasuke..." Sakura was the first to snap out of her daze and ran to Sasuke's side, checking his pulse and healing some of his cuts and scrapes.

Naruto's eyes wandered to the second body that lay motionless on the ground. Itachi Uchiha laid down beside his brother, a rather contempt look on his face, as if to say: I finally did it. Even though Naruto had no clue what he did to make him so happy in his final moments, but there was one thing he was sure of, Sasuke killed his brother at last.

Sakura decided to check and see if Itachi was still alive, looks could be deceiving after all. She noticed he wasn't breathing, but when she checked, she found that he still had a pulse.

"He's still alive!" She shrieked, Naruto and Sai's eyes widened at the information.

Sakura's hands glowed green as she lent down to place a hand on Itachi's chest, when Naruto freaked out.

"SAKURA, ARE YOU CRAZY!?!?!?!? HE'S ON THE VERGE OF DEATH, SASUKE'S GOAL IS ABOUT TO BE COMPLETED, AND YOU WANT TO SAVE THIS GUY!?!?!?!" Sakura huffed, she was sure that if any enemies didn't know they were there, they sure did now.

"Naruto," Sakura began explaining, "like it or not, Itachi is from the leaf, and that means that he may hold secrets that would be hazardous for any enemy villages to get there hands on... Second, he is also an Akatsuki member. That means that he may have information that we could obtain before he dies - and that's inevitable. His injuries are far beyond my help. He's too close to death... I can however make it so he'll live long enough to get some information out of him."

At this explanation, Naruto allowed Sakura to continue healing Itachi, and chose to carefully pick up Sasuke and pull him onto his back.

He felt contempt, today was the day he would finally bring Sasuke home.