Restoration: Book 2/3

Chapter 36

-Hinata's POV-

After gearing up, we split into three groups to search about a mile radius around the house. I was with Naruto, Neji, Tenten, and Ino. The blond girl was too angry with Sai to be in the same group, so he went with Shikamaru, Temari, and Konohamaru. The Subaku brothers went with Matsuri and Kiba.

Before heading out, the petite girl wrote down a message she and Gaara had heard on the radio on pieces of paper for everyone to have, just in case. It looked like a trap to me, but there's no way I could not check.

As my strength returned over the past few days, I realized it was a bit easier to keep my byakugan activated and it only hurt when I deactivated it. So, when we came upon blood splattered across the sidewalk roughly ten minutes away to the East of the house, I didn't hesitate to use it.

The incredible amount of vision it gave me was still hard to wrap my head around and I hurried in the direction of the grass when I saw more blood behind a nearby house. No one spoke as they followed me. The trail led us behind multiple different places of cover and I was beginning to be able to picture what happened.

"Someone was hurt, but they had to keep moving..." Naruto spoke before I could and I nodded with my jaw clenched anxiously before continuing on.

"If only Kiba was here. He could probably tell whose blood it is," Tenten said in a concerned tone.

We soon came to a stop because the blood trail ended, so we had to begin searching for clues on where the injured party might've gone next. Out of the corner of my vision, the byakugan picked up movement and I swiftly turned my head to the right to see a group of people, maybe six or seven of them, crouched behind a house within throwing distance. At first, I thought maybe they were survivors like us, but then I noticed their guns.

Trying not to draw suspicion, I motioned wordlessly in that direction and held up seven fingers before making my fingers look like a gun. All four of my group understood immediately and we wordlessly started moving away from the house.

Ino had one of the handguns, Tenten had the sniper rifle that Konohamaru had been using the day we captured him, and we had a couple of the grenades that they'd seized from the shooter that'd tried to burn me alive, but we didn't want to use those unless we had no other choice. If there were even more people nearby, our location would immediately be given away by the loud sound it'd cause.

Barely thirty seconds could pass before I glanced back to see them coming out from behind the house and starting to chase us. "Run!"

We each had our backpacks because we wanted to be prepared for anything, so we couldn't run quite as fast due to the extra weight. Ino turned to return a few shots with the handgun when our attackers started shooting at us. Luckily, she landed a couple, expertly hitting the leg on two separate chasers and leaving them unable to chase us further.

We all knew that those who're inhabited don't react much to injuries, so our only choice was to make it so they physically couldn't run anymore. It was also best if we aimed for legs because after Konohamaru, we realized these people could be saved. We don't want to kill anyone except as a last resort.

We were coming up on the edge of a dense forest and dove beyond the treeline. Tenten swiftly knelt low to the ground and nailed one of them in the knee, making them fall to the ground. That left four continuing our way.

Ino fired a couple more shots, but only managed to land one in the closest one's thigh and it wasn't enough to make them stop. A clicking sound came from her and she glanced at us with a panicked look. She was out of bullets and we hadn't managed to find any of the correct ammo for it over the past week.