Blind (Discontinued)

20

"Crap!" Naruto squeaked just loud enough for everyone to hear.

Iruka glanced over both his shoulders before he walked in and shut the door.

"Will someone please explain what's going on?" Iruka asked quieter than when he first stumbled upon them.

Naruto, Sai, Sasuke, and Takumi had all been silently discussing what they were going to do, but when three of them declared that they trusted him, Sai suggested they just tell the Chunin the truth, to which Sasuke sighed loudly and started telling Iruka exactly that. Minus the stuff that has to do with Kurama, of course. They would need the Hokage's permission to reveal that bit of information.

"So... Today's not only Naruto's birthday, but the anniversary of when you three became ANBU in training two years ago and a full fledged ANBU team just last year, with Sai as your fourth member. Today you are celebrating all four of those things with a party in one of the back rooms at the BBQ place so that Naruto doesn't have to pretend to be blind and can fully enjoy himself. Is that correct?" Iruka asked after Sasuke finished the story.

"Yeah, that's about it," Naruto replied.

Iruka opened his mouth to say something, but he didn't get the chance as his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell limply to the ground.

They were all staring at the chunin in silence before Takumi spoke up. "Well, I think he took it quite nicely, how about you?"

~in a cave somewhere~

"Why have you called us together on such short notice?" A distorted voice asked, sounding rather ticked off.

"We have reason to suspect that the missing nine tailed beast is hiding somewhere in The Leaf Village," another distorted voice answered, drawing sharp intakes of breath from multiple sources, some distorted while others weren't.

"... But how can you be sure the fox and its container are still in The Leaf Village? It's been fifteen years since it was sealed. Anything could have happened in that time," asked a twenty year old man with a crossed out Leaf forehead protector. This man was none other than Itachi Uchiha, the older brother of Sasuke Uchiha, and the man rumored to have murdered his entire clan just for fun. But that wasn't and never will be the truth.

"While I'd rather not say this, it's because we have no other leads. Other than The Leaf, we haven't the faintest idea where the nine tails could be," was the distorted reply. "Now, with barely any options left, we're going to go after the fox with everything we've got."

"I won't let you."

"I... I'm sorry?"

"I said, I won't let you. You've crossed the line, planning an attack on my home village on nothing more than a slight whim. You don't even know for sure that the fox is there, and yet you're planning not just a normal two man attack, but a full scale ambush on a village full of innocents. And over nothing more than the fact that The Leaf was where the fox was last seen," Itachi clarified, crossing his arms.

The holographic form of, most likely, the leader also crossed its arms. "Last I checked, you slaughtered your entire clan and defected from The Hidden Leaf."

"That isn't exactly the truth," Itachi stated as his forehead protector shimmered slightly and the long gash across the Leaf symbol disappeared, revealing the perfectly intact symbol of a loyal Leaf ninja.

Roars of protest erupted throughout the cave.

"You Weasel!" one proclaimed.

"You never actually defected?!" came another.