The Angel's Ambivalence [Naruto]

TAA Special: Road to Ninja

"You can't fix what's not broken."

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You'd think that after everything I'd been through, I'd actually get a break. But ha, ha, no, no breaks for Minxie! Minxie needs to go on missions all the time, Minxie needs to lean against a tree while her ear is harrassed by Shikamaru's voice, Minxie needs to be a ninja all day, every day because she obviously has no other plans! Ugh, I hate my life.

Well, that's not entirely true. I was glad to be doing missions again. It was nice being back in on the action. Getting assigned an S-rank mission right off the bat? So not nice.

Hidden behind a tree, I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep in my gasp. What I was seeing couldn't be real. It just couldn't be. I knew I was no stranger to crazniess, but what I was seeing made me wonder if I really was insane.

Now, why was I freaking out, you ask? The answer was simple. Right in front of me were all the members of the Akatsuki, and I mean all of them. Every single one, even the ones that were dead, were standing in the clearing before us. Seeing them made me feel like I couldn't breathe.

Seriously. What the hell was going on? This is some serious sorcery that needs to stop right now.

I felt chills running down my spine. Seeing all of the Akatsuki gathered together in one place made an ominous feeling fall over me. Sure, I had seen them together many times, but not like this. I had never seen them fighting as an entire unit, a unit that was going to take down my friends and I.

"I guess the report was right," Kakashi-sensei's voice spoke through the communicator attached to my ear, "The Akatsuki are here." His voice reminded me that I needed to breathe, so I let out a quiet, shallow breath.

"It can't be," I whispered, my nails digging into the bark of the tree. "How are they all here? It shouldn't be happening... There's something going on here, something really bad."

"She's right," Sakura agreed, the shock in her voice clear, "How is this possible? There are some we already took down."

"It's not the time to be figuring out how they're back," Shikamaru said. "We'll do that later. Now, we have more important things to focus on. The total number of enemies we have to take care of is now eight. They're all hard to deal with. I've got data on each one of them in my head, but even then..."

"Preparations are complete," Guy-sensei spoke, "We await our orders with the power of YOUTH!" Oh, God.

"Alright," Ryuu said, "We'll-"

"RASENGAN!" And there went my eardrum. Oh, and if my ear practically bleeding wasn't bad enough, there was also an explosion in the middle of the clearing. I facepalmed.

Oh, God, Naruto, I'm going to murder you.

"I never run away or hide, believe it!" Naruto announced. "All of you, come at me!" It was bad enough that he had charged into battle without waiting for orders, but now he was stealing my line!? He better be prepared for when I come at him!