Something Precious

Chapter Thirty Eight

They sat and waited with varying  degrees of patience. Even though he didn't have to, Gai sat with them, practically bubbling with anticipation. It was a trap within a trap within a trap. First there was trip wire that were connected to several paper bombs. Then there was them, waiting in the cover of the trees. And finally there was a hidden paper seal under the leaves of the forests tree's.

The seal - when stepped on - would freeze the subject in place, essentially temporarily paralyzing them. It also made them unable to infuse their chakra. They of course, didn't make the seal - Minato did - but there were no rules apart from don't remove the blindfold so it didn't really matter. Now the tricky part was getting the jounin to come to them, how did they do that you ask? Well they hadn't exactly figured that out yet, but they had chakra concealing seals as well so they applied those as they sat and planned because they knew the jounin was keeping an eye on them and they didn't want him to be able to find them too easily and overhear their plans.

They each activated their seals simultaneously and began planning the lure.

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Naruto sat on the Third's stone head and waited for something to happen. He found it strange to not see his fathers face carved into the mountain side everytime he spared it a glance, it was his head he used to sit on when overlooking the village as a genin and then as a jounin, and even when there was no village left to look at.

Naruto fell into old memories of his lonely childhood. He remembered the first time he met Sasuke, the arrogant prick, despite how much he disliked the guy at the time, a part of him had admired how everything came to him with such ease and envied  him because the blonde had always found the simplist things so difficult. He recalled his time with his Team Seven, when Kakashi was his Sensei not his student, when Sakura was his teammate and debatably his friend not a medic nin who had been incharge of the medic core and then just another casualty of the war. When Sasuke had been his rival and best friend, not his second hand, not a captain who never even got a chance to finish his last words. But with these thoughts it was inevitable that the dark ones followed on their heals - war. It was always on the back of the Uzumaki's mind, always tormenting him, feeding him doubt - after all, if he wasn't strong enough to save them the first time, how could he expect to save them now? And despite his short time with them, this Team Seven had become precious to him - even Obito who was so much like him when he was his age - and he couldn't loose them.

Then their chakras disappeared. Trapped in the shadows of his own mind the light of rationality evaded him. Naruto panicked, vivid flashes of his past filled his vision, he forgot where he was and what he was doing. He was up in a flash, his intense blue eyes looking around.  He infused his strong chakra and in a space of a single moment he moved from one place to the next, to the place in the forest where the young shinobi waited for him safely - but he didn't know that.

It was like he was back in the war that had he left behind only a few short weeks ago, that was his mindset. Who would it be now? Who would they loose this time?

He got to the trapped area and halted, it was the wires - so clumsily placed (probably by a curtain green genin) - that brought him back to the present. Even as a diversion he had never seen such terribly placed wires. He followed them with his eyes and saw the paper bombs. And so he started to laugh, only a little at first - hardly a chuckle - then gradually it became hysteric. The jounin knew he sounded crazy but he couldn't stop. It was so ironic - Naruto had fought so hard to end the war and now that it was gone he was more trapped by it than ever.