The Fairy's Return

Chapter 7

Mizuki's pov:

I stared in shock at the unknown body laid in front of us. The body didn't resemble Itachi one bit. Instead of the long raven hair, a dull grey mop of hair was on top of this man's head, along with a goatee. I scrunched up my nose, goatees were not a good look.

"Could it be that... he was a spy for the Akatsuki?" I inquired.

"It can't be" lady Chiyo's voice was a little shaky "he served on the council for four years."

"That fireball jutsu definitely was the real thing..." Kakashi muttered.

"They were stalling for time, weren't they?"

Lady Chiyo nodded at me let out a deep sigh.

"Using a jutsu like this to stall us means they're undoubtedly already extracting the tailed beast."

At this, Naruto seemed to snap out of his thinking, worry clouding his eyes.

I admittedly didn't know that much about tailed beasts but the one thing I did know was that when one is extracted, the host dies. I clenched my fists tightly.

"We need to save Gaara right away."

After lady Chiyo send some sort of summoning bird back to Sunagakure, we took off again. This time with even more urgency than before.

After a few hours of us dashing through trees Kakashi finally stopped us for a break.

"What is it, Kakashi sensei?" Naruto seemed agitated to say the least.

"We're going to take a short break here."

I nodded and took some quick gulps from my water bottle before going to sit down against the trunk of a tree. Lady Chiyo quickly followed suit.

"Why?! You're the one who said we don't have time! If we waste time taking a break here, Gaara will be-"

I sighed at Naruto's outburst. I know he wants to save Gaara, we all do, but he needs to take care of himself too. He'd been panting harder and harder for the past hour and his speed had slowly decreased.

"Compared to right before we encountered the fake Itachi, our pace has clearly slowed. If we rest up here, ultimately we'll reach our destination faster. And tomorrow, we might need to fight the ones who took Gaara. It's best if we're at full strength.

"Fine"

I patted the ground next to me, smiling softly. As Naruto sat down next to me, I handed him the water canteen and put my hand on his arm reassuringly.

"It'll be okay Naruto."

Naruto let out a deep breath and slowly nodded at me. I smiled as he put his head on my shoulder, his eyes slowly starting to close.

~~~

"Wake up you two, we're leaving."

I mumbled something incoherently before pulling up the blanket to cover to my face.

"Let me a sleep a little longer..."

I screamed at the voice that was way too close to my ear, quickly jumping up and getting into a fighting stance. Without even thinking I used my magic to bend water from inside my canteen right in the person's face.

"What the hell, Mizuki!"

As I blinked the sleep from my eyes I noticed that the 'mysterious voice' was in fact Naruto. We apparently hadn't moved from our position from earlier that night.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry!"

I awkwardly got the water to go from a pouting Naruto back into my canteen. Kakashi facepalmed.

"When we get back home, you're getting an alarm clock."

I hung my head in defeat. That's only fair, I guess.

"Let's go save Gaara!" Naruto practically bounced in place.

A determined look settled on my face.

"Let's go"

And so we shot off into the trees once more, picking up the pace quite a bit after being replenished by some sleep.

"They no longer need to stall us." Kakashi said after a few hours. It had been suspiciously quiet on our way.

"I'm saying there's a good chance of that." Lady Chiyo agreed.

I tensed at the implications. If they didn't need to stall us anymore, that meant they were finished or nearly finished extracting the tailed beast. And Gaara would be...

Naruto suddenly got a new burst of speed, his eyes turning red.

"Naruto wait!" I called.

I was muttering profanities as I tried to catch up to Naruto. Him losing control was the absolute last thing we needed right now.

A chill suddenly went down my spine. Something was wrong.

Gaara

~~~

"Took you long enough, Kakashi."

Gai grinned as the four of us touched down on the water near some kind of cave, sealed close with a big boulder. Turns out that Gai's team was send after us as backup. Backup who ironically arrived before we did.

"We got caught up in something troublesome along the way."

Lady Chiyo huffed.

"By troublesome, you certainly don't mean me, do you?"

I chuckled quietly at her antics. The woman was growing on me. I tensed however as Naruto stepped next to me. He still hadn't calmed down.

"Mizuki!" Lee's mouth, along with the rest of team Gai, was dropped open.

"Uhm, surprise! I didn't die."

Lee got tears streaming out of his eyes as he engulfed me in a hug, nearly suffocating me.

"The power of youth brought you back!"

I awkwardly patted his back, signaling a very amused Kakashi to save me. He quickly pulled Lee off of me as I heaved for air. I swear I saw my life flash before me.

Tenten swiftly hugged me as soon as I recovered. Neji gave me an awkward pat on the back, which earned him a chuckle from me.

"Now, shall we do this?"

Gai snapped our attention back to the matter at hands. We needed to get rid of this big boulder which had a paper seal sticking to it.

I took a deep breath. Gaara was inside that cave right now. Dead or alive.

~~~

I am so so sorry for not updating for so long. I was really busy with school and kinda lost the motivation to write.

I'm back though!

Anyway, this chapter is kinda a filler and kinda short but I had to leave it at this for the flow of the story. Nevertheless, I still hope you enjoyed it and can forgive me for not updating for so long ♡