Atonement

Chapter 25

It was exactly six hours and fifty minutes after they had split from Kakashi when the 7th platoon finished the battle against the Iwa shinobis and destroyed the Kannabi Bridge.

For Mei and Tobias the next ten minutes were spent with nervously pacing up and down and exchanging worrying, yeah even scared looks. With growing fear they stared at the time and there agitated behaviour didn't go unnoticed by the other shinobis.

Two minutes before the seven hours were up Delilah had enough of the weird behaviour of her boyfriend and she stumped over to him, stopping him in his way.

"What is going on?" she demanded and stared at Tobias and Mei.

Before the two were able to say something, Taro and Naomi came over as well.

The Hyuuga crossed his arms and said accusingly: "You two are acting very strange ever since the battle started."

"Just tell us what's going on." added Naomi gently.

The two exchanged a quick glance before Tobias sighed heavily and put his arm comforting around his girlfriend.

"I'm sure that you've noticed that during the battle Commander was missing." started Mei slowly and assessed their surroundings quickly.

"Yes. You told us that Commander was fighting on the Iwa shinobis from the other side with a small team." replied Delilah suspiciously.

Embarrassed, Tobias scratched his neck and muttered: "Yeah, that wasn't exactly the truth."

Faster than he could have dodged, Delilah had rammed her fist into his side and the Uchiha doubled over in pain and shock.

"You lied to me." she hissed hurt.

"It was an order!" exclaimed Tobias hurriedly when he saw the hurt expression of his girlfriend.

The Uchiha immediately felt guilty and scurried towards her boyfriend to help him up.

Whilst the to Uchihas dealt with their relationship, Taro had time to go over the facts and he didn't like what he came up with, not one bit.

"Commander told you to lie to us so where is he now? Considering your worried expressions he should have been back from where ever he went." Taro said and scrutinised Mei with his gaze.

Quickly, Delilah stopped her conversation with Tobias and listened up.

Sighing, Mei rubbed her temple before saying quietly: "You're right. Before we set out to the battle of the Kannabi Bridge Commander told us that we'd split up. We - platoon 7 - would fulfil the mission and destroy the Kannabi Bridge whilst Commander would do a second, secret mission. Apparently, only he and another person know about that mission so he went alone - without any back up. He told us that if after seven hours he hadn't caught up to us, we had orders to retreat and return to Konoha."

Frowning, Tobias added: "I was meant to split up from the platoon and return to Konoha as quickly as possible and tell Orochimaru-sama a secret message."

And once again, Tobias doubled over in pain when Delilah hit him over the head.

"What was that for?" he grumbled and rubbed his aching head.

"What are you still doing here?" Delilah demanded and glared worriedly at him.

"Huh?"

Shacking his had disappointed, Taro added: "It's seven hours and fifteen minutes since we started the battle."

Tobias and Mei stared with widened eyes at each other, before the Uchiha swiftly peaked his girlfriend on the lips and shunshinned away. He had a mission to fulfil and maybe Orochimaru-sama knew what was going on and what their silver haired Commander got into.