Struggle - 1

"Yes, Hokage-sama, I'll go home and rest my head…I did hit it pretty hard." Sato waved off Tsunade's concern while stepping out of her office, closing the door behind him. He had just returned from a border-scout mission and caught wind of Haku and Sasuke's earlier defection.

Tsunade told him that he should be glad he was left out. The only thing he should be pursuing now was "finally getting home from a long and exhausting mission and some shut eye."

'Oh hell no! They're all out there!'

Sato left the tower in a frenzied sprint, hoping he'd catch up with the retrieval team before he missed any action, 'I can't believe they left me out! I am going to kick Shikamaru's ass!'

The excitement he felt about going to help the group without permission began to fade and suddenly, Sato slowed in his running, checking his holsters to see if he had enough weapons and provisions, 'Shit. I wish Shino was back! Normally I wouldn't sweat something like this, but…he's always there to watch my back. And now Sunshine's gone too? Jeez!'

He wouldn't allow himself to become afraid. He had to keep a level head and approach the mission with vigilance. If he didn't some Sound ninja was sure to make him sorry for his mistake.

And with Shino still out of the village, 'Who knows where?' Sato would be facing a great challenge of being without his best friend's abilities and wisdom.

After checking his weaponry he started running again.

Many buildings swirled past him in his rush, people barely seeing the blur that was the frantic young genin; pharmacy, restaurants, book shops, the Academy, gardens, nature trails and then someone ahead of him, 'Eh? I can't slow down-!'

He crashed headlong into another ninja who was attempting to sneak out of the village…though with less speed.

"My, you are in quite a hurry, Sato-kun!"

The Hatake was nose to nose with Rock Lee.

"Yeah, well, can't let my uncle's habits rub off on me right?"

Sato stood and extended his hand to Lee, who gladly accepted it, and pulled the older boy up. He brushed his jacket off and then inspected his camera, hoping it hadn't been damaged during his tumble.

Lee looked from Sato to Tenten, who was staring at the gate ahead. He understood very well what she was feeling, 'Missions such as these always make her anxious. I think she would have liked to have gone ahead with Neji…but instead she was landed with me.'

As if sensing his thoughts, the bun-haired girl turned to her teammate, "Quit mopping, Lee! I'm fine. Whatever's in your head forget it now, okay?"

He nodded to her, astonished. Perhaps intensive weapon training promotes mind-reading skills? He didn't know.

Sato sighed, seeing his beloved camera was intact, but tucked it away in his hip pouch anyway for safe keeping. He looked at the two restless ninja in front of him and then smiled, "Er, I guess you guys aren't just hanging out here because you're bored?"

"We've heard too. Lee and I are going to find them," Tenten confirmed, "I guess you'll be coming with us then, if that's the case."

He nodded cheerily.

"I wish that we might have returned sooner so we could've helped…" Lee added, his mouth drawn into a frown, "It will not be easy to track them."

"No problem there," Sato replied, smug. He bit his thumb and then quickly summoned a small tawny owl that clambered onto his arm after arrival, "Joushou! Do you mind helping us keep tabs on Shikamaru's team? They went ahead of us."

The bird gave a short tut-boo of affirmation before fluttering out the front gate. Tenten gave a pleased grin to the clever Hatake before following Joushou, the boys soon flanking her.

*

"Shikamaru-kun, I can see them! They're just ahead of us and they've stopped moving!" Hinata's announcement was quiet but filled with anticipation.

A quick hand signal from the team leader halted the entire line of ninja. They settled on respective branches up in the canopy, awaiting Shikamaru's orders.

"I don't smell any traps either," Kiba added, narrowing his eyes, "They don't know they're being followed yet."

"Alright, we'll break up into pairs and do some reconnaissance. See if you can pinpoint any weaknesses," Shikamaru decided, "Stay quiet and meet back here in ten minutes."

The team split up and paired off. They disappeared into the surrounding woodland.

The Nara peered silently from his position behind a thorn bush, "It definitely looks like they're tired…huh. There's only three of them. I thought there'd be more, but it looks like this won't be as tough as I thought when we outnumber them 2 to 1."

Neji, beside him, observed with his Byakugan, "I can see Sasuke and Haku are in that barrel they have with them but it's clouded. There is a powerful sealing jutsu at work there…"

"Ambushing them shouldn't be much of a challenge…" Shikamaru trailed off of his verbal planning, watching in confusion as Sakon turned his gaze from the tree he had been propped up against and threw a kunai at their position, "They've seen us?"

He and Neji scrambled away before the exploding tag set off, giving away their hiding place.

Kidomaru passed the barrel on to Tayuya, "You and Sakon go ahead! I'll handle the trash!" The other two Sound ninja went ahead as Kidomaru went back in the direction of the commotion, ready to tear their pursuers apart.

Right as he had landed on a branch of an ancient tree, Kiba appeared beside Chouji below, preparing to attack.

"You're in for a world of pain!" Kiba howled, still furious that his teammates had been mixed up with such a despicable bunch of shinobi. From above, Kidomaru smirked at them, "Is that so?"

As the Inuzuka and Akimichi readied their specialty moves, they found themselves rooted to the spot, "What the-?"

A sticky, invisible web had been laid out on the branches below Kidomaru's position, gluing their feet with hopeless efficiency.

'With them acting as a diversion another one will try to catch me off guard.' Kidomaru noted, skillfully evading Shikamaru's shadow possession as it slipped along the branch. His strings lowered him to the trunk of the tree and he spat a web at the Nara as he swung past.

Shikamaru struggled as he was pinned against an adjacent tree, 'It's useless! He's added his chakra to these webs so they can't be cut!'

Kidomaru remained guarded as half a dozen shadow clones descended from higher up, nearly catching him by surprise. After twisting and spinning his way to avoid the clones he landed on another tree, snapping the strings he'd been using and prepared an even larger web.

"Bastard!" Naruto was frustrated with the spider-nin's evasion and redirected his clones for a follow-up strike. Then the net came down.

"Naruto!" Shikamaru called out to the ensnared blonde, who was among his duplicates in the web that had caught them.

Kidomaru grinned in satisfaction from his vantage point, "Kage Bunshin, eh? Let's see which one of you is real!"

Much to the Sound nin's shock, one of the shadow clones exploded and shredded the web, destroying a number of its cohorts. The two that remained dived back into the shelter of the forest to regroup.

Scowling that he hadn't even had the time for a proper countermeasure, Kidomaru nearly had been hit by the pair of Hyuga that dove for him with identical Jyukken strikes. He leapt again, pulling himself to another location with his strings, and watched as the two Hyuga continued their motion, powerless to stop in mid-air.

Kidomaru tossed another web, seizing them, and let it slam painfully into the trunk of the tree he'd been in previously. He observed Neji thrash about and Hinata disappeared into a cloud of smoke, 'Another shadow clone! So it's the two of them!'

He quickly scanned the undergrowth and spotted the true Hinata, busy at work trying to free Kiba and Chouji who were still unable to break loose. Kidomaru spat a golden web from his mouth and formed hardened spikes with it, intending to stop her in her efforts.

"You leave her alone!" Naruto landed a kick to the back of the Oto nin's head that sent him tumbling, hastily trying to right himself with his string. Kidomaru kept the blonde boy and his supporting clone at bay with the spikes he had created. Kidomaru was upset he'd been foiled.

Neji slashed at the sticky webs with Jyukken and freed himself. He moved quick as wind through the canopy and landed a vicious blow to Kidomaru while he was preoccupied with Naruto.