Chapter 19: Retrieval

A few short days pass between Sasuke waking up and my being called into the Hokage office on an urgent matter. I'm with Neji and Lee at the hospital when the Hokage's messenger comes to get me. Lee had just told us how he is going to get the surgery done today, and we were wishing him luck. When I got the summons, I shot Neji a look and sped out of the room. I make it to the tower at the same time as Shikamaru.

Tsunade tells us about how Sasuke left the village, and that we have 30 minutes to gather a team of genin to retrieve him. We are both captains on the mission. We split up to gather recruits, him going to get Naruto and Choji, me to get my own recruits. I told him that if he runs into my brother or Kiba to grab them too. I have someone specific in mind to bring with.

"There's an urgent mission leaving immediately. Are you available to join? This is an A rank mission." I tell the bug user when I arrive at the Aburame compound. It took all of my nerve to walk in here, there's literally bugs everywhere.

"When do we leave?" Shino asks me seriously.

"Right now." I tell him firmly. He nods in response. "Thank you Shino. Meet at the gate in 15 minutes, we'll leave at once. If you find Shirotsu, bring him too." I actually came here for Shirotsu mainly, but seeing Shino was a golden opportunity I couldn't pass up.

"He's on a mission already, I'm the only one here." He informs me. Oh well, worth a shot. At least I got an extra person.

I already have my scrolls ready and waiting on me for no matter what happens. I'm hoping things will change on this mission with Shino and I here. I head towards the gate, not finding anyone else to join in. When time is up, we all gather. We have the original mission crew members, plus myself and Shino.

"Shikamaru, lets decide on a quick arrangement. Use your big brain, place us in order." I ask of him and he nods, quickly drawing out a plan.

"In front, our two best seekers. Ami, your Byakugan can see the farthest, and Kiba, your sense of smell can alert us of hidden traps. Both of you know these forests better than anyone, so you can lead the group most effectively. Next will be me, so I can relay anything they see to the rest. Naruto, you take center since your clones can spread out quickly to help in any direction. Choji and Shino, you are behind him, Choji protecting from the left with his strength and Shino on the right with his insects. Neji, you take up the back, use your Byakugan to cover everything behind us. Let's move out." Shika tells us all firmly. I nod, and we move out quickly after Sakura and Lee bid us goodbye, Naruto making his sacred vow to Sakura.

We come across first the group of Konoha Jonin who got injured already. The group includes Shizune, Hayate, and Genma, who give us intel about the enemies. I use my eyes and locate the enemies, they are resting and weak after the fight, about four kilometers away. Shikamaru and I devise a trap on how to catch them. I wish I remembered specifics from this part of the story, but sadly I don't so I have to rely on what I do know and what I know of my team.

When we finally get to the Sound Four, we think we have them caught in an attack. Unfortunately, Jirobo catches everyone in his Earth dome.

"This dome," Shino says after only a few seconds, "I can feel it, it's draining our chakra. It's just like my insects." I activate my Byakugan, but I can't see outside of the dome at all.

"Ok, let's make a plan, and fast." I turn to Shikamaru first, "Shika, get him talking. We need to find out his location from outside the dome." I turn next to Neji, "Nii-san, use your eyes to follow the flow of chakra, find a weak point in the dome." I turn next to Choji and Kiba, "You two are the heavy hitters, once Neji finds the weak spot, you two attack it together." I turn to Naruto and Shino next, "The rest of us, stay out of their way and conserve energy, if this is draining our chakra, we need to limit our exertions, it is only going to make the enemy stronger." I say, and Naruto immediately starts to complain. "Naruto, sit down and shut up, let the rest work!" I yell at him fiercely and he does just that, eyeing me fearfully. Everyone starts to work on their parts of the plan, and fairly soon, we are out of the dome when Choji expands and breaks it.

Jirobo starts to taunt the team, saying some meaningless stuff to everyone, mostly to Shikamaru and Choji.

"We don't have time to stay here, we have to keep moving." Shikamaru complains seriously.

"I will stay." Shino says suddenly, "His jutsu works like my insects, I will be a good match up."

"He's strong too." I say, looking at our team, "You will need a heavy hitter to stay will you."

"Me." Choji says, "I'm the strongest. I'll stay too." I nod to him. With Shino here, he won't be at a disadvantage anymore.

"Once he's down, regroup with us. We're going on ahead." Shikamaru says.

"Shino, mark each of us with a beetle that can be tracked." I say begrudgingly with a shiver. He nods, and I watch a tiny bug land on me and fight every urge to kill it. Jirobo tries to attack us as we leave, but Choji intercepts, and we take off.

I spot the enemy in the distance, and alert Shika that we are close. He makes a plan to pose as their fallen comrade, but I shoot that idea down. We don't know enough about them to pose as them, they would spot us. Instead, we plan to use Naruto's shadow clones to chase them from the side, forcing them to change course. We, in the meantime, will circle around and catch them. It's only a slightly better plan, but it's better than risking one person's safety alone with the enemy. We set out the plan, Naruto's clones changing into each of us and going to edge them off. I watch as the enemy does alter their course, and we meet them head on. Since I'm the fastest, I ran ahead and laid a simple trap for them. I didn't have much time, so it's just exploding tags, but it should be enough to disorient them long enough for Shika to trap their shadows.

When they set off the trap, Shika does catch their shadows, but there's only two there. The spider guy is missing. Neji and I spot this, and start to look around. We find him just as he's spitting his webs out at us. We avoid the first wave of webs, and go to simultaneously attack the spider guy. Neji strikes his webs down while I hit his kidney chakra. When we are both in mid-air, spider guy spits another web at us. We're stuck for a moment, and while we are in our webs, Naruto's clone group of us go in to attack the spider guy. Unfortunately, they get taken down, but in that time, Neji and I use our Gentle Fist to get out of the web. While Neji goes to attack again, I go to free everyone from their webs as the other two bad guys start to run away, continuing their mission.

"Go, I'll take care of this guy." Neji says to us.

"No, Neji I'm not leaving you here." I say desperately.

"As captain, I am staying. We can defeat him together far more efficiently and then catch up quick, especially with our speed. That's final. Shikamaru, take the others and head out, we will catch up." I walk over to Naruto for a moment, "Naruto... Just in case, when you see Sasuke, give him this." I gave Naruto one of my scrolls. I tap his back and place a seal on him.

"What is it?" He asks me.

"Just something he needs to read. I'll catch up to you, go now." I shove him forward. When Kidomaru, who I learned is the spider guy, tries to hit them when they leave, I use Rotation to block his web shots.

"Orochimaru warned me of the Gentle Fist. You both have good eyes, and strong control of your chakra. However, once I disable your annoying hands then you won't be able to cut my webs anymore." Kidomaru says confidently. He spits out far too many webs for us to cut down, and we both get stuck in them to a tree. He gives an evil speech for a moment then creates two long spears of hardened web from his mouth and spits them at us. We easily evade, sending chakra from our bodies to cut his webs.

I look at Neji, and pass a silent message with my eyes and hands. I tell him that I will create a clone, and gain distance while my clone stays close. He replies by saying he will go in for an attack, giving me the opening. When Neji takes the 64 palm stance, I put my plan into action. I make a shadow clone and gain some distance. I watch my clone do her 64 palm strike as well, and together her and Neji are overpowering the Sound ninja. After he's knocked down, he activates his first phase of his curse mark. He summons a giant spider, and it lays a giant web womb that splits open and I watch hundreds of large baby spiders that spill out of it. The clone and Neji deflect the attack, but the web's slow the Rotation down. My clone tells Neji to take cover, and he does. He jumps behind a tree as the second wave of baby spiders drops down, this one with even more in it. My clone does the Rotation again, only this time, she adds in wind nature, and slices and obliterates everything within the range. I in my real body take that moment to shoot an arrow straight into the mother spiders head. I don't waste time, and shoot a second one directly after at Kidomaru. It hits his stomach, and he goes down hard. My clones energy is spent after the wind Rotation and she releases back to me.

I rejoin my brother as we check on the body. Only, Kidomaru's changed appearance and has entered phase 2 of his curse mark. His skin turned a different color, and he looks like a monster now instead of a human. He jumps up quickly, landing in a tree.

"An archer, hmm?" He asks us. "We'll have to see who's the better shot." He forms a bow out of his mouth.

Neji smirks, "Ami, take a break. I've got this." He says arrogantly. I hesitate at first, but catch the look in his eyes. He's confident, and he has a plan. Then I think on his words, it was code. He wants the focus on him. I nod to him and step back, smirking at the enemy.

"Ah, I guess you want to watch your brother die first. That's fine by me." Kidomaru says condescendingly.

He runs back, but we can still see him in the distance. He aims his bow at Neji and fires off an impossibly fast shot at Neji. When the dust clears from the impact of the arrow, it reveals a smirking Neji, who's perfectly fine.

"That the best you got? I train against much faster arrows that that." Neji taunts. It's true, he started training against my arrows months ago. It worked in tandem to enhance my shooting and to improve his reflexes and vision. I take this opportunity to move, transporting to one of the trees I had marked earlier while Neji fights him aggressively. It's about half a kilometer away from where Kidomaru is. I aim my bow at the spider guy, adjusting to the trees in my path, and fire right after he shoots off his next shot. My arrow slices one of his four arms off, but his arrow also hit its mark. Neji got grazed through his upper leg. He had managed to avoid most of the damage, but it's still a solid hit. I look closely at the arrow that was launched, and see he changed the shape of it, and it has a spiral at the tip. It must have been much faster.

I follow Kidomaru with my eyes, moving as he moves to keep him in my sights. Neji is doing the same, and I can see him setting up traps and moving away as he simultaneously attacks. I take the cue and circle around the Sound ninja and shoot off another arrow, this time destroying the tree branch he is on. I didn't have a clear shot of him, too many obstacles, but it served to lead him back towards where Neji was. I shot a few more time, using less chakra to not waste it, mostly just focusing on guiding him and making him think I am getting too tired. Kidomaru shoots at Neji again, but he manages to avoid it. He already adjusted to the speed of the new arrows. Once Kidomaru is in range of Neji's trap, I use all my speed, and surprise him and kick him down hard. He lands into Neji's trap, which is a steel wire web trap.

"Look what crawled into our web?" I taunt as Kidomaru can't get out, and Neji comes to join me.

"You really think you can trap me in a web?" Kidomaru sneers, then he struggles and manages to free one hand. He uses his hand and mouth to take aim with his bow, aiming directly at me. Neji and I nod to each other, and use the new Air-Wall palm attack together on him. When we practiced this move, his focus is on the push and precisely targeting the enemies chakra points while mine is focused on the pull, which makes the destructive damage and launches the enemy back when it's combined with Neji's strike. We haven't quite managed to pull it off before, but no time like the present.

"Wow that actually worked." I say in surprise as the dust is flying up from the explosive attack we just did.

"Ami, watch out!" I hear Neji call out. I look to see an arrow flying straight at me from Kidomaru. I don't have time to fully avoid it, but I can lessen the damage. I start to pivot to the side, but my efforts were in vain. Before I could do anything to stop him, Neji jumped in front of the arrow. The impact threw us both off the tree limb I was on, sending us both to the ground. I grab him so he won't land hard, and lay him on the ground gently. I activate my eyes again, looking for the enemy, but turn to the side at who I see standing there.

"He's dead." Shino tells me. "Your blast killed him, he used his last breath to fire that arrow."

"Please go and confirm." I tell him and he nods, walking to the body as I look at my brother. "Oh Neji, why did you do that?"

"Couldn't watch my little sister get hit." He chuckles weakly. I look at where he got hit. It's bad, but not life threatening. The arrow pierced through his back, in his lower shoulder.

"The Sound ninja is indeed dead. Go, I will stay with your brother and get him medical help. The medics are not far behind you now, my bugs tell me they got to Choji already." Shino tells me, and I look at him. He's also wounded, and exhausted. I'm not even sure how he managed to make it this far. I look back at my brother worried, torn over staying with him and going on.

"Go, Ami. I'll be fine, and you have a friend to save. You're the fastest one in the group, you will catch up in no time." Neji tells me as firmly as he can. I grab his hand on his good side for a moment, squeezing it in thanks.

"Stay here, stay alive. Shino, thank you." I tell him genuinely, then take off running, eating a soldier pill as I run. I go at my maximum speed, knowing they already have made a good distance on me. I rest my eyes and allow myself to replenish my chakra as I run, not knowing if I will have another battle up ahead.