I somehow happened to look at this old story of mine and noticed that the "10-year anniversary" of my last update was coming up today on the 22nd July… I remembered I still had a couple of unpublished chapters I'd written back in 2009 on my old laptop – this seemed like a good opportunity to put them online! I've reread the first one and worked out some kinks, though looking back at the whole thing now, I see quite a few problems with this story's plotline etc.
Anyway, there are about five chapters that I will upload over the next few months or so. No schedule there, I'll just have to see when I get to them, as some parts will need to be rewritten a bit.
I don't mean to get anyone's hopes up with this, I pretty much haven't written anything since 2009 and it's quite unlikely that I'm going to start again now. Still, I wanted to give you these few chapters as a thank you for all the reviews and to those who are still waiting and hoping for updates. I realise how sad an abandoned story is, I've been frustrated about many good fics that were never completed. But I guess that is the curse of the fanfic world, so to speak. At the very least, working on this got me back to reading Naruto fics, which I hadn't done in years. So who knows, maybe one day…
Thanks to you all and happy reading!
Chapter 6The Sandaime sat at his desk, worriedly staring into the dark sky.
He wasn't quite sure if sending hawk's ANBU squad alone to Orochimaru's supposed hiding place had been very wise. After all, it was extremely dangerous to come too close to one of the legendary sannin. Even for an ANBU team.
He sighed, still undecided whether or not to send another team after hawk's men, thinking that they would probably already have entered the place by the time the second squad arrived. And he didn't have many available ANBU left, anyway. He would practically have to remove the village's extra security layer to get a team together quickly – and that would be an absolutely irresponsible thing to do as a Hokage...
A hasty knock was heard before a jounin came crashing in, looking half panicked.
"Hokage-sama! We just received more information on the Orochimaru situation! It's terrible!"
Alerted, the third Hokage ordered the shinobi to tell him everything he knew, the latter starting to sweat at 'the professor's' piercing look.
"We had our intel from Cloud, which we thought was very reliable, since they had their own squad scouting Otogakure. But we just received information saying that this very team was obliterated in a matter of minutes. They managed to send a very last message, saying that Oto had some kind of special jutsu, which made it easy for them to recognize and counter infiltration... They let them stay on purpose, probably to gather intel and to lure more shinobi in! Orochimaru must know of our cooperation, it's a trap! The ANBU team that was sent is going to die if nothing is done, Hokage-sama!"
Sarutobi was shocked at this revelation and let himself fall back into the chair, trying to control his shaking hands. What could he do? He had sent that team to its death!
NARUTO...
He was the only hope. The boy knew of his legacy and could access the Kyuubi's power. His control of the beast's chakra, however, was faulty at best. But if Orochimaru's jutsu was really that powerful, Naruto was the only one who could get the ANBU team out of there alive. Even Masato would be having a hard time...
"Send our fastest falcon after them immediately!" he literally screamed at the frightened jounin who left at once.
"Please, make it back here alive..."
"I'll use his power! I'll let out as much chakra as I can, it'll burn them all down!" Naruto screamed at his captain.
"NO! Don't! It strains you too much and it's dangerous for you if you can't control the amount of chakra used! We'll manage like this." Masato cried back, narrowly avoiding being burnt to a crisp by a wall of flames.
"Please, Nii-san! I beg you!"