Renewal

~14~

My hand reached for my katana and quickly pulled it from it's sheath, holding it defensively in front of me, also jumping in front of Tazuna and Sakura. Sakura may be a ninja, but she'd only slow the enemy down for maybe a minute.

"Yuuto? What are you doing?" Sakura asked, shivering in fear.

I didn't reply and instead kept my eyes on the puddle, which we were getting closer and closer to.

"What the hell?!" Naruto exclaimed, watching as I adjusted my stance.

The puddle was now beside us, and we slowly walked by. I glanced at Kakashi, who still seemed pretty laid back.

Suddenly chains shot out of the puddle and wrapped around Kakashi, pulling tight and crushing him into tiny pieces of flesh.

"One down." One of the two men growled, rushing at Tazuna.

Sakura jumped in front of Tazuna, and both me and Sasuke rushed in to help her. Their chains shot out and got caught around my katana, giving Sasuke the chance to kick them both in the head. Sakura stayed in front of Tazuna, kunai in hand, Naruto was still frozen in fear. 

Both men ditched their chains and charged at Sasuke and I, deciding we were the bigger threat.

"I got the one on the right." I whispered to Sasuke.

"Hn." He replied, meaning he heard me.

Sasuke attacked with a kunai, and I my katana. We both avoided getting hit by their claws, but found it hard to land a solid hit. These men were clearly at least chuunin level. Suddenly, the man I was fighting ditched me, and ran at Naruto, managing to cut his hand open a little. 

"Shit." I cursed, quickly rushing over to Naruto and the man who was trying to kill him.

I slashed at the man and managed to get a deep cut on his lower back, making him crumple to the ground in pain.

"Yuuto! Behind you!" Sakura shrieked.

I didn't have enough time to turn around, my tail almost had a mind of it's own and wanted so bad, just to stab him. But luckily, Kakashi-sensei stepped in, grabbing the man and putting him in a choke hold with one arm.

"Yo!" He greeted casually.

"But, you were dead!" Naruto shouted, looking at where Kakashi once stood.

Instead of flesh, their were tiny peices of chopped up wood.

"Good job Sasuke, Yuuto, Sakura." Kakashi praised. "Naruto, I'm sorry you got hurt, I didn't know you would freeze up like that."

Naruto looked down at his hand, the cut was almost bubbling, a sign that it was infected and the claws had poison.

"Kakashi-sensei, I think the claws were coated in poison." I said, pointing at Naruto's hand.

"You're right Yuuto, if we don't get the poison out soon he could die." Kakashi said, frowning under his mask.

"We should go back to the village," Sakura said. "They can treat Naruto's hand and get a higher leveled team for this mission, since it's too dangerous."

"Sakura's right." I agreed. "These men are chuunin from Kirigakure, they were going after Tazuna, meaning this mission is higher than a C-rank. Although I don't want to say it, we're a little underqualified."

I don't often agree with Sakura, but this mission is actually super scary in real life. I've seen this part of the anime and I know how bad the fight with Zabuza goes, how much worse will it be now that an extra character has been added into the mix?