Chapter 53: Return of the Prodigal Author and rat sandwich

"Here, take Akamaru, do you want to eat this?" - boy broke off a piece from a thick sandwich from which meat was sticking out and handed it to a white dog near him. In response, the dog barked as if disgusted and turned away from the food.

"Here you see!! We're from the Inuzuka clan, you thought we wouldn't recognize the smell of a roasted rat!?" Waving at the seller who was sweating, Kiba lost his temper and tried to put this sandwich in the poor seller's mouth. However, someone grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him away from the scared man.

"My friend, disputes are resolved peacefully, it is not our business to carry out reprisals." - in a calm voice, pulling the enraged Kiba away from the stall, Shino Aburame tried to calm him down.

"Kiba, what are you doing again?" Suddenly, a woman with bright red eyes and black hair that fell to her shoulders appeared nearby. The Konohagakure forehead protector was visible on her forehead, signifying her belonging to the village.

"That bastard tried to feed me a rat!!" Beginning to calm down, Kiba snorted and threw the sandwich at the man, who dodged sitting behind the counter. A crowd of people had already gathered around and vigorously discussed the new event. The village was small and not far from the borders of the land of fire, so merchants often passed here and sold part of the goods. The village was fairly well supplied from the influx of new goods and the abundance of fertile land. It was more like a small city. And now, apparently, one of the humble takeaway shops will lose its face and money due to unfortunate circumstances.

"Now I understand what happened. Kiba are you sure of your judgment?" – examining the pieces of meat Kurenai, could not say whose it was. However, she didn't really want to try either, so she hoped that the scent of the Inuzuka clan wasn't lying.

"Gaff! Gaff!" Akamaru barked at her in disapproval.

"I'm 100% sure!" Kiba finally calmed down, shaking his hands from leftovers of food.

"I see, it's a pity we don't have time to sort it out as we are in a hurry. However, those around you saw and heard your words. Now the whole market and the village will know this and technically we don't have to do anything else. People will do it for us. Let's go." Turning around, Kurenai left through Shunshin and her three students followed her.

"Kurenai-sensei, what if we're late and we can't help Naruto?" Hinata asked excitedly.

"Naruto is not alone and I believe he can handle such a simple mission as capturing scientists." Kiba snorted as he jumped over the branches behind Kurenai.

"We wouldn't have been sent for help there if the mission was that simple. This person is connected to Orochimaru and has been working on some project for a year now. If there is a chance that we will get on the trail of Orochimaru and Sasuke, we will have to do our best." Kurenai answered without turning around.

In silence, Team Eight continued on their way towards their mission. However, suddenly Kiba stopped and stood in a stupor. The team, noticing that Kiba was lagging behind, returned back.

"What is going on Kiba?" – Hinata asked tensingly looking around and trying to find something wrong around her.

"There's someone here. The wind brought me the scent of a man. I remember that smell!" After squeezing the nose and cleaning it with his clan's special technique, Kiba closed his eyes and began to inhale air through his nose.

"Damn it! I know that smell!"

"Who is that?" Hinata asked, unable to stand it.

"The one who pretended to be Kakashi sensei during the exam!"

"How far is he?" Kurenai tensed up after hearing this.

On the day after the end of this stage of the exam, when the students told her about "Kakashi", she realized that this person was much stronger than all three of them put together. In addition, such a ninja passed invisible through all the cameras, as if knowing about them in advance. Not a single ANBU detected him, but it was the same with Orochimaru. It clearly didn't make sense for Orochimaru to pretend to be one of the leaf ninja and tell the other team that Orochimaru was in the forest. So it was a different person. But who and why? Why was there a warning? Curiosity burned Kurenai from inside, but tasking the team ahead on a potentially deadly mission with the current hunt on tailed beasts was more important.

"Somewhere around is all I can say."

"Then we act according to circumstances. Our priority mission is to move forward and avoid direct confrontation. Shino use the bugs and scout ahead as we go."

"We'll have to slow down, they're not that fast." Nodding his head, Shino raised his hands and released a cloud of bugs that flew forward.

The road ahead was now far less calm than before. Silently, the team made its way through the jungle of trees until ...

There was an explosion. The feelings of all four were overwhelmed with fear when they recognized the chakra of the nine-tails destroying everything around and expanding the radius with every second and something else. Accelerating her speed from the explosion, Kurenai was afraid to look back. Along with the nine-tails' chakra, she felt something different. Ancient, dangerous, like a comet the size of a planet, exuded malice approaching her and breathing down her back.

Hearing the ground behind them open up and take off into nothingness from the power, Kurenai accelerated and screamed.

"DO NOT STOP! DO NOT LOOK BACK! JUST RUN!" The explosions continued until the scream of three creatures screaming in pain at the same time was heard through the deafening flow of thunder in the sky. There were no clouds in the sky, but the thunder rumbled again, from which Kurenai, due to an incomprehensible situation, became afraid for herself and her students.

All of a sudden everything was quiet.

The ground and what was left of the trees were emanating smoke. The team, having run a little more, stopped thanking to everything that comes to mind that they were so lucky to be out of the blast radius.

Purple energy shot out of the mist like a huge blade and shot out into the sky, flying farther and farther away. It was followed by another weaker purple energy. But even it would have swept away everything in a kilometer if it had been sent towards Kurenai and her team. Realizing her mistake and realizing that it was beyond her power, Kurenai instantly decided what to do.

"Listen to me carefully!"

Hinata, Kiba and Shino all turned towards Kurenai, scared not knowing what to do.

"Go to Naruto's aid immediately! I will stay here and collect information about what happened to deliver to the village!"

"You saw those explosions! If even one hits you… We can't abandon you!!!" Kiba yelled back.

"It happened in the land of fire. As a Jounin it's my duty! Go forward immediately!!! This is my captain's order!!!"

"She is right. We will only interfere with her as she can't protect as and herself at the same time." - Silently, as if not understanding what he said, Shino muttered. But everyone heard it.

"Kurenai-sensei take care of yourself." Holding back tears, Hinata ran towards the mission deciding not to waste time. Kiba followed her without looking back, growling, and Shino silently ran as fast as he could.

A huge purple blade rose into the sky and rushed down, but this time it went into the ground with all its might, giving rise to a new earthquake wave that almost knocked everyone off their feet. Without looking back, Team Eight ran towards the 7th team, leaving Kurenai behind.