Reincarnated into the world of Naruto by onetim3

Chapter 26: Chasing Sasuke

I stretched my arms and legs as I stood by the main gate that led out of the Village. I glanced to my right as Choji, Kiba, and Naruto were getting ready to head out. I then glanced to my left as Shikamaru and Neji were gearing up to head out as well. I inwardly sighed. So in the end Tsunade asked me to help out with Sasuke's return. I'm most surprised at the fact that Shikamaru was actually promoted to Chunin. He didn't even get the chance to fight in the main arena. I guess Lord Third was impressed enough with what he showed at the preliminaries. He probably highly values Shikamaru's mind and wanted him to become a Chunin sooner to help the village out with tasks. Looks like he and I are co-leading the team.

"So what's the plan?" Neji asked as he looked to both Shikamaru and Izaya. I pointed to Shikamaru and said, "I'm sure Shikamaru's got a plan. He'll be the brains of this operation, I'll provide support wherever is needed." I replied.

"Tsk. This is a pain, but alright." Shikamaru said as he proceeded explaining the plan to everyone. Em, a similar plan to my past life eh? Well, this is the most effective for the team composition right now whether this time or in my past. A straight line with everyone having their own roles to play I mentally nodded in approval. We then shot towards the forest as we gave chase. It wasn't long before Kiba and Akamaru sniffed out a battle that recently occurred.

"What should we do? Do we stop and ask for more information or do we continue to pursue Sasuke?" Kiba asked. As Shikamaru was contemplating I said, "No need to stop. I can sense their chakra signatures. They are Leaf shinobi. Shizune and Genma are two of them. Two of the four are injured but with Shizune there they should be fine. Most likely they encountered the enemy and fought. In a time sensitive mission we shouldn't waste time to gather little information that isn't guaranteed to help."

"Mn, that makes sense. We continue to pursue Sasuke." Shikamaru agreed. We travelled a bit longer when Kiba sensed a trap up ahead prompting us to stop.

"A paper bomb perimeter barrier huh?" Neji said as he took a look around with his Byakugan.

"Tsk. It's set to go off after a certain amount of time passes after we enter." Shikamaru said.

"That means we'll probably have to go the long way around." Neji commented. I shook my head and said, "Unnecessary. The fact that they placed one of the paper bomb barrier seals in an open place that's easy to see shows that they're in a hurry. A barrier trap of this level is easy for me to dispel." I placed my hands together quickly forming the hand sign of Snake, Rat, Snake, Dog and clapped my hands together saying, "Seal Severing Disruption Jutsu." My hands glowed with red light as I placed it over the barrier trap seal quickly destroying the seal.

"Eh? That was awesome-dattebayo!" Naruto remarked.

"With this technique I've disrupted the connection between the other tags and this one and also completely removed this sealing tag. They won't be able to activate this trap unless they come back to this spot and place another one down to reform the connection. Let's go." I explained quickly.

"Mn." Everyone nodded as we headed straight back to pursuing Sasuke. Even though I decided I should let Sasuke go pursue his own path I should at least be a little helpful and act like I'm really trying to help I mentally talked to myself. It wasn't long after that we caught up to the Sound Four. Choji remained behind to fight Jirobo, Neji remained to fight Kidomaru, and Kiba remained to fight Sakon and Ukon. That only left Tayuya with the sealing Jar which held Sasuke inside. Just as we were about to recover Sasuke in the sealing jar from Tayuya a giant brown and black spotted snake appeared and grabbed it before we could.

"What!" Shikamaru, Naruto, and I shouted out loud in shock.

Don't tell me...It's Orochimaru? I mentally thought. Is it because he didn't suffer from the Reaper Death Seal this time and he doesn't have Kimimaro as a subordinate I mentally thought.