The Road to Destruction: Part 1 in my The Road of Life series

Warnings: Slight AU, violence, blood, some spoilers for the manga beyond where the anime is currently at.

Non-Warnings: No Yaoi (none... ever), no F-bombs or language of that degree, no blasphemy of any sort.

Timeline: Five to Six months after the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War.

Pairings: Shikamaru/Temari

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto... which should be pretty obvious.

Please enjoy and drop me a review :)

"I am not sure that we are in the right spot."

An unnecessary observation, considering they were in the middle of the forest, far from the agreed meeting place with their client, and had been stationary for nearly an hour. But Neji didn't feel the need to say any of this. He knew Lee's remark was more of a not-so-subtle nudge in the general direction of their team leader than an actual observation. It was absurdly clear that they were not in the right spot, and that they would not be in the right spot for another several hours unless they got moving soon.

Although, Neji couldn't blame Lee for his statement, however nonsensical it was. Lee hated staying stationary, preferring to dive right into the thick of things, and the green clad shinobi was probably going out of his mind at the inactivity. But Neji also knew that the prod was lost on their jōnin leader. Neji had worked with Isamu before, and while the man was many things, tolerant of his subordinates was not one of them. This was confirmed by the snarl he directed at Lee.

"Well, of course we aren't!" Isamu snapped, the scroll he was currently reading pulled taut in his frustration. "Don't make stupid remarks!"

Isamu was a burly man in his thirties, a few years older than Guy Sensei. He reminded Neji a little of Ibiki—the same sunny disposition but without the facial scars.

Isamu might as well have been shouting at a rock. Lee paid the man no attention as he continued to scan the surrounding forest from his perch in the tree above the two jōnin. A hand raised to shield his brow from the light rain that had started to fall nearly half an hour ago, and was steadily dripping through the foliage to drench them all.

Neji also didn't feel the need to tell Lee that there was no need to be lookout. The rain made his Byakugan even stronger, and there was no one around for the next several miles. Only the low chakra signatures of small animals and birds could be detected, and they posed no threat to the group of shinobi.

Lee finished his surveillance and leapt down from the tree, splashing into the mud and splattering Isamu's sandals. The man glowered at Lee, fury radiating off of him so thick that Neji imagined he would be able to see it with his visual jutsu. The Hyūga sensed trouble. Isamu was a jōnin, and a very experienced one at that; but the man tended to think more highly of himself than was strictly healthy. He had an ego the size of the entire Land of Fire, and he considered himself to be an expert at any and everything he attempted. The Hokage had assigned Neji to the team in hopes that his cool head and good instincts might be able to balance out Isamu, but if anything it had simply antagonized the problem. Isamu considered Neji's existence and high shinobi status to be a personal insult and had become even more arrogant than usual.

So putting Rock Lee on the team as well was about as sane as covering oneself in paper bombs and jumping off a cliff—something that Neji had actually considered during the course of the mission. Neji couldn't think of two people more different than Lee and Isamu. Lee's enthusiasm and overall jovial personality grated against Isamu like nails on a chalkboard. And Lee just didn't know what to make of Isamu's sour moods and lack of motivation to walk on his hands for the entire journey.

Lee was only trying to be helpful, but his methods were backfiring. Neji feared that any more would seriously jeopardize the mission—if it hadn't already.

Isamu still looked ready to eviscerate the chūnin, so Neji smoothly stepped in as a diversion. "Toru's been gone for an hour. He should have been back by now," Neji reminded Isamu, who turned his attention away from Lee and grunted.

Lee nodded in agreement. "Indeed. His absence is most distressing."

Another grunt from Isamu. This one much more hostile.

Neji suppressed a sigh. Toru was young and nearly as exuberant as Lee. The kid's eyes had glowed like Christmas when he first saw Neji and Lee, and during the entire time they were walking, the eager young shinobi had been asking them questions about the war, about all the villains they had defeated. He had asked for pointers in his training, which Lee had been more than happy to help him with. After a bit, Neji had also stepped in to help. At the end of their training, Toru had solemnly turned to Neji and said, "You're my hero. Someday, I hope to be as strong as you." And then promptly walked away, leaving Neji blinking after him. It made him feel both uncomfortable and rather pleased.

That might have been part of the reason Isamu sent Toru ahead to scout the prearranged meeting area. Neji had protested. Not only was Toru the least experienced of the group, but the Hyūga's Byakugan would have been much more beneficial to scout ahead. Unfortunately, his words had fallen on deaf ears. Isamu sent Toru, and now there was no sign of the missing chūnin.

"It worries me," said Neji, turning to stare deep into the forest. "I can't find him at all with my Byakugan."

"Well, I should hope not," Isamu snapped, his hands tightening on the scroll so that the paper wrinkled. He glared at Neji. "He wouldn't be much of a scout if he didn't even go beyond the range of that visual jutsu of yours."

Neji's face remained blank. "If I had gone, I wouldn't have had to go nearly so far."

Isamu grunted. He rolled up the scroll and tucked it into the pack on his back. Neji frowned. He had been staring at the scroll the entire time they had been waiting on Toru. "Right, well I think it's time we went and found the kid. He probably went and scouted the area and got lost, the brat. Hyūga, keep that Byakugan of yours activated. We don't want to miss Toru by accident."

"Right," said Neji, relieved that they were finally going to get moving again. He was becoming tired of this mission very fast. He would rather have spent his time entertaining Naruto.

There was also the shadow of unease that lurked in the back of his mind. Unease that he had so far refused to give credence to. There was nothing around to suggest that he had anything to be concerned about.

"Excellent!" cried Lee enthusiastically. "With the power of our youth, we will find Toru and complete the mission! Guy Sensei has promised to train with me when we return to the village."

"Ay-yi," groaned Isamu. "Does this kid ever shut up?" he asked too quietly for Lee to hear. Neji frowned at Isamu's back. That was the second time in a last minute that Isamu had insulted a team member. And while it wasn't right for the team leader to insult a member at any time, Neji felt especially defensive of Lee. If it would have done any good, he might have said something, but some things were better tucked away for future reference. Reporting Isamu's lack of tact and leadership to the Hokage would be much more beneficial in the long run, especially if Neji was ever forced to go on another mission with him.

Besides, Lee was made of tougher stuff. He had never let such things get him down before.

The three shinobi leapt into the trees and took off, gliding from branch to branch as only a ninja could. Neji kept his eyes peeled, glad for the rain that increased the distance he could see. Isamu led them in the direction that Toru had taken when he left, Neji and Lee close behind. As they travelled further, Neji's unease grew, to the point that he could no longer pass it off as simple irritation with Isamu or even concern for Toru. His senses on high alert, he tensed, prepared for anything. Movement on his right had him calling out to his team.

"Stop!" he said, landing on a branch.

Isamu and Lee stopped one branch ahead of him.

"What's wrong?" Isamu asked. "Do you see Toru?"

"No," said Neji. His pale eyes searched the ground below him. The veins around his eyes bulged from his kekkei genkai. "It's something else. It doesn't feel right."

Isamu grunted in annoyance. "If you don't see anything, then what could be wrong?"

"I don't know," admitted Neji. He could see everything around, nearly 360 degrees. The only things around them were small animals. There was a bird in the tree behind him, but he wasn't concerned with it. There was a sense of wrongness coming from the forest floor and the unmistakable signs of chakra. "Do you feel it, Lee?"

"I do not feel anything," Lee said slowly. "But you are much better at sensing chakra than I am."

Lee leapt down from his tree a beat after Neji. Isamu yelled in frustration.

"What is the matter with you two?! Are you the team captain now, Hyūga? We need to keep going if we're going to get to the meeting place on time."

"Now is not the time," growled Neji. A fine thing that Isamu was concerned with punctuality now, when they had made no progress at all in the last hour. Unsure of what they would be facing, Neji drew a kunai from his pouch. Lee did the same and the two teammates faced the forest and the unknown.

"Can you see anything, Neji?" Lee asked in hushed tones.

Neji ground his teeth and didn't answer. He could see everything, but that wasn't the issue. It wasn't what he could see, but what he couldn't see.

Or more precisely, what he couldn't see within the things he could see.

He saw the forest, he saw the rain. He saw a small chakra signature coming toward them, but it was no larger than a squirrel. Maybe a rabbit.

Neji narrowed his eyes.

Isamu had gone quiet and drawn his kunai as well. At least he had finally come to his senses. Neji hadn't thought that he would be so arrogant as to be completely heedless of another shinobi. Isamu jumped from the tree and landed in a crouch a little in front of Neji. He watched the undergrowth. The small chakra signature came closer, and Neji's sense of unease grew.

Everyone tensed at the soft rustle of the bush.

And then a rabbit popped out.

Isamu let out a breath, straightening up and lowering his kunai. "Geez, Hyūga, was that all you were making a fuss over? I thought you were supposed to be a genius."

Neji didn't take his eyes off the rabbit. Something still wasn't right. And then he saw it. The faint unnatural ripple of chakra in the animal; the sudden compression of it in its core. But he was a split second too late.

"GET DOWN," he cried at the same moment he spun and tackled Lee.

The rabbit exploded.

Tsunade groaned and leaned back in her chair. The chair wasn't the exact same one that she'd had before the Leaf's destruction at the hands of Pain, but it felt just as uncomfortable. It pinched and poked her when she did anything but sit up straight, and worst of all, it confined her, forcing her to face the abhorrent desk in front of her. While the desk itself wasn't the true source of her eternal loathing, the paperwork on top of it was.

Tsunade growled menacingly at the offending mission requests, forms, and reports. They covered nearly every inch of the wooden desk, stacked a foot high, and even the mere thought of spending the entire day going through them had her contemplating the murder of the next person to walk through the door with a paper in their hands. Though, that probably wasn't the kind of thing a Hokage would do. A Hokage wouldn't want to get blood on their hands, so they'd make their underlings do the dirty work. But where was the fun in that?

She sighed. What would her grandfather think if he could see her now?

She glanced back down at her workload. The kunoichi briefly considered chucking the whole desk out the window, papers and all. She imagined the lovely sight of hundreds of slips of paper sailing away on the wind and the beautiful image of splintered wood on the ground below. And then she imagined the looks of horror on Kotetsu and Izumo's faces when she ordered them to collect every single piece of paper and bring them back to her along with the desk. Undamaged, of course. That would not only give her a nice long break to get a drink of sake, but it would also keep Shizune from having a stroke.

Her fantasies were shattered when the door opened and Shizune stepped into the office, Tonton tucked in her arms. She stopped dead as soon as she caught sight of Tsunade's face, and she fixed the Hokage with a suspicious glare, as though she had read the kunoichi's mind.

"Lady Tsunade," she reprimanded, "were you trying to get out of work again?"

"What?" Tsunade asked innocently. "No, of course not! I would never even think of doing such a thing."

Shizune scowled, unmoved. "Lady Tsunade! The war may be over, but there is still tons of work to do! Many villages were damaged and are requesting assistance from the five great nations. And the feudal lord has requested a meeting with you. Not to mention that the ambassador from the Sand Village is arriving in a week, and all the necessary preparation haven't been finished!" Her irritation had left her breathless, eliciting a small "Oink" of sympathy from Tonton.

"I know," Tsunade sighed. She rested an elbow on her desk and stared out the window. The clear sky outside was dotted with puffy white clouds. The air was calm, a light breeze the only movement. It felt too unnaturally calm in her opinion, like the calm before a storm. "There's too much to do, if truth be told. For once, the villages of the Five Great Nations are united. There's peace treaties to draw up, documents to be sent to other villages, and mission requests are starting to fly in once again. I know it's been six months since the war ended, but the repercussions are still being felt all over. Especially here in the Leaf. We had barely started to recover from Pain, when we had to send most of our forces to war."

Tsunade sighed again. "I've sent out all the teams I can spare on missions to appease our clients, but I'm still shorthanded. Well, I'm expecting one of the teams back shortly, so at least I'll have them. I wish they'd hurry up though," she added with a growl.

Shizune switched at once to reassuring mode. "I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, Lady Tsunade. They were probably just held up a bit."

"Hmph!" said Tsunade. "That may be an excuse for a chūnin, but there are two jōnin on that team. It was a C-rank mission, how hard could it be to be back on time?!"

Shizune blinked. "Why did you send two jōnin on a simple mission?"

Tsunade's anger faded. A look of worry briefly flitted over her features. "Well, truth be told, the mission may be simple but they were sent to the border area, and it's a bit… unstable."

"Unstable?"

Tsunade nodded. "A lot of shinobi don't agree with the alliance of the Great Nations now that the war is over, especially ones from smaller villages. Many ninja have gone rogue."

"You think there's a chance that the group could have been attacked?"

"No." Tsunade's irritation was back, as quick as it had left her. "That's why I assigned two of my jōnin to the team. There is no excuse! I need them back here so I can pile more work on them!"