Another Mission

Asher woke up alone in his bed. He looked around for Aria, but she was not there. Looking to his side, he spots a note on the bedside table.

It read:

Asher,

Sorry to not be there when you woke up, but I had work to do in the shop. See you tomorrow.

Love you

Aria xxxx

Asher put the note down and got out of bed. He went to the kitchen and prepared a pot of ramen for breakfast. The moment he finished cooking the food, he heard loud steps thundering towards his door. Suddenly, Naruto burst in, nearly destroying his room in the process. Asher held up a bowl and Naruto jumped at it. He wolfed it down and went for more. He emptied the pot in less than five minutes. Asher was only able to get one bowl of it. Naruto ran out saying he had to meet up with his team. Chuckling, he cleaned up and headed out for one of the training fields.

An hour after beginning his training, he was surrounded by stumps of wood and shreds of cloth. Each of them either torn by claws or scorched by flame. He turned to the last training dummy and took in a deep breath, readying his dragon's breath. Just before he released it, a chuunin ninja appeared in front of him. The fire burst from his mouth but he was quick enough to divert the flame.

"You almost got yourself killed!" yelled Asher, "You know that."

"Sorry sir," he said terrified, "but I have an urgent message. The Hokage needs to speak to you now."

The urgency of the message worried him. Asher ran as fast as he could toward the Hokage. He even jumped from rooftop to rooftop at certain points.

Arriving at the Hokage's mansion, he went straigt to his office. Asher burst through the door and immediately saw the worry on his face.

"What's wrong?" asks Asher.

"There's been an incident at the Yamanaka flower shop," said the Hokage, "Apparently, they recieved a package today, containing a flower they had never seen before. The owner's daughter picked it up and it seems to have poisoned her somehow. We don't know exactly what happened to her, but she's **** at the hospital. They're waiting for you there with the flower."

"Why are you sending me?"

"Because I believe that the flower is the same one used on you. You might know what's wrong with her."

"I'll see what I can do."

With that, he left the office and ran straigt to the hospital. He arrived to find a nurse waiting for him. She brought him to the room and left.

The Yamanaka's where inside with their daughter. He stepped towards, Inoichi(Ino's father) and his wife. They turned to him, crying.

"Where's the flower?" he asks.

Mrs Yamanaka nods towards a box beside Ino's bed. Opening it, Asher found a flower with red and purple petals(the centre was red and the edge was purple). This was definitely the same plant used on him. Though the stem was different. The last time he saw it, it was green, but this one was brownish yellow. He lifted it out of the box and had a look at it. He brushed his finger on the stem and a fang sprang out from a slit. There were many of these slits, hidden among the thorns along the stem. Taking a bit of the venom dripping from the fang, he tasted it. It was cobra venom. He didn't know where it came from, but he did know it was an area with a lot of snakes.

Asher extended the claw on his index finger and dragged it across his wrist, slicing through his skin. He then pressed the wound against a fang and allowed the venom to enter him. This would allow his body to make an anti-venom and inject it into Ino. This usually takes a few minutes, but he knew he had time.

"What are you doing?" asked Inoichi.

"I'm making anti-venom for Ino," Asher responds, "It'll take a few minutes though."

Once the anti-venom was complete, he allowed it to flow into his fangs and extended them. He walked to Ino and lifted her arm. He them bites her wrist, pumping the anti-venom into her body. When it was all gone, he sat down and looked at her parents.

He smiled and said, "She'll be fine. The anti-venom is working it's way through her body. She should wake up tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," says Ino's mom.

"Yes. The anti-venom doesn't destroy the venom outright. It just, aids the body as it fights it. It depends on the persons body, but generally it takes twelve hours to complete, of course there is a way to shorten the processes time, but I doubt that you want To Have a foreign Clan's Cells transplanted into your daughter." This drew their attention." Do you know where we could find this clan?'' Ino's mother asked. ''I do, their is a member of the clan in this village, but the clan member is Naruto, the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki Host, see the Uzumaki Clan has the unique trait of having an extremely powerful life-****, so powerful it is, that the Uzumaki can survive Tailed-Beast Extraction, a feat no other Clan other than the now long dead Senju Have been able to accomplish. Back to the matter at hand however, If you don't mind I'd like to watch over her. The randomness of the wake up time means she could wake up anytime between an hour from now to tomorrow. Since I don't need to rest or eat as much as you, I can remain here for longer.

"Okay, that's fine. Thank you for saving my daughter."

"You don't have to thank me. I'd never let her get hurt if I could help it."

Mrs Yamanaka smiled at that and sat down. She sighed and began to stroke Ino's hair. Asher went outside the room and sat down in the hall.

A few hours later, Ino's parents had left and Asher had sat next to her. He had been holding her hand for over an hour. From the first moment he met her in his class at the ninja academy, he was in love with her, but she was too interested in a kid named Sasuke Uchiha to notice Asher.

He turned and looked out the window. The sun had already begun to set. Suddenly the the door slid open. Quickly Asher turned around. Standing at the door was...