Battle of the Kekkei Genkai's

A few days later, a short time after Lee's surgery and Sasuke and Kakashi regained conscious the vengeful Uchiha challenges Naruto to a fight, which could have resulted in a seious injury on either boy when Naruto and Sasuke were about to clash with their Rasengan and Chidori.

Luckily for the boys Kakashi intervened in time. Sasuke after the fight leaves angry that he's not the strongest one anymore, this anger only grows when remembering his brothers words and when four oto-nins beat him up while only playing with him.

So that very same night Sasuke decides to ally himself with Orochimaru for his promise of power ao he can become strong enough to beat his brother. Sakura feared he'd leave the village and tried to stop him in front of the academy, Sasuke however knocks her out and leaves, meeting up with the four oto-nins waiting in the forest.

As a result of that the following morning Shikamaru is called to the Hokage's office early in the morning and tasked with building a team of promising Genins to follow Sasuke and bring him back.

"So, who else are we going to get?" Naruto asks, walking alongside Choji, Kiba and Shikamaru.

"You guys get Neji and meet me at the front gate in 10 minutes. I have one more person in mind, but I don't know where he is, I know someone who might though." Shikamaru tells them, hurrying over to Ino's place.

After opening the door Ino's mother calls her daughter, upon seeing Shikamaru.

"What?" A sleepy Ino asks, yawning slightly.

"I have my first mission and have to gather strong Genins, so I was wondering if you know if that Jiang guy is still around?" Shikamaru asks.

"You could just ask me you know." Ino says teasingly, before seeing the serious stare thrown at her.

"Fine, yeah he's here." Ino tells him, surprising Shikamaru.

"Jiang. You have a visitor." Ino says loudly, walking back into her home.

"Shikamaru?" Jiang asks moments later, seeing the teen stand at the door.

"I need you for a mission. Sasuke left the village and we need to get him back, but chances are we'll run into Orochimaru's men." Shikamaru says worried.

"I'll talk to Tsunade. It's her decision since she hasn't made me a Konoha nin yet." Jiang tells the new Chunin.

"Hah, fine. We'll probably be gone though by the time that's cleared up. Just follow us, I'll carve arrows into trees so you know which way." Shikamaru tells him.

"Got it." Jiang tells him and Shikamaru hurries away.

"What was that about?" Ino asks, waiting in her living room when Jiang steps back into the house, stretching his arms.

"Shikamaru is going on a mission to retrieve Sasuke, he left to go to Orochimaru apparently." Jiang tells her, stepping into the small closet he's crashing at and takes off his shirt.

"Are you going too?" He asks, with Ino standing at the door.

"No. He didn't ask me." Ino says, licking her lips subconsciously while her eyes roam over his muscular back.

"Probably better that way, you and Sasuke have a difficult relationship and I'd throw caution into the wind and go with you regardless of the Hokage's decision." He says, putting on a mesh shirt and a green long sleeved shirt over it, with a brown jacket open, something Ino forcefully 'suggested' he try wearing.

"Well we can't have that. I want you to stay here as long as possible after all." Ino says, letting him out of his door, after he grabbed his weapons pouch and his double-sided trident.

"I'd like that too. I really want to take you out to dinner some time." Jiang says, kissing her on her nose before leaving her house.

After leaving the Yamanaka's place Jiang heads to the Hokage's office where after a few minutes of waiting he's standing in front of Tsunade.

"You wanted to see me?" She asks uncertain about why he's there.

"Shikamaru asked for my backup on his mission, but I'm not officially a Konoha nin... and I wasn't sure if you need me here to protect Konoha in case of attack." Jiang says.

"Hmm. I need to contact the elders, but I'm going to press for them to let you preliminary become a Konoha nin until you leave on your journey. And if it goes as plan you can go after them and give them support." Tsunade tells him, getting up to talk to the council.

"Just wait here." She tells him, pointing at the couch in the Hokage office.

An hour later Tsunade returns, holding her head.

"Looks like it'd have been easier for you to go after the Uchiha yourself." Jiang says amused.

"No kidding. Here, you're now officially a Konoha Genin, now go after the others and try to bring them back alive" Tsunade says, handing him a forehead protector before taking his spot on the couch and lying down.

"I don't envy your job." He tells her sympathetically.

"Yeah, it's not as fancy as my grandfather made it seem." Tsunade sighs and Jiang leaves the room, heading to the Yamanaka shop.

"Hey, I just wanted to let you know I'm heading out, after that teammate of yours." Jiang tells Ino, who's at the counter.

"OK, take care." She says, nodding at her father, who's within hearing shot in the back of the store.

"Got it, see you soon." He says, with a smile, leaving with Ino blowing him a kiss.

After leaving the store, he heads to the gate and goes after the rescue team, spotting the arrows left for him with ease.

After half an hour of traveling he sees a large chunk of forest missing, with a dead body of an oto nin inside.

"Hmm, looks like they did run into resistance." Jiang says, looking at the corpse before spotting a thin, unconscious Choji sitting against a tree.

Jiang then summons a Tiger and loads the Genin on its back.

"Take him back to Konoha. Just straight in that direction." He tells the summon, before following the arrows further, 15 minutes later arriving upon another battlefield, where Neji lies in front of a 6 armed oto nin.

"What's with them passing out in a fight? Oh, he's extremely weak."

He then summons another Tiger, telling it to bring Neji to Konoha as well, after he put some first aid bandages around the two arrow wounds in his body, which are the most dangerous injuries.

He then speeds after the rest and arrives soon after next to Shikamaru.

"Just got here." He says.

"Choji, Neji?" Shikamaru asks.

"On their way back. Both passed out, but I think they'll be good." He informs him.

"Good. Go after Naruto, he went after a newcomer. He gave me a weird vibe." Shikamaru says.

"Alright, which direction?" He asks.

"Behind her." Shikamaru says.

"K, don't die." He tells him, before speeding after Naruto.

"You didn't try to stop him." Shikamaru tells his female opponent surprised.

"I doubt Kimimaro will have a problem with him and he doesn't need to know that that guy passed by me." Tayuya says.

"Fine, easier for us." Shikamaru says, shrugging.

Jiang arrives in a vast field soon after, seeing Naruto facing off against a white haired guy holding a bone with Sasuke taking off into the forest behind the unknown man.

"Hey. Your backup just arrived. Shall I take him and you try to beat some sense into your teammate?" Jiang asks Naruto.

"Are you sure?" Naruto asks.

"Look who you're talking to. I'm the guy who forced Orochimaru himself to flee on two occasions." Jiang says.

"Alright, just be careful this guy's strong. His bones are actually harder than steel." Naruto says.

"Hmm, good to know, now go." Jiang says, looking at Kimimaro.

"You're going nowhere." Kimimaro shouts, trying to slash at Naruto, who's taking off after Sasuke.

"You, you're fighting me now. Let those two duke it out themselves." Jiang says, standing in his way, blocking the strike with his double bladed trident.

Kimimaro jumps back a bit, but as soon as he lands Jiang is already slashing at his stomach, leaving a nasty cut, before Kimimaro jumps back again, dodging Jiang's next attack where he swirls the weapon around his waist and stabs at the opponent with the other blades.

"Hmm. Only grazed you." Jiang says.

"You are fast. But what will you do now?" Kimimaro says, sprouting piercing sharp bones from his forearms and his ribs, covering his front in sharp bones.

"Hah, what technique is that anyways?" Jiang asks surprised.

"It's a kekkei genkai." Kimimaro says.

"Hmmm. I got one too, but mine doesn't do anything like that." Jiang says.

"Well I'm the last of my clan." He tells him.

"Well, you were the last pretty soon." Jiang says, shining with blue lightning around him and appears behind Kimimaro, stabbing him in his lower back, only for his trident to pierce only finger deep, before stopping. Jiang then dashes backwards, dodging the new bones piercing out his back with ease.

"So you can change them internally too." Jiang sighs disappointed.

"And here I was hoping for a quick fight." Jiang says.

"Want some help?" A new voice is heard and Gaara flies in next to Jiang on a cloud of Sand.

"Gaara? What are you doing here?" Jiang asks surprised.

"We're here to assist Konoha." Gaara tells him.

"We? Is Temari here too?" Jiang questions, before blocking some fingertip bones Kimimaro shoots at the two of them, picking them out of the air with his lightning cloak enhanced speed.

"Hey, people are talking here." Jiang says annoyed.

"Yes, both my sisters are assisting the two other members of your team." Gaara says.

"Two? Hah, I missed one then." Jiang says shrugging his shoulders.

"So, how do you like your odds against that guy?" Jiang asks Gaara.

"I can deal with him." Gaara says unmoving.

"Let me give it one more shot." Jiang says, throwing his weapon in the air, getting Kimimaro's attention on it and appears on Kimimaro's side, stabbing at his chest with his four finger spear, but has about the same result as with his trident, easily ripping through the skin and damages the bones, but not much of the mans internal organs.

"OK, your turn. I'll need you to stall for, a few minutes maybe." Jiang says, going behind the suna nin, who then tries to use his sand coffin on Kimimaro, but does only little damage. Gaara then uses a jutsu with which he calls forth a tsunami of sand, changing the entire landscape and burying Kimimaro in the sand, attempting to crush him again.

Kimimaro survives however with his internal bone armor, having long since stepped into the first stage of the curse mark.

Kimimaro then uses his second stage, his skin blackish with a spiked tail behind him, reaches behind his head after climbing out of the sand and rips out his spike, which is like a whip with sharp spikes. The oto-nin whips with his spike around Gaara, forming a bone drill on his other hand, while Gaara shielded himself from the whip with a layer of sand between the whip and himself. Gaara upon seeing the drill uses his best defense justu, casting it in front of him, around the whip. The jutsu forms into a giant sand person with humongous belly, which acts as a shield.

Kimimaro starts to drill into the sand with no success, his drill breaking with only minor damage to Gaara's jutsu. In that moment Jiang gets his jutsu ready, holding his right arm much like Sasuke holds his chidori, with his right hand having three fingers sticking out together crackling with raiton chakra.

"3-finger-spear." Jiang's voice is heard before he pierces through Gaara's defense effortlessly, continuing his way towards Kimimaro and takes out a third of the man's body by stabbing him and slicing upwards, easily going through his bone armor.

"Alright. We did it." Jiang says, huffing from concentration, before the eartg below them shakes and bone spikes shoot up all across the field, the size of trees. Gaara quickly levitates the two of them to safety with sand clouds.

"He was a formidal opponent." Gaara says, not seeing Kimimaro appearing from the bone spike behind him.

"Gaara!" Jiang shouts, unconsciously absorbing nature chakra and attempts to use his four-finger-spear, which, due to the nature chakra turns into blue crackling cats claws. When he slashes at Kimimaro, before the man can hurt Gaara with his bone sword the result is four enormous lightning slashes cutting through all of the bone spikes, as well as a large portion of the forest beyond that.

"Jiang?" Gaara asks after recovering from his initial shock at Kimimaro still being alive.

"Sorry, I'm gonna pass out now." Jiang says, shivering with his arm, with which he slashed Kimimaro bleeding and burned on the inside of his fingers and true to his word he loses consciousness.

"What destructive power." Gaara says, while he's flying over the destroyed bones and forest until he sees Temari fly next to him on her fan with Shikamaru and Kankuro also showing himself, his puppet flying up to them.

"Get on." Gaara says, getting Temari, Shikamaru as well as Kiba a d his dog ontop of his sand cloud, which he enlarges.

"What happened?" Temari asks immediately upon seeing Jiang unconscious, bleeding from his arm.

"I... don't know. He saved me though." Gaara admits, while Temari wraps bandages around his arm tightly.

"So I'm guessing those lightning streaks were from Jiang?" Shikamaru asks, getting a nod positive in return.

"Where is Naruto?" Kiba asks.

"He wasn't there when I arrived. Neither was Sasuke." Gaara says.

"Was there a box?" Shikamaru asks.

"No." Gaara says.

"I assume Naruto went ahead then to follow Sasuke. The bad thing is that the one who knows which direction they went is out cold." Shikamaru says grumpily.

"Would you have preferred he let my brother die?" Temari asks defensively.

"Of course not. But I'm responsible for the ninjas on this mission. Including Naruto." Shikamaru says.

"And Jiang. Look it's Naruto. He can handle himself." Kankuro tells Shikamaru.

"I hope so, because we can't help him now." Shikamaru says.

"Hey, what about Choji and Neji? Shouldn't we look for them?" Kiba asks.

"Jiang already send them back to Konoha. They won but both were unconscious and pretty hurt." Shikamaru tells them what Jiang reported to him.

After half an hour or so the group arrives in Konoha.

"You're back. How'd it go?" A Chunin standing guard asks when the group fly in through the gate.

"Where is Tsunade?" Shikamaru asks.

"At the hospital." The Chunin informs him.

"I know." Gaara says, already turning and flying them to the hospital, where he lands them on the roof, his sand reentering his gourd.

"I got him." Temari says, handing off her fan to Kankuro and hurries into the hospital.

"Jiang." Tsunade gasps, upon seeing Temari round the corner with the hurt Warrior.

"Bring him in here, with Choji and Neji." Tsunade says, leading Temari and the rest into the room, helping her lie down Jiang on an empty bed.

She then scans him with her healing jutsu.

"He'll live. But the chakra network in his left arm and his fingers are damaged. I think I can repair it, but he'll need a long time to recover until he's back to normal." Tsunade says, while making Kiba sit down on a bed with his dog, looking both over and treating their wounds with first aid.

"What happend out there? Jiang might be able to go head to head with Orochimaru or me."

"He saved me. I was careless for a moment and I think he didn't have enough time to properly form his jutsu, because the result was different." Gaara says heavy heartedly.

"Well at least they are all back alive. Neji is hurt pretty bad though, without Jiang's speedy help he might already be dead." Tsunade tells them, seeing Shikamaru look at his unconscious team, beating himself up for doing a sloppy job in protecting his comrades.

"Come on, let's get a free room and you can repoet to me what happened." Tsunade tells Shikamaru and the suna nins.

"Can I stay with Jiang?" Temari asks.

"Sure. I assume you can fill in for her?" Tsunade agrees, looking at Shikamaru.

"Yes." He says with a raspy voice, looking at Choji concerned.

Maybe 10 minutes after the group arrives in the hospital Temari hears running in the halls of the hospital and sees Sakura and Ino standing in the door, looking over each bed.

"Jiang." Ino says worried, hurrying over to Temari, sitting down across from the fellow blonde, giving her a curt smile and nod.

"Where's Sasuke?" Sakura asks devastated.

"Naruto went after him, we assume. We haven't hurt from them yet." Temari says.

"How's he?" Ino asks the suna girl, her hand gently touching Jiang's shoulder.

"He'll make it. His hand is hurt though and will need time to recover completely." Temari informs the blonde, looking at Ino's hand suspiciously.

"I didn't know you two were so close..." Temari says, while Sakura left to look for Tsunade.

"It only happend after everything with the Chunin exam. We haven't even had time to get something to eat together yet." Ino sighs disappointed.

"Looks like I missed my chance huh?" Temari says smiling disappointed.

"No, not necessarily. Don't tell anyone, but Jiang may be required to have multiple wives because he's establishing a new clan in Konoha." Ino says.

"Multiple... and you're on board with that?" Temari asks surprised.

"Hard to say. I understand why and I accept it, but I'm not getting a fuzzy happy feeling in my gut, knowing he may be in the arms of another woman the next day." Ino says honestly, her hand playing with his hair.

"So if one of those women were me?" Temari tries to ask innocently.

"Oh, right you don't know. I know what exactly happened between you two, I was in his head for a bit. Long story anyways, I'm relatively confident in saying that if you were to ask him he'd jump on the chance. He really loved... loves you." Ino tells her sympathetically.

"Thank you. I know how hard it must've been for you to tell me that." Temari says.

"Well, better I know what's going on and what to expect from the relationship instead of getting blindsided." Ino replies.

Unknown to the two Kunoichi, Anko overheard most of the conversation, a bento box of Dango in her hands, having hurried over to the hospital upon hearing that Jiang is in the hospital.

"Anko?" Kurenai asks, seeing her friend stand in front of the room and glances inside, seeing the two girls at Jiang's bed.

"Come with me for a moment." Kurenai says, entering a free room with her.

"What is it?" Anko asks.

"I know you, you don't have to pretend. You liked him. And well I have some knowledge you will want to have, now that he's staying in Konoha." Kurenai says.

"What?" Anko asks.

"He never used you. Not in the way you think. I confronted him about it and he told me he's looking into ways to remove your mark. That's why he wanted to know about Orochimaru and his research." Kurenai explains.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Anko asks sadly.

"He asked me not to. He expected to leave after the Chunin exam and travel and wanted to make things easier on you." Kurenai tells her.