Chapter 36

(With Sasuke – Ta no Kuni/Hi no Kuni Border Area – Nighttime)

Sasuke shook the cobwebs off after getting hit in the face harder than he had ever cared to get hit in his ninja career. Even Chouji never hit him that hard because they pulled punches more often than not when they sparred. He got back up to his feet with a kunai in hand from his supply pouch as he bled from his lip and his Sharingan eyes scanned the whole immediate vicinity of the forest.

"I can't believe I actually hit you with that punch. I figured that you Uchiha Clan members had more of a kick to you than that." With that, the young man that had hit Sasuke, the one with the grey hair, pale skin, and turquoise lipstick, came towards him into clear and plain view.

Hearing the confident voice of the teen slightly older than Sasuke that came walking calmly from the trees to face off with him, the newly minted Konoha chunin narrowed his eyes and wiped the blood from his mouth, "Get over here and I'll show you just how much 'kick' I have once I kick your ass."

"You Konoha trash are so weak."

"Let's find out if that's true or not."

Sasuke rushed forward to attack his opponent, wondering where the rest of his team happened to be for a split second before he launched his kunai at the enemy. With a grin that could be easily seen by Sasuke's sharp eyes even in the nighttime shadows of the forest, the strange young man dodged the blade before eating a kick right in his stomach from Sasuke that sucked the air and spittle right out of him, 'He's fast.' He reacted and tried to deliver a punch to Sasuke but missed and watched as Sasuke back handsprang out of his physical attack range, smirking at him after landing a blow without retaliation.

"Great reflexes." Sasuke quipped sarcastically, "I'm going to run circles around you all night if that's what you've got. And you say that we're weak?"

A glare came Sasuke's way before the Oto shinobi laughed, placing his hand over his right eye, covering it as he pushed his bang up, "I like that. Your trash-talk needs work, but that wit of yours is almost as quick as you are. My name is Sakon."

"I don't give a damn." Sasuke replied, his smirk dropping and being replaced with his usual cold, stoic demeanor, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Sakon clicked his tongue in a chiding fashion and wagged a finger at Sasuke, setting the boy off again, "What am I doing here? You are trespassing on the border of a sovereign country. Just because Konoha apparently rules the roost in this region doesn't mean you can just do as you like. Your little village isn't as strong as they like to make you think they are… and neither are you."

That was all Sasuke needed to hear from some guy that had randomly jumped him and his team and had separated him from them. He needed to defeat this guy and get past to reach them and find out what had happened to them. If he didn't already have enough motivation, now he was pissed off at this random person declaring him as weak without even fighting him first. Well he was going to change that tune to the beat of Sasuke dancing on his head in a few moments.

Sasuke rushed back in to attack him with his taijutsu, trading punches and kicks with nothing that had any substance landing for either ninja. Sasuke wound up being knocked back a few steps with a hard double palm thrust to the chest that knocked him back-first into a tree with Sakon following up, attempting a hard haymaker of a punch, "Tarenken (Multiple Connecting Fists)!"

From Sakon's punching arm at the elbow two other arms seemed to suddenly appear to hit Sasuke along with the original fist coming at him from the middle of the three. There was no way he was going to stick around in front of that to be hit with three punches all at the same time again, not after taking it the first time.

Sasuke ducked out of the way of the punches and watched the hit crack the wood of the tree upon contact, 'What a powerful punch.' But instead of marveling at Sakon's strength to deal such damage to a sturdy tree with one attack, Sasuke chose to launch a counterattack of his own, drawing a kunai from the pouch on his thigh and bringing it around in a stabbing motion meant to drive into Sakon's neck to end the fight.

Until an arm reached out from the back of Sakon's shoulder and stopped Sasuke's stab by grabbing his wrist, "Good try." Sakon said with a smirk, his back still turned to Sasuke as the wrongly placed arm that had suddenly sprouted continued to hold onto him, "For such a nice effort I think I'll give you a hand." A second arm sprouted from the back of Sakon's other shoulder and nailed Sasuke with a punch to the face that knocked him back. Sakon whirled around and then threw a kick, "Tarenkyaku (Multiple Connected Feet)!"

From Sakon's hip joint, two more legs seemed to momentarily sprout and deliver simultaneous kicks to Sasuke's body. A dark grin came over his face at the feeling of Sasuke's abdominal muscles giving way as he bashed his ribs with the attack.

With Sasuke's defenses down due to the successful kick, Sakon began gleefully pummeling Sasuke with his bare hands, not letting up and giving Sasuke the needed second to analyze his move and counter with his incomplete Sharingan, "Like I said, you're weak! You might be able to slap around wimpy thugs and bandits, and you might be able to beat any other insect your age, but compared to a real true elite of Otogakure you're a lightweight! I'm one of Orochimaru-sama's elites! The very best!"

Sasuke was knocked to the ground, his vision swimming from the repeated punches he had been taking to the face and head but his mind still working even as he was hoisted off of the ground by the collar of his vest, 'Orochimaru. He was a Konoha ninja wasn't he? One of Hokage-sama's students just like the Tsunade woman that healed me after the exams. But he left after committing a bunch of crimes.'

"Stay with me now!" Sakon ordered, socking Sasuke in the belly one good time before tossing him out of his flak jacket to the ground and holding it up, "They'll give these to anyone in your village won't they? Now I'm not saying that you're not good because you are… but from the stories I've heard, you're no Itachi." He then felt Sasuke's fist buried firmly in his stomach, doubling him over in agony.

"Don't you ever mention that man's name in front of me." Sasuke said lowly in a dangerous tone of voice, "You don't know the first thing about anything, so don't compare us, or use his name like you're familiar."

Even with Sasuke's punch sucking the wind out of his lungs, Sakon smirked and wheezed out a response, "Hit a nerve did I? You're run-of-the-mill compared to Itachi. Or are you a secret ANBU captain and no one knew about it?" He lifted his hands in a double-sledgehammer blow but was cut off by a rising kick that sent Sakon into the air. Even though an extra pair of arms came from his body to block the kick, Sasuke's foot went right through his attempted defense, 'The Sharingan… it lets him adjust in a split second. That's absurd.'

"Rank doesn't mean anything to me." Sasuke said as he flew through the air, matching Sakon's trajectory right beneath him as if he were his shadow, "Kage Buyou (Shadow of the Dancing Leaf)." Something he had managed to gleam and copy from Rock Lee during the exams and the Team Gai/Team Asuma matchup.

'How did he get there without me even noticing?' Sakon thought, gritting his teeth angrily.

"The only reason I care about being a chunin so that I can keep on getting stronger and testing myself so that I'll know when I'm ready for him." The alarmed Sakon tried to turn in the air and punch Sasuke, but the moment he made even the slightest move Sasuke shifted to the opposite side that he was turning towards and delivered a hard kick that pushed him above Sakon and began sending him down to the ground. He then quickly smashed him with a backhand and then spun through with a hard front punch as the ground got closer faster and faster. Sasuke then finished the combination in time with Sakon hitting the ground, delivering a smashing ax kick to his sternum, "Shishi Rendan (Lion Combo)!"

After delivering the final blow that smashed Sakon into the forest floor, Sasuke rolled back away from him and got his distance, turning his eyes towards where Sakon dropped his flak jacket. Sneering one last time at someone that had disrespected something that Sasuke had broken his body to obtain, he walked over and picked up the padded article of clothing before putting it back on and zipping it up.

"And this is what toying with your enemy gets you in the end Sakon."

"Shut up Ukon… all you do is sleep so I wouldn't expect you to get the concept of trying to have fun."

"And look at what your 'fun' has gotten you; all beaten up by our person of interest."

"I said shut up! I can still fight!"

Sasuke turned around to believe that his eyes were playing tricks on him. Instead of just Sakon he saw a mirror image of Sakon standing there over the bruised and beaten one taking a knee that Sasuke had sworn he had just finished putting down hard, "No way. You should be out cold after that."

"And he would have been." The second identical Oto ninja Ukon said, gesturing his head down to his apparent brother, "Luckily I'm such a caring brother and I broke his fall to keep you from breaking his back and sternum."

'So that's where the extra limbs came from.' Sasuke mentally deduced, setting himself in a fighting stance to prepare for more fighting, 'Somehow this guy was inside of the other one. How freaky.'

Sakon stood back up, glaring angrily at Sasuke, but before he could walk over to continue fighting him Ukon put a hand on his shoulder to hold him back and spoke up, "No, we've had enough of you trying to do that. Do you know how much time you've wasted? From now on we handle this my way." As he said that, black markings spread from his forehead around his entire body, "And my way is quicker."

"Tch." Sakon sounded quite displeased at his fight being hijacked by his twin brother, but listened anyway and activated his own seal that formed his own black markings all over his body.

'This is not good.' Sasuke said as his eyes could see the foul chakra radiating off of their bodies, 'They both seem at least twice as strong now.'

XxX

(Kakashi vs. Jiroubou)

"You're very strong, but you're very slow." Kakashi commented as he dodged a tree being picked up and thrown at him by jumping over it while it slid through and tore up the ground, "Are you sure you were the proper member of your team to come and fight me?"

Instead of before when Jiroubou simply had the black markings on his skin he was now red-skinned with tough looking bumps on his shoulders and forehead, with his orange Mohawk turning into a mane going down his back, and with black eyes with yellow irises, "I'm all that's needed. With this power that Orochimaru has gifted me with I can even overcome the likes of you Hatake." He then smashed the ground with his palm, kicking up a lot of rocks and chunks of earth as well as causing a mini-tremor to rattle the woods.

Kakashi's footing was momentarily compromised and Jiroubou took full advantage of that when he seemed to reach down onto the ground and rip up a massive lump of the ground over his head as if it were nothing, 'What kind of strength does this seal on the boy give the user?' Kakashi wondered in shock as the fear creeping into his heart at the fates of his students began to set it, 'He said that everyone on his team had a similar ability.'

"Doton: Doryou Dango (Earth Release: Earth Mausoleum Dumpling)!"

Jiroubou chucked the large mass of earth at Kakashi and smirked when he heard the attack hit the ground with a booming crash as it slid across the ground, eventually crashing into a row of trees as it came to a stop, leaving a massive drag mark along the ground where it had been sliding.

From behind Jiroubou, Kakashi's arms popped up out of the ground and grabbed a hold of the Oto ninja's ankles, "Doton: Shinjuu Zanshu no-!"

"No you don't!" The powerful young man immediately reached down and grabbed Kakashi's arms, pulling him out of the ground by them before viciously slamming him into the ground, "Just die already you trash!" Once he crushed Kakashi's body between his and the ground with the slam, the body of the Sharingan-wielding shinobi disappeared in a puff of smoke. Jiroubou got up off of the ground and turned around once he heard the sound of electricity crackling. With a gasp he saw Kakashi's hand building up lightning chakra and struck the ground with his hands once Kakashi began rushing forward at him, "Doton: Doroku Gaeshi (Earth Release: Earth Shore Return)!"

A wall rose up from the ground in front of Jiroubou, blocking Kakashi from coming right at him with the dangerous ninjutsu in his right hand, but before Jiroubou could spring back and move away from the wall since he figured Kakashi would punch through it, he turned his head to the side to see Kakashi there, having not moved to destroy the wall at all, only choosing to go around it.

"Raikiri (Lightning Cutter)!"

Jiroubou immediately began choking on his own blood when he found Kakashi's right hand shoved right into his left side, forearm deep as the only thing keeping him alive happened to be the electricity coursing through his body. His strange transformation began to recede and return him to his normal appearance as he tried in vain to clutch at Kakashi's arm with any kind of strength as he sank to his knees on the ground.

"The eye lets me adjust to sudden changes in the environment of the battlefield, even things as quick as your defensive wall coming up from the ground. It wasn't that wide, so I just went around it." Kakashi saw Jiroubou's eyes with panic and desperation in them as he gave the boy the last words he'd hear, "Sorry. I saw that opening that just screamed 'attack'… so I did." He then pulled his arm out of Jiroubou's chest and let him sink backwards on his knees dead.

Kakashi at least spared a second from that point afterward to make sure Jiroubou was lain down in a more dignified position and his eyes were closed.

He shook his head at the sight, "…Way too young for this." He then thought about his comment and shook his head, "No he wasn't. And nether are my kids." He said to himself before looking at Jiroubou's blood on his hand and making a set of hand-seals, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!" Slamming the bloody hand onto the ground in a puff of smoke a pack of dogs varying in size and breed appeared in front of him, "You know what Sakura, Sasuke, and Chouji smell like. I want you to split up and locate them. Now!"

With affirming barks, the ninja hounds set out to do just that, with Kakashi making a corresponding Kage Bunshin for each half of the pack of dogs as they split up into two groups and took off in separate directions.

XxX

(Naruto, Shikamaru, Ino, and Idate vs. Guren – Cha no Kuni – Northern Docks of Degarashi Port - Nightfall)

Guren stood on the railing of the ship she had revealed herself to Team 10 from and smirked down at them as they and Idate all looked ready to anticipate an attack from her, "If I attacked all of you there wouldn't be a second one, so why don't you all jus go ahead and give me your best shot. Maybe one of you will get lucky and you can take the fact that you got a hit on me to the grave."

"It's four-on-one here lady!" Naruto shouted up at her challengingly, "You can't beat us by yourself, so just leave town already, and tell Gato or whoever you're working for that he's not welcome here!"

"I'm only working for that worm Gato because he's got a deal going with my actual master. And it wouldn't matter if it was fifty of you against one of me. You still wouldn't have a prayer of winning against here." Guren said confidently, not even looking down at the kids before her as a threat, especially the boisterous blonde kid with the orange clothes and the goggles on his head.

Naruto growled at Guren and made the cross-seal with his index and middle fingers, "Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Mutiple Shadow Clone Jutsu)!" In a puff of smoke, dozens of Naruto clones lined the dock by the ship all glaring up at Guren, "Let's find out for sure!" All of the clones barked in unison before springing into action against Guren at once.

"Naruto wait!" Shikamaru yelled as he watched every copy of his fellow rookie chunin launch an attack right at Guren, "We don't know what she can do!"

"You should listen to your friend sweetie!" Guren said as she jumped off of her place on the ship over the top of all of Naruto's clones and the rest of the young ninja below her while making a decent amount of hand-seals, "Kesshou: Rokkaku Shuriken: Ranbu (Crystal: Hexagonal Shuriken: Wild Dance)!" From thin air she created and began to bombard them with a massive amount of shuriken, spinning rapidly like razor blades as they began picking Naruto's clones apart and forcing the others to dodge or be hit.

They retreated off of the dock back towards the warehouses amid the sounds of the shuriken thudding into the dock and the poof noises of Naruto's clones being dispelled. As they ran, Ino took a look at one of the weapons that had stabbed into the ground, "These look just like the snowflake looking thing that Naruto showed us at the stand!"

"So this woman attacked Boss Jirouchou!" Idate said angrily glaring back at Guren as he wished he was strong enough to make her pay right then.

The remaining twenty clones of Naruto had warily drawn their machetes as they walked slowly towards Guren who had landed on the dock, still smirking at Naruto and his doppelgangers as they continued to advance her way.

'Okay… that was really impressive.' Naruto thought to himself as he walked forward carefully with his clones, 'This lady moves fast and all of those shuriken came from nowhere. I've got to slow her down.' With that thought, Naruto planned to use his clones to try and box her in to overwhelm her. Guren had other plans however.

She made four more hand-seals, getting Naruto's clones to tense in preparation until she chuckled, "You want to play taijutsu with me? That's just fine. Shouton: Suishou Tou (Crystal Release: Jade Crystal Blade)!" A long arm blade formed from the back of her forearm to extend over her fist before she ran headlong into Naruto's clones.

Without fanfare she began hacking and slashing her way through the crowd indiscriminately. Her movements were so fast, Naruto's mental feedback from the demise of his clones happened to be the only thing that protected the original as he was able to track Guren's trail of destruction before she gave him a new breathing hole in his throat as he blocked her with his machete, letting out a panicked breath as he realized just how close he came to not even seeing the attack coming.

Guren shoved Naruto back and prepared to strike at him again before she saw a flash of purple and dove away from Naruto as a trio of senbon whizzed past her body. Her attention momentarily diverted by Ino, Guren barely redirected her attention back to Naruto in time to lean back out of the way of a horizontal swipe of his machete. Guren kicked Naruto in the side of the head when leaning back, knocking him away from her.

"Dokusei Tanki-sha (Toxic Spitfire)!"

Ino spat several purple poisonous globs at Guren forcing her to jump away from them, but as she watched her own trajectory she saw an unnaturally long shadow along the ground rushing to where she was about to make a landing. The moment her feet made contact with the ground she jumped away from the shadow, tracing it with her eyes back to Shikamaru who was intently focusing on pursuing her with the jutsu.

In a method of evasion, Guren jumped from the dock onto the side of the ship, watching as Shikamaru's shadow couldn't bridge the divide from the dock to the ship across the water. A kunai sank itself into the side of the ship where she was standing that she evaded by moving up and landing on the deck, "Is that the best you've got kids? Run on back to your parents before I really hurt you."

And apparently they took her advice because before she had even started talking, Naruto and Ino had been hauling ass away from the scene. What she didn't see was what had been attached to the kunai that had stuck into the ship. Hanging from the ring of the kunai on a strand of ninja wire was a rather large ball of explosive tags at least fifteen wrapped together with one on the surface burning down.

BOOM

A massive explosion rocked the entire side of the ship, sending debris, wood, supplies, and even the deck that Team 10 had been standing on flying in a fiery blast that was impressive even by Naruto's slightly pyromaniacal standards.

"Yeah!" Naruto, goggles over his eyes so that he could look at the blast safely, cheered exuberantly with his hands in the air victoriously, "If an explosion doesn't solve your problems then you're just not using enough explosives, dattebayo! How do you like us now crystal lady?"

Ino sighed as she looked into her supply pouch, "You couldn't just use all of your own tags for that? You had to waste all of mine too Goldie-kun?"

Idate, who had been hanging back with Shikamaru as he lacked any weapons or ninjutsu to fight Guren with, grabbed his head in something of a panic, "You can't just blow up ships and docks like that! Who's the hell's going to pay for all of this?" Idate pointed at the destroyed dock with wooden remnants in flames and the sinking ship with smoke and fire billowing up into the sky from it.

"It's Gato's." Shikamaru commented in a rather uncaring manner, "Who cares? We just took out your boss's assassin. I think he'd rather pay the damages for the docks than be dead." He then saw that Idate hadn't lowered his hand from pointing, nor had he taken his eyes away from the flaming ship, "What's the matter?" He looked over at the ship again and widened his eyes, "Troublesome…"

Sticking out of the water behind the flaming ship and looking like an iceberg was a massive gathering of crystal with Guren standing at the top of it as it floated, "Yeah…" Guren said in a completely unamused tone at almost getting blown up in what she saw as a fluke, "You've all got to die."

'She still doesn't have a scratch on her.' Shikamaru thought to himself before shaking Idate's shoulder, "I want you to run and find Asuma-sensei, fast. Tell him we're fighting someone strong and to get over here. The further this stays away from the Wasabi or Wagarashi houses or the town in general the better things are."

Idate nodded and immediately from beneath his leg-warmers he dropped a pair of weights that hit the ground with a crash and took off running at an absurd speed to leave the port area and head back into town.

Guren watched him leave with a scoff and turned her attention back to the trio of young Konoha genin, "And you're sending for help to boot. It's too bad that by the time he finds who he's looking for your blood will be cold on the ground."

Naruto's slackjawed expression at seeing Guren unharmed from the sheer amount of explosive tags that he had used to make sure he took her out gave way to a look of determination, "Come and try it then! I'll send whatever you throw at me right back at you twenty-fold!"

Guren jumped off of her floating crystal onto the concrete that ran alongside the length ocean for most of the docks, still looking very grave and ill-tempered. No smirk, no snide comments. With a motion of her hands she began running forward as a disk-shaped wheel of crystal formed around her that tore through the ground as she ran directly at Team 10 with a dangerous speed.

Knowing that if it could tear up the ground it would slice them into ribbons, all three of them dove out of her way. But when she passed them she abandoned the wheel and hurriedly assaulted all three, leveling Ino with a nasty punch to the face and a kick that knocked her away onto her back before dodging a retaliation machete swing from Naruto and nailing him with one of her own. Shikamaru saw that in the moonlight and in the light from the nearby fire he could identify a sheen on her skin underneath her clothing that was a translucent layer of crystal she formed like some kind of armor.

'Who is this woman?' Shikamaru thought to himself as she turned her attention towards him and dove out of the way of a kick that was aimed at him before he tossed a few shuriken at her, 'She can deal with all three of us. We haven't come close to hitting her yet.' Guren began steadily focusing her attack on Shikamaru as she was not going to risk being caught by his shadow and immobilized.

He was never one for taijutsu but he was being forced into a hand-to-hand battle, and as Shikamaru tried to defend himself against Guren's swift and accurate crystal-lined punches that steadily began to quickly bruise and cut his face he wondered just what kind of skill other Otogakure shinobi had.

Ino had by then gotten up and had drawn a kunai to help Shikamaru fight in close with, but as she attacked Guren from behind she ate a malicious back kick to her face that knocked her away. Naruto jumped back into the fray with his clones and his machete, but Guren grabbed Shikamaru by the collar of his flak vest and threw him at the copies of Naruto to get rid of most of them and to get them to lower their weapons so they didn't hurt Shikamaru by accident.

After beating the rest of Naruto's clones into smoke, Guren began quickly looking around for the real Naruto and saw him swinging his machete by his chain with one hand while making a one-handed ram seal, "Suishinki Haretsu Bunkatsu-sen (Propeller Burst Splitter)!" He yelled before blowing wind chakra into the spinning machete blade.

The cylindrical blast of bladed wind coming her way had Guren blocking with her arms in front of her face, but Naruto's attack only blew her backwards until she ground her feet in tightly and left nicks and gashes at best in her crystal armor. She rushed directly at Naruto through the force of his wind until she could break out of the affected area of the jutsu. From there she rushed at him and held one hand out that got within inches of him, just short of actually touching him.

Naruto thought he had dodged her and was preparing to see if her crystal armor could take a slash from a wind-coated chakra blade, but her next words stopped that course of action short.

"Shouton: Kesshou Gokakurou (Crystal Release: Crystal Pentagonal Prison)!"

It was almost surreal to watch as Naruto was entirely encased in crystal that emerged from the ground and ripped through the concrete, freezing him in time with a bewildered look on his face while mid-swing with his machete as if he could feel an irregularity prior to being trapped.

Guren looked at her own work of art, with Naruto fossilized inside of the crystal by way of her jutsu, "That's much better. Now I won't have that brat's grating voice murdering my ears. You're much more bearable stuck in a crystal." She said, patting the structure that held Naruto frozen and unresponsive.

"Naruto." Shikamaru couldn't believe what she had just seen, "She didn't even touch him. He dodged her and she still got him with whatever she did." Guren didn't have to touch anything to encase it in crystal as long as it was merely in the near vicinity. But it was different when it was just thin air. She had just encased their friend in the middle of a crystal. He turned towards Ino and saw her hands covering her open mouth in horror as she stared at Naruto, "Ino come on, you've got to snap out of it."

Ino wanted to walk towards him, to touch him to see if it was actually real. He wasn't moving a muscle. He wasn't even blinking, "Goldie-kun… he's alright isn't he?" She asked Shikamaru, desperately wanting to hear a yes, "Shika, he's going to be alright once we get him out of there right? We can chisel him out somehow can't we?"

"I wouldn't do that." Guren said matter-of-factly, rapping a knuckle on the crystal that encased Naruto, "If you break the crystal you'll break him too. He'll flitter through the air just like particles of the prison. But hey, at least he'll make a good decoration for someone's living room. And you're all next."

Shikamaru placed a hand on Ino's shaking shoulder, "We can get him out of there after we find some way out of this. We can't do anything to help him if we're dead, okay?" Ino nodded reluctantly, wiping gathering tears out of her eyes as she glared murderously at Guren.

That was pretty much all Ino needed to hear, as if she needed another reason to want to finish off Guren, "Dokugiri (Poison Mist)!" Ino exhaled a purple cloud of gas from her mouth that forced Guren to dodge, and as she did, Shikamaru's shadow appeared from the cloud that had been obscuring her vision to try and make contact with her.

'Damn it!' Shikamaru grit his teeth as his shadow continued to give chase, pushing Guren further away from Naruto's crystal-encased body, 'I can't even start to use my new jutsu until I catch her with the Kagemane no Jutsu!' Was he going to have to get inventive to try and trap her somehow? 'I really don't want to use the other jutsu I learned… but I can't be picky at a time like this.'

"Shikamaru, watch my body." Ino said not leaving any room for argument as she made a special hand-seal that joined the index, pinkie, and thumb fingers of both hands to take aim at Guren.

Shikamaru heard that and was about to stop her from trying to hit such a fast moving target with her clan jutsu, but he noticed that Ino's hands were in a different seal than it would have been for the Shintenshin no Jutsu, 'That's not how she fires her consciousness for Shintenshin… is this her new jutsu?'

"Shinjoueishin no Jutsu (Mind Body Projection Jutsu)!" Ino shouted before her body fell limp, and from the lifeless body rose a spectral avatar of the blonde girl with a ghost-like lower half. Ghost-Ino looked over at Shikamaru's curious expression and grinned, "Yep, it's exactly what it looks like. I am a motherfucking ghost." She then turned towards Guren with a dark look on her face, "Ooh, I can't wait to possess you and do all kinds of messed up stuff to your body."

Ghost-Ino flew at Guren swiftly, with Guren creating a few crystal shuriken to throw at Ino. To her misfortune however, they just passed right through her and she was forced to dodge, not particularly knowing why Ino wanted to make contact with her, but also not willing to let something she just saw phase weaponry through her body get close.

Once Ino missed her kamikaze-like rush, Guren's attention turned back towards Shikamaru who was again attacking with his shadow, "Don't you get the point yet kid? Your shadow's too slow to get me as long as I'm paying attention to you. And there's no way I'm letting a Nara, even a brat like you, get a chance to connive behind my back." She then saw Ino's prone body nearby Shikamaru's and smirked again, a course of action set for her to take.

Before she could though, she had to move out of the way of another attack from Ino. This time from the air, as after the spectral divebomb missed, Ino's avatar passed through the ground. Guren jumped backwards hard to avoid Ino's next move to attack her blindspot from underneath and kicked a crate in the direction of Shikamaru's advancing shadow in order to give herself an extra second to put some more space between it and her.

When she did that though she found herself looking back up in the direction of Ino's spiritual figure, diving towards her again with intent to make contact. However Ino abruptly stopped short, no longer able to move any further forward.

Ino let out a gasp and tried to float further, but she was unable to do so despite every effort to reach ahead, "No, that can't be the limit! That's 150 feet?" She asked to no one in particular incredulously before turning back to Shikamaru, "She's out of my range!" She shouted in warning before a gigantic snowflake-looking crystal passed through her towards both Shikamaru and her body, "No!"

"Kesshou: Kyodai Rokkaku Shuriken (Crystal: Giant Hexagonal Shuriken)!"

"Shikamaru!" Ino shouted trying to get him to move. It was her own fault that her pursuit of Guren failed. If her body was to pay the price for not keeping track of her jutsu's own limit then that was her own problem and fault which was why she was poised to let out a bloodcurdling scream when she saw Shikamaru dive at her body and shove it out of the way of Guren's attack, letting the crystal blade rip into his own instead.

She was about to scream until she saw Shikamaru's body disappear in a puff of smoke.

"Ino get back into your body now!"

Without even turning to see where Shikamaru's voice was coming from due to the all-out authority he shouted at her with, Ino did just that, getting back into her body and sitting up with haste. There was no blood from Shikamaru, nothing he used to substitute himself with, nothing. How'd he get out of that?

"I take back what I used to think about how learning Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu) would be cool." Shikamaru said, panting heavily from his place by the corner of a nearby warehouse as a shadow from him continued to chase Guren around, 'It's exhausting… for just one clone. I was told I had the reserves for it, but I figured that meant I'd be able to do it and have enough chakra to fight almost at full capacity myself.'

Ino saw this and stood back up on her feet, "You jerk! Are you telling me Goldie-kun taught you that jutsu and he didn't teach me even when I asked him to?"

"Dad taught me that." Shikamaru clarified, as he had never even asked Naruto to do so, knowing that Naruto was forbidden from doing so, "I thought your ghost would keep Guren off-guard long enough for me to get into position to capture her, but you can't go that far from your body and she attacked. I had to make my move to keep her from trying another one while you were getting back." The sweat pouring down his face from exertion due to attempting to catch Guren with his shadow for so long was evident of his growing exhaustion.

He had split his chakra in half and used it to form a clone that had been throwing Guren off to make her believe it was still the original Shikamaru with its own shadow attack. This was after already extensively using his jutsu to direct her into attacks from both Ino and Naruto combined. Ino had never seen Shikamaru use his shadow so much before. By this point in a battle he had usually either captured their enemy, or had directed them into a finishing blow from her or Naruto.

"We can't get her..." Ino said with some desperation, "Even with the new stuff we learned. Just who is this person?" She then saw Shikamaru's shadow retract back to himself as he fell to his knees, trying to use the wall of the warehouse he was by to stand back up, "Come on Shika, please don't stay down! You have to get back-!" A sharp pain in her side later and Ino felt too much shock to continue speaking as she fell to the ground. Her clothes and her body felt wet but she didn't have the energy to lift her head and body to check how badly she was bleeding though.

Guren stood over Ino with blood dripping from her crystal arm blade reformed and prepared to finish her off and move on to the last Konoha ninja that stood before her when a kunai flew past her from behind, aimed badly. She turned and saw Shikamaru standing back up, leaning against the wall of the warehouse with his entire body. Beaten, bruised, bleeding from his nose and mouth, but still standing to face her, "You've got to have some kind of death wish kid. If you tried to run you might have had a chance at getting a good distance away while I finished your friend."

"Sorry." Shikamaru said, drawing another kunai to defend himself with, "I'm just not the kind of guy that would leave his friends behind. No matter how dumb that makes me seem."

Guren just stared at him wondering why even the kids from that village seemed to act this way. Will of Fire? Yeah, whatever, "You know, you look tired."

"I am tired."

"Then let me help you go to sleep."

Another large snowflake-looking crystal shuriken flew at Shikamaru and despite him pushing himself off of the wall it still cut deeply into him, making blood fly as he fell to the ground with a thud.

With a satisfied sounding sigh at her handiwork, Guren looked around the dock area at the fallen and motionless Shikamaru and Ino. She spared them one last glance before walking over to the crystallized Naruto observing him one last time before drawing her arm blade back to smash him into shards. Before she let fly with the punch though, she noticed something, "Hey, didn't this brat have blue eyes before?"

And she then had to cover her eyes once the crystal that used to imprison Naruto exploded and sent shards everywhere. While her eyes were closed a fist hit her right in the face and sent her bouncing along the ground like a ragdoll until she finally got back up. The thin layer of crystal that had been covering her skin cracked and fell off revealing her actual skin on her face as she looked at Naruto, "Well would you look at that."

Orange chakra was blazing around Naruto's body like fire and he had dropped his machete to the ground with a metal clang. His eyes indeed weren't blue any longer, they were red with vertical slits in them. His whisker-marks were darker and deeper in his cheeks than before and he was staring at Guren hatefully, "I saw everything."

"You should have been dead." Guren remarked matter-of-factly, "And now you're not. That's the chakra from the Kyuubi no Yoko isn't it?" She asked curiously, not even registering or caring that Naruto was angry, "You're more interesting than I thought. Your chakra must be pretty strong to survive being stuck in there for as long as you did."

The Kyuubi made him watch. When he was first trapped he immediately tried to tap into the Kyuubi's chakra to try and break free, but it laughingly denied him, even when he said that Guren would kill him and by proxy it if it didn't. Still, the Kyuubi assured him that he would survive for long enough to get its point across.

And he watched Shikamaru do their best and still fail. This was where the point was made right before the Kyuubi finally gave him the chakra he needed to break free and escape. It was the same point that the creature had been trying to make since the end of the chunin exams and his fight with Gaara.

"You're weak and without me you're nothing."

The nonchalant look on Guren's face as she observed him, not particularly caring that she had stricken down his friends, only added to his rage, and if it was the last thing he did he was going to vent some of that aggression on her.

XxX

(Asuma vs. Fuuma Clan)

It was like some kind of cheesy ghost town showdown scene. Asuma had sent the Wagarashi Family representatives away for their own safety, and because they would only get in his way, while he faced off with their three assassins in the middle of the deserted nighttime street. Representatives from Otogakure to boot.

Okay, that fight was doable for him. He was Sarutobi Asuma after all, and in his mind at least that meant something.

To begin, Asuma simply blitzed ahead, self-assured of his own taijutsu skills to handle three combatants at once with his trench knives and the chakra blades. Apparently they thought the same of his skills since they leapt away from him, not looking forward to getting into a fistfight with him. Not to be deterred, Asuma merely used this as a way to pinpoint which of them was the slowest.

His target for the moment identified as the easiest prey, Asuma diverted his direction to go after the bald man Jigumo. In one motion, Asuma cut right through the man with his chakra extensions from his trench knives, cleaving him in two. But once he did so, Jigumo's body turned into a mass of small spiders that began to try and spin webs around Asuma.

Asuma cut his way through the webbing but wound up getting his arms up to block a kunai attack from the dark-haired Kamikiri. He struggled against the man for a moment before kicking him away roughly.

"Kazegumo no Jutsu (Wind Spiders Jutsu)!"

Thick webs from the same spiders from before began to descend around Asuma as Kamikiri's boy rolled away on the ground from his kick. In response, Asuma began cutting through the webs to keep them from landing on him and tying him down.

A kunai flew at Asuma and a tilt of the man's head saw it whiz past him, but as he continued to cut through threads at a swift rate he felt something wrap around the back of his neck and saw the kunai swing around like it was attached to a rope. He saw a blue thread of chakra connecting it and went wide-eyed as he felt the chakra string wrap around his throat, barely able to get one hand with a few fingers in between to keep it from flat out strangling him on the spot.

This wound up with Kamikiri yanking him forward with the chakra thread and dragging him down onto the dusty street. An angry Asuma cut himself free with his wind chakra coated trench knife and got back up to his feet only for Jigumo and Kagerou's hunchbacked form to slam into him and smash him through a wall.

Kamikiri rushed towards the hole in the building to assist his teammates in possibly finishing off the Konoha jounin only for both of them to be hurled out of the wall through newly made holes, stopping him from going inside. He huddled over his teammates and helped them back to their feet as they then saw a small spark of fire coming from inside one of the holes in the wall they had just punched through.

"Kagerou, get him now!" Kamikiri yelled, seeing an opening for them to take advantage of.

"Katon: Kasumi Enbu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Mist Blaze Dance Jutsu)!"

Kagerou's mouth opened and blew out a gas that sprayed into the building, and when it came into contact with the small wisp of flame that they had seen inside it blew up in a fiery explosion.

All three Otogakure Fuuma Clan shinobi looked at the damage they had just wrought with a double sense of accomplishment. Not only was this adding on to the execution of their mission, they had just blown up Sarutobi Asuma, a rather famous Konohagakure shinobi.

Until they heard a content sounding inhale and exhale come from down the street, only to see Asuma standing there unscathed, with a lit cigarette in his hand, "Oh that's so much better. It's been three days since the last one I've had."

Jigumo started to growl angrily at Asuma, still smarting from being unceremoniously hurled out of a building with one arm along with his partner Kagerou just moments prior, "You're mocking us… aren't you?" Asuma's only response was blowing ring clouds with his cigarette, "Otokage-sama is helping us bring our clan back to prominence, and in return we're one of Otogakure's more prominent clans. Finally, the Fuuma Clan is once more getting the respect we've earned all those years ago."

"Fuuma Clan…" Asuma said to himself as if that name had sparked a thought, "Wait, you're the clan that popularized the fuuma shuriken? How the hell did you fall from prominence?" That thing was awesome. One of the baddest-ass weapons that ever existed for widespread use.

The three looked at each other before Kagerou spoke, "…Different clan."

"Oh." Asuma said in understanding as he took another drag from his cigarette, "Well… wait, Otokage? Who the hell made your leader a kage? Nobody else recognizes that crap as legit."

"We don't need to hear anything else from you." Jigumo said, "Just die already."

Asuma shrugged his shoulders and tapped the ashes off of the end of his cigarette before just letting it sit in his mouth, "Wait until I finish my cigarette."

All three Fuuma Clan members bristled at what they perceived as an insult and not even considering the fact that Asuma had something of a nicotine addiction, "Finish him off." Kamikiri said to Kagerou who nodded and seemed to melt into the ground, not disturbing a speck of dust as the technique was performed.

Both Kamikiri and Jigumo rushed directly at Asuma, but instead of attacking him as he was prepared for, they ran past him and jumped, scaling the sides of the buildings on opposite sides of the street, getting Asuma to look around as he knew that it was because of what Kagerou's next move would be.

The ground then began to move and be sucked in towards a central area as a large pit began to be created. Asuma quickly made his way to the top of a nearby shack, but found that the pit had the force of a landslide as the foundations of the buildings began to loosen and his shack began to be sucked in as well, 'This is going to destroy every place on the entire block!' Asuma thought frantically as he made several hand-seals and inhaled sharply while taking aim, "Katon: Karyuu Endan (Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet)!"

Asuma fired off three separate flames that roared forth with the head momentarily looking like a dragon's. But all three in the end went right into the hole in the middle of the pit, engulfing the opening in flames and stopping the jutsu from tearing up the streets any further.

"You bastard!" Seeing Asuma incinerate anything that possibly could have been at the center of the jutsu that had been destroying that part of town, Jigumo and Kamikiri angrily attacked Asuma simultaneously.

Asuma swung wide at both with his chakra blades and both Oto ninja thought that he would be parried since the chakra extension was about to make contact with the kunai they were prepared to use against him. They hadn't however known that the chakra extension provided by Hien (Flying Swallow) couldn't be blocked with something as simple as a mass-produced kunai, and Asuma cut right through the iron, bringing the two men down at once.

'And that leaves one.' Asuma thought to himself, spitting the useless butt of his cigarette out on the ground.

"Jounin-san!"

Asuma turned and had to bite back a yell as he saw Idate running towards him at top speed, actually noting that the boy was very, very fast. That was not very important at the moment though, because right on cue, Kagerou rose from the ground behind Idate and lunged out at the boy to grab a hold of him, "Kid look out!"

Idate looked befuddled at why he needed to be wary until a hulking presence made itself known behind him. Idate turned around, pulling out a pocket-knife from when Asuma had given him warning, and his defensive posture was all that saved him as a kunai was driven into his shoulder and sent him to the ground with blood flowing from the wound.

"Gah!" Idate scooted back away from Kagerou as quickly as he could while holding the hole in his shoulder. Kagerou would have finished him and moved along had Asuma not jumped between him and thrown a trench knife at Kagerou in desperation.

Kagerou dodged it, but the spinning weapon was still infused with Asuma's Hien and managed to make some sort of contact prior to continuing on after cutting into some flesh and cutting through the wall of another building.

With Kagerou down, Asuma grabbed the bleeding Idate and got some distance from the Oto ninja, "What in the hell are you doing here? Did something happen to your boss? Can't my team handle it?"

Idate bit back the pain of his wound long enough to relay the mission, "That's the thing. They're fighting someone that's really strong… at the docks on the northern end of town. All of us couldn't take the woman down fighting together. They blew up the ship she was on and it didn't do a thing."

"How'd you even know I was here?"

"You'd have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to not see or smell the smoke and fire."

With a point like that made by the young man around his students' age, Asuma looked back at the building that had been blown apart not too long ago and frowned, "Oh. Duh." He then looked back at Kagerou who was still standing, albeit with a considerable wound, "Well I'll finish this and we can head back to the docks. You're still good to go right?"

"I used to be a ninja." Assured Idate, standing up with a wince, "I'm fine."

"Good." Asuma said, not taking his eyes off of an opponent that had already proven that they would attack a noncombatant if the opportunity arose.

"You're too powerful Sarutobi Asuma." The labored breaths of Kagerou gave way to some words as blood dripped onto the ground from the wound that had been inflicted by Asuma's thrown trench knife, "I can't get out of this without some sacrifice… the way my comrades sacrificed themselves for my sake."

"Leave Degarashi Port and I don't have to finish this." Asuma said, giving the grotesque looking shinobi an out, "I've killed enough men tonight. I don't want or need to kill one more, but apparently my students are in trouble and I'm not going to waste anymore time."

"Understood." Kagerou said, content with the decision to stay and fight either way. The Fuuma Clan's worth in the eyes of Otogakure was more important than personal well-being, "Kagerou Ninpou: Utakata (Antlion Ninja Arts: Ephemeral)."

It was like a night and day difference when Kagerou activated the ninjutsu.

The reason being because instead of the hunchbacked man with matted down brown hair and buck teeth that he had been fighting the entire time, Kagerou's appearance turned to that of a barefoot beautiful young woman with hazy-blue eyes, shoulder-length light green hair, a silver bracelet choker around her neck, and a sleeveless white dress that had one strap over her right shoulder. From her back she had four wings comprised of pure chakra looking like the wings of a firefly that allowed her to hover off of the ground in front of Idate and Asuma.

"Why the hell did that guy turn into a girl?" Idate asked, exclaiming in alarm.

Kagerou answered sedately, "This is my true appearance. The other is my Henge that I use as a disguise."

Asuma shook his head when he caught himself looking her over, "That's one hell of a Henge. It didn't dispel even after I injured you. But why transform back now?"

"Because of the jutsu I'm currently using." Kagerou said with the wound from Asuma's last attack bleeding into her white dress. However she didn't seem to register the pain of the injury or the blood loss whatsoever, "It uses too much chakra for me to maintain the transformation any longer. My kinjutsu. Pay close attention, because I can only perform it once, and you will never see anything else again."

That didn't sound good, and the chakra that was building up in front of her from the wings on her back certainly didn't look good.

"Kid…" Asuma said Idate as he placed his hands together in the snake seal, "I think you should run."

"I've been running away all damn night." Idate said, holding his pocket knife in his good hand in case he was attacked again, "Why not?" Heeding Asuma's warning since the first time it saved his life he ran away.

Kagerou's chakra build-up was prepared to fire at Asuma until her eyes widened with a pained gasp escaping her lips as her wings began to flicker out and die down, dropping her to the ground, "W-What did you-?" She landed face down to reveal Asuma's trench knife sticking out of her back with the blade stuck inside of her, "How?"

"Fuuton: Suiran Reppuu (Wind Release: Verdant Mountain's Violent Wind)." Asuma said, holding the snake seal as his trench knife forcefully freed itself from Kagerou's back and floated over to him where he snatched it out of the air, "I knew exactly where I threw my trench knife the entire time."

"Hah…" Kagerou laughed bitterly with blood coming from her mouth, "We never had a chance. You really are your father's son Sarutobi Asuma."

"That's what I'm told." Asuma said, as Idate walked over as well to observe Kagerou's final moments, "You fought well."

"No I didn't…" Kagerou said as her eyes began to close, "…But it's okay. Guren is the one fighting your students is she not?"

The topic of why he was even there in the first place being brought back up, Idate took a worried step towards her, "Yeah! That's her name! She uses these strange attacks with crystals, I've never seen anything like it!"

A bloody cough came from Kagerou before she continued from where she left off, "Then they cannot defeat her. Guren is far stronger than my teammates and myself combined. She could kill us easily. How long did it take you to find us boy?" She asked Idate who blinked at being addressed.

"Twenty minutes or so."

"It's too late then. Five minutes with her would be lucky for anyone."

With that, Asuma took off running towards the northern docks, leaving Idate there with Kagerou who allowed her eyes to close with a content smile on her face as she got a look around the area, "Mission complete." She said quietly before ceasing to breathe.

"What mission?" Idate asked her before noticing that she wasn't responding, and her torso wasn't even rising and falling from breathing any longer, "Hey! What mission are you talking about here? Who did you kill? What did you steal? How is this a success?" He asked in a loud voice before looking around and grunting to himself before taking off running in the direction that Asuma took off in to follow him.

XxX

(Ta no Kuni/Hi no Kuni Border Area – Chouji and Sakura vs. Kidomaru and Tayuya)

"Well that was a complete fucking blast." Tayuya said sarcastically as black marks that had been on her body receded. The same for Kidomaru as they stood over Sakura and Chouji, both of them completely encased in webs from the eight limbed Oto ninja at Tayuya's side, "I can't believe these pieces of trash made us use the seal. That fat fuck almost smashed one of my Doki in half."

"If Kimimaro finds out that we had to tap into the cursed seal to get the win over these guys then he'll run us into the ground." Kidomaru observed with a smirk as he kicked at one of the webbed bundles, "Stupid bitch with her genjutsu."

"We need to go." Tayuya commented as she heard the bark of dogs getting closer, getting a nod from Kidomaru in return, "Sakon better have finished his job, because fighting Hatake fucking Kakashi was not a part of the plan." Both of them then jumped away only for Kakashi and four of his dogs to arrive moments later, landing in the clearing with the dogs sitting at the ready for Kakashi's next order.

Looking down at the webbed bundles he narrowed his visible eye, "There's got to be some way to get them out of there." The dogs bit at the webbing but were unable to break it as he couldn't cut through it with a kunai either. He quickly formed a Chidori and slashed an opening in the webs to find an extensively beaten Sakura and Chouji trapped within, "Damn it…" Luckily they weren't dead, but they were in rather grave condition.

Hopefully the other Kakashi and the rest of the dogs could find Sasuke in better shape.

XxX

(Sasuke vs. Sakon and Ukon)

Sasuke was on the ground, a bleeding and swollen mess from the beating he had just sustained from his two twin assailants. He tried to crawl away to get enough distance to get back up, but a harsh stomp to his back elicited a yell of pain out of him and stopped that course of action.

"Do you see?" Sakon said in a self-satisfied manner, "For all of your gifts and as hard as you train you'll never reach the level of a real shinobi the way you are now. Your village is soft, not treating you like the weapon you think you were trained to be. Look at us. Orochimaru-sama saw us and imparted us with this gift, our cursed seals."

While Sakon was gloating over Sasuke, Ukon stood off to the side impatiently while tapping his foot on the ground before he could hear something approaching rapidly in the distance, "You idiot. Hurry up and grab him. We need to go already!"

Sakon stared up at his brother in an annoyed fashion before scoffing, "Fine. You certainly are cranky right after you wake up aren't you?" He then reached down to grab Sasuke to knock him out, but only saw a log in Sasuke's place, "Now what the hell is this?" When did he substitute himself out? He did it without a trace.

An angry Ukon was about to berate his younger twin for his negligence until he saw something from his point of view that Sakon could not, "Sakon you fool, get yourself out of there right now! Run away!"

Not needing to question his partner and twin after years and years of working together and trusting his judgment, Sakon did just that, right before the explosive tag slapped on the log by Sasuke during his departure exploded with a thunderous blast.

Sakon managed to get away with minor burns and shrapnel damage due to the pieces of wood that went flying, "Where the hell is he? Did he try to run?"

"Chidori (One Thousand Birds)!"

The sound of the blast and the settling rumble sound of the aftermath masked the chirping electric noise of Sasuke building chakra for the jutsu, and he showed his chunin chops by taking advantage of that window and attacking Sakon from his blindspot mercilessly.

"You bastard!" Ukon shouted, having leapt towards Sasuke upon seeing him close to attacking Sakon managed to reach him slightly after he hit Sakon with the Chidori, grabbed Sasuke by the head and slammed him into the ground hard enough to leave an indent of his skull in it. He seethed down at Sasuke before turning to his gravely wounded brother, "You're lucky that it's forbidden to kill you or we wouldn't have even gone as easy as we did."

As Ukon reached Sakon, the injured twin reached out for his brother and their bodies began to join, "You take over for a while… give me some time to heal." Sakon said as he took his spot in what was formerly Ukon's place, his head protruding from the back of his brother's neck as he lay dormant and rested.

Once Sakon was settled inside of Ukon's body, Ukon let out an impatient growl, "It's too late for me to take over. We have to go for the second plan." He said before pulling out a syringe with a sickly purple liquid inside, "I personally hope you don't survive this weakling. I don't see why in the case of our failure of the main objective we give you such a precious gift." He then injected the syringe in the side of the motionless Sasuke's neck, "Then again I'm not Orochimaru-sama and I refuse to question his orders."

With that being done he beat a hasty retreat since he would not be able to escape with Sasuke while being pursued by one like Hatake Kakashi. Of this he was certain, especially with his lack of stamina due to his inactivity within Sakon most of the time. He raced to the link-up point meant to rendezvous with Kidomaru, Tayuya, and Jiroubou though he doubted the latter was alive if Kakashi managed to break away.

The only thing that could be heard in the area at that point was Sasuke's struggling and unconscious breathing, the nocturnal animals in the forest, and the barking of Kakashi's dogs as they got closer, eventually culminating with the four of them and Kakashi landing in the clearing, sniffing at Sasuke before the smallest of the dogs, a pug with a Konoha headband and a blue jacket on, spoke up, "There were others here. Should we go after them?"

"No." Kakashi said as he knelt by Sasuke and checked over his injuries. The boy wasn't conscious, but there was pain evident on his face as he writhed even while completely out of it, "We need to take them all back to Konoha as fast as we can. I don't know if the other me found Chouji and Sakura or not, so let's find them and link up so we can leave. Pakkun I want you to head out ahead back to the village to tell them to expect wounded."

The small pug immediately took off to head home in advance as Kakashi picked Sasuke up and put him over his back before following the rest his dogs to find the other dogs, the other Kakashi, and the students that had been separated. Sasuke was more than stable enough to transport so he got right on the move again.

In his haste to ensure that all of his students were alright, Kakashi did not register the small black marks on the back left of Sasuke's neck as anything more than bruises at the time, but as he carried the boy the 'bruise' turned into three tomoe, almost like that of the Sharingan.

XxX

(Cha no Kuni – Northern Docks of Degarashi Port – Naruto vs. Guren)

"This is a blast kid!" Guren said as for the umpteenth time in Naruto's growing rampage the only thing that stopped him from shattering her jaw with a punch was a wall of crystals that she formed to block him, "A jinchuuriki like you can be as mediocre as they want as long as they've got this power to back them up! Isn't that right?"

"Shut your mouth!" Naruto roared at Guren angrily, the force of his action blowing her hair around wildly and getting her to take a step back as a shockwave produced by the intensity of his chakra flew at her.

Guren moved her hands to try and encase Naruto's immediate area in crystal again, but the fleet-footed young jinchuuriki, boosted by the inhuman chakra flowing through his system had his senses enhanced and avoided the attack to get closer to the Otogakure shinobi. A punch aimed at her pretty face whiffed, but the force behind the punch that didn't land managed to shove Guren off-balance.

'My Kami, this kid is a total diehard.' Guren thought, gritting her teeth at having to deal with a growingly berserk demon container. She got away from him to get more space, getting another feral-sounding roar of anger from Naruto, 'I'm pissing him off even more. Why won't he just stay down already?' She had blasted him plenty of times, but he just kept hopping right back up for more each time.

"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu)!"

Guren jumped, leapt, and sprang until she stood atop a warehouse looking over a veritable platoon of Kyuubi-enhanced Naruto clones and a sneer grew on her face, "You're such a parasite!" She shouted down at him before making four hand-seals and slamming her hands on the roof, "Die! Shouton: Suishouheki Hachi no Jin (Crystal Release: Jade Crystal Wall Eighth Formation)!"

The ground quivered and shook as the concrete on the ground in front of her split and up rose a massive amount of crystal, encasing every one of Naruto's dozen clones and suspending them in the translucent mineral until they dispelled.

As she looked at what she had just done there was no sign of the real Naruto trapped inside after all of the fakes had vanished. There wasn't any sign of Shikamaru or Ino, which didn't make sense because even if they weren't dead they were unable to move, especially fast enough to avoid such a wide-area affecting ninjutsu.

A pair of hands crashed through the roof of the warehouse and grabbed Guren's ankles before Naruto's entire body burst through the roof, and another, and another, as multiple Naruto clones emerged through the hole linking to one another by grabbing each clone's ankles. The last Naruto stood up on the roof after all the clones came through the hole and he prepared to slam his heavy chain of clones to the ground, "Bunshin Kusari no Karada Gachan (Clone Chain Body Slam)!"

"Like hell you stupid brat!" His grip was like iron, and Guren couldn't wrest her legs out of his grasp, but she still had access to her hands and that was more than enough to escape as she recreated her arm blade of crystal and cut through the Naruto clone hanging onto her to fling her into the air above the roof, "You've got nothing on me! Shishou Tenketsu (Pressure Points of Harm and Death)!" Chakra exploded from her body, enough to be visible to the naked eye before a prism of crystal formed around her, "Die! Shouton: Isshi Koumyou (Crystal Release: String of Glory)!"

From the front tip of the crystal prism, Guren channeled her visibly powerful chakra into a powerful beam of light that fired from it like a laser and annihilated Naruto's chain of clones before blasting Naruto himself right through the roof of the warehouse, forcing the roof to collapse inward on top of him.

She laughed at the destruction her one move had wrought and continued firing extra blasts. One after the other, adding on useless damage to the already thoroughly wrecked building.

The crystal she was in eventually landed on the ground and neatly broke around her, depositing her there casually. With a bead of sweat on her brow, Guren dusted her gloved hands off and smirked one last time at the scene before choosing to walk away, "There." She said as she walked towards the massive crystal construct she had used to overcome Naruto's clones on the way to the water, "Get up from that."

She formed her bladed crystal wheel around herself and used it to effortlessly travel on the water, planning on heading back to base to report on her accomplished mission. Gato would have to be pleased with how low prices in the town would be after all of the havoc that had gone on that night. And the more pleased he was the more business he would give Otogakure, the more he would pay for the next missions, and the more concessions he would grant her master.

"Orochimaru-sama should be pleased with this job well done."

XxX

(A Few Minutes Later)

In the destroyed remains of the warehouse there was no motion to be seen until a piece of what used to be part of the building's wall shook slightly and was finally shoved aside by a gravely injured Naruto, back to normal with no more Kyuubi's chakra running through him.

His body was ravaged with wounds. The glass on his goggles had been shattered, blood caked his arms and legs, his entire frame was smudged with grime, and he just couldn't take anymore. His chunin flak jacket actually endured the damage better than he had. It was definitely made of some sturdy stuff.

He spared a glance back at what else had been under the slab of wall with him and he managed to spare a small smile at seeing that if nothing else Ino and Shikamaru weren't any worse off than they were before.

With that bit of peace he could spare himself he dropped to his knees and eventually outright collapsed onto his face.

"…Naruto… did we win?"

Naruto opened his eyes back up once he heard Shikamaru's weak voice to signify that he was awake, "…No." He replied tiredly, "Are you alright?"

"I'm great." Sarcastically spoke Shikamaru, barely able to crawl forward, "I love bleeding to death on concrete. At least we've got a view of the ocean to die to. Maybe the sunrise will make the clouds look better? That would be a good sight to leave with."

"Kami, will you stop complaining." Making herself and her own alert state known with that remark, Ino could move her limbs but not with enough energy to actually move her entire body, "You're such a bellyacher. Can't you even die with some semblance of cool? Give us an epic one-liner if you're going to waste energy talking."

"Troublesome…"

"…Not epic."

So all of them were alive enough to banter back and forth. That was a better ending than had originally been expected when Naruto first saw Guren cut them down. A small victory to take with the defeat; that at least they were all alive for now.

"Goddamn it you stupid brats better be in one piece!"

Hearing the grizzled and older voice not belonging to any of the chunin trio, they figured it to be their jounin-sensei and were proven right when he saw them while running through the destruction, "Asuma-sensei." Naruto managed to get out, loud enough to echo in the fading night, "Over here."

It didn't take long after that for the man and Idate to come across them, with the eldest shinobi rushing to the bleeding Shikamaru and Ino while Idate went to Naruto who had managed to push himself against a piece of a broken crate, unable to move upward any further.

"What the hell happened here?" Idate asked Naruto as he made sure he was set upright and in no danger of falling to the side, "Did that ninja you were fighting do all of this?"

Naruto for once wanted to say it was him. He wanted to say that the cursed chakra that ran through his system as naturally as his own from time to time did all of this. It would have meant that he had given just as good or worse than he had gotten.

But he didn't say that… because he couldn't. He and his had been thoroughly crushed by one shinobi between the three of them, by the strongest person he had ever fought going all out without a demon inside of them.

Trying to lift his hand to one of the pockets of his vest ended in failure, and Idate saw his attempted motion. After reaching into Naruto's vest pocket in his stead and pulling out a mashed pack of cigarettes and a lighter he lifted an eyebrow and gave Naruto a strange look, "Really? You smoke these? You know that these can kill you don't you?"

Naruto didn't say a word, just letting the setting that they were in and the condition of his body sink into Idate's awareness to prove his unspoken point for him. With a nod of begrudging acknowledgement, Idate pulled out a slightly bent cigarette and put it in Naruto's mouth to assist him.

"You can't win 'em all. Just be grateful you're not dead right now." Asuma said to Ino and Shikamaru barely within Naruto's earshot.

Once it was lit, Naruto took a puff and breathed it out with a defeated sigh before sinking his head forward and dropping into unconsciousness, the cigarette falling from his maw as instead of Asuma's words of consolation as he tried to stabilize Ino and Shikamaru's wounds one last mocking voice stuck with him in his head from the very depths of his mind.

"Just as pathetic as I thought…"

Jutsu List

Shinjoueishin no Jutsu (Mind Body Projection Jutsu). B-rank ninjutsu, supplementary. An advanced and versatile Yamanaka Clan ninjutsu where the user projects their consciousness into an intangible form produced by chakra, fashioned in their original likeness. The spectral form moves by hovering and flying and can move through walls and other solid objects. When the spectral form makes contact with the living target the person will be possessed by the user. Much like the basic Yamanaka Clan ninjutsu Shintenshin no Jutsu (Mind Body Switch Jutsu), the user's actual body is vulnerable while the consciousness is out and when possessing a body any damage inflicted to the possessed body will be inflicted upon the user's body as well. There is a limit from the user's body that the avatar can move from without possessing anything. This is dependent on the user's skill with the technique and can be expanded upon over time with training.