Chapter 54

Ino was now back on her feet and her accelerated hangover from hell had subsided as she moved amongst a cadre of Naruto clones. One in original appearance, three transformed to look like most of Team 8 and Akamaru, and one Henged to look like Tsunade.

"So." Naruto said in a bit firmer of a voice than anyone would have expected from him, "Are you good to fight?"

He sounded a touch miffed at her, for the first time in quite some while. It had been so long that Ino had forgotten that Naruto could get upset with her. And probably with good reason. If they had been forced to fight it out back in the dark at the hotel she would have been a liability. What had happened was an anomaly. She wasn't a drinker and had no designs on being one.

"I can fight. I'm better now." Ino said, a bit embarrassed at the state that she had been caught in. Really, what a way to play into the ditzy blonde stereotype. She decided to switch to Yamanaka Clan telepathy to prove it to him, "You're not mad at me are you?"

"I shouldn't answer that right now." Naruto replied immediately. That of course meant yes.

"I made a mistake, and I can't even remember why I did it." Ino defended, not willing to drop blame all on herself just yet, "Tsunade was way more careless than me. She drank twenty times what I did. Why does it piss you off even if I'm sober now?" Nothing was the matter now, and it was never going to happen again, so what was the problem?

"She's earned the right Ino!" Naruto projected a bit more heatedly. Sure, he got on Tsunade's case a lot, mostly for alcoholism and shitty luck, but he loved that old bat, and he knew full well she could kill him in a matter of minutes if push came to shove. She could probably kill anyone, "And she's the best medic ever! She can probably process alcohol through her system in five minutes! You can't do that!"

"Oh, so just because she can drink and shrug off being drunk that makes it okay for her, but I can't have three sips?"

"It's not that you were drinking, it's that you did it on a mission! Goofing off on the job is cool, but you can't do that! Tsunade-baachan's the client here!"

"Don't give me that client crap Naruto! She has to be just as aware as we are, and you barely said anything to her about it, so what's your deal with me?"

"I don't want you to fuck up and get killed okay?" Naruto blurted out as the argument seemed to escalate, "If we had to stay in that hotel and fight in the dark you would have gotten killed! You wouldn't have been safe on my back, and you wouldn't have been aware enough to protect yourself! That's the last thing I want! Do you know what that would do to me?"

They fucked around freely and made asses of themselves at work as members of the Guardian Ninja, as was their right as all being borderline insane, but no one ever drank or did anything on the job that could mess with their heads. That was the ultimate no-no, and for good reason. Too many things could go wrong too quickly on most missions if they were caught slipping.

As they could see buildings near the end of the trees in the forest, Ino's expression changed to a more receptive one due to the silence that had emerged between all of the Narutos and her. She didn't like it when Naruto was quiet around her. She'd had enough of not hearing his voice for three years and thinking of him actually being mad at her for real didn't sit well with her.

She wasn't going to prostrate herself though. Not for something like this. He was mad because he cared, that much was obvious and she was sorry for that, and for being the reason that he felt that way, but she wasn't going to go spineless just because of it either. She had pride as a ninja that she'd earned over years of hard work too. She hadn't just been sitting on her ass waiting for her prince to return and whisk her away.

Naruto couldn't just come back and treat her like they were still thirteen. In reality though, he'd spent three years working as a Guardian. That was two entire years longer than he'd been an actual Konoha ninja, and before they were teamed up they hadn't necessarily been the closest to say the least.

Being originally forced together eventually brought them together, but being forced apart could have done just as much. Ino probably missed out on many of the experiences for better or for worse that made Naruto who he was now. While he was still mostly the same, some things were still noticeably different.

Same with her. He missed out on several important events that occurred in her life from the time he and Shikamaru walked out of the village gates. Things that changed who she was, not just as a ninja but as a woman. She had nothing to prove to their contemporaries on Team 8, 7, and Team Gai, because they had been around and knew of most of it, even having experienced some of it themselves. They knew what she was capable of.

But she still felt that Naruto didn't see her on the same level as himself and Shikamaru. She wasn't sure if Shikamaru did or not, but Naruto definitely didn't from how his first instinct was to do what they did when they were genin and to have her sit on Naruto's back while they were moving quickly just in case, as if her only go-to in a dangerous situation would be to aim her consciousness at the enemy and hope that it hit in one shot.

She still resented their leaving the village. Because they missed so much. Because he missed so much. Things that she took pride in. Things that let her believe that they'd be proud of her to know about them.

Even when they moved out of the forest and into the small fishing village that had originally been meant to serve as the second rendezvous point, neither of them could find it in them to say anything, either to apologize or otherwise. So they didn't say anything about it at all.

They were on the clock so to speak anyway, "The fishing village is a good enough place to set the ambush if we're going to pull one isn't it?" Ino said as they landed on the rooftop of the first shack.

Naruto took a moment to look out around and get a quick sense of their bearings. It was basically a shantytown of wooden shacks, some of which could have barely been considered homes. And people used to live there? It made him glad that Okumizuchi-machi was such a successful place and that this place had been abandoned, because even the town that had hosted them in Nami no Kuni as kids didn't look half as bad as that place.

"Okay, parameters…" Naruto mentally projected through the connection with Ino in order to answer her question, "…We have none. This entire place is expendable as far as I'm concerned, so feel free to get creative with the ideas once we get them here. We just need to get them into the village, period."

Back to the situation at hand it seemed.

Looking around, Ino clicked her tongue before beginning to pull out some trap-making equipment. She didn't think she had enough material on her for a squad as big as the one that Hinata had been alluding to, but then again they might not have needed it.

The village they were in was supposed to be the first area that they were all supposed to meet up at in case they were split up. While Tsunade, Hinata, and Shino had moved forward, the others all would have gone to this little village to try and meet up first before going to what was supposed to be the second spot (thanks to Shikamaru and his micromanaging). So when the others tried to link back up it would have been at that spot, which meant that the odds would have been evened up.

They were still planning on fighting ANBU though, which was not a sexy-sounding idea under any circumstances where the numbers were not on their side, but at least it would have been less of a man advantage for the enemy.

"Man…" Naruto said, his clones still disguised as Tsunade and company took up positions to look like guards protecting a VIP for the sake of the show while the original started pacing around and thinking of where he could and would set up his own traps, "I've never had to take on an ANBU before. This is a new one."

"We're taking on more than one." Ino groused out while trying to run tripwires between buildings for when the enemy arrived, "So we're fighting to stall until we get more people here right?"

Naruto nodded, even though Ino couldn't see him due to her work. Speaking of which, he started preparing to get on his own, with explosive tags. There was no such thing as overkill, if he could take down a good number of ANBU with explosives at least, "That's the basic idea. If you can kill any of them that would be great, but guys like these are usually really good with traps."

In other words they probably would find a way around or through them because they were ANBU. Nighttime or not, they could hide those wires as well as they wanted to, it probably wouldn't matter.

"Fuck, there's no time for a mess of traps!" One of Naruto's clone's disguised as Shino said from where he had a perch to oversee the area in case someone was coming, "I can feel unfamiliar people moving our way sooner than we thought. It's not sixteen people either like Hinata-chan said either. It's just four."

Just four?

The implication wasn't lost on Ino or the original Naruto who proceeded to punch a nearby wooden building and collapse an entire wall, "Damn it! Unless they had a sensor, which if they did they would have jumped us in the pitch-dark restaurant with the twelve they had at first, there's no way they figured out we split up. We covered their tracks!"

There was nothing they could do about it now. The situation had changed. Luckily it was now just four ANBU against the two of them. Better than holding off sixteen in a dilapidated fishing village, because Kami they were about to walk face-first into a meat grinder on that one.

"Boss!" Naruto's Shino clone said again to get its creator's attention, "These don't look like Iwa ANBU."

What? Who the hell else was chasing them then? "What do they look like then?"

"Not Iwa ANBU. Aren't you listening?"

"I would dispel you if I didn't need you to sell this right now."

"I don't care Boss." Shino-clone droned, continuing to look out in the direction he could sense incoming mystery ninjas from, "I'm a dude that's a copy of a dude, disguised as another dude. I'm you, so I have your memories, and you've done this a thousand times. I know the drill."

Both Naruto and Ino looked at each other before he sighed and gestured for the clone to get down, "Just… get in position and act like Shino damn you."

At least Shino-clone was obedient if not belligerent and did as asked, the entire time Ino had moved next to Naruto in preparation for the arrival of their would-be assailants, "Arguing with yourself is a sign of insanity you know. You want to talk about it?" She teased dryly.

"If we live, sure." Naruto replied under his breath as a set of blurs landed nearby, and to the surprise of Naruto they weren't Iwa or Suna people at all. This was definitely a new one, "Uh, can we help you… Kumo people?"

A squad of four ninjas wearing white flak jackets from Kumogakure, two men, two women. So Kumo had a stake in this now? Awesome.

"Who are you?" The dark-skinned girl with red hair brazenly questioned Naruto's way, "So Konoha really does think they still have a stake over Tsunade? Even after all of these years of her cutting ties with them?"

"Maybe Konoha's sick of her." The dark-skinned white-haired young man said aloud as he idly rolled around a sucker in his mouth, "Yeah, and the whole bounty thing is a chance to get at her and get something big in return. It makes sense, because I heard that she kept an apprentice with her. They must have killed her and captured Tsunade!"

Naruto's transformed clones all looked at each other before the one disguised as Tsunade spoke up, "No… that's not really accurate… at all." The clone then characterized up for its appearance, "Now what do you want?"

The tallest Kumo-nin, a dark-skinned man with shaggy white hair that covered one of his easygoing eyes walked forward, looking at Naruto and Ino before turning his attention to Tsunade-clone. It was really uncanny just how much time Naruto had to have spent around Tsunade over the past few years. His clone had her posture and expression down perfectly, making it look like the consensus 'most dangerous woman in the world' without question.

"We've come to discuss your, should we say allegiance?" Darui said before introducing himself and his allies, "My name is Darui, a jounin of Kumo. This is Samui, another jounin." A curt nod came from the aloof-looking blonde woman with him before Darui gestured to the redhead and the boy eating a sucker, "These are Karui and Omoi."

"Fantastic." Tsunade-clone deadpanned, "Now what about my allegiance?"

Karui didn't like the attitude of the sannin, but she kept her temper enough in check to find something to say, "Well you haven't called Konoha home in decades. It's on record that you hate the village and the idea of being a ninja there. So the Raikage wants to offer you a position in Kumo, and he's definitely willing to negotiate with you to make it happen."

"You could probably get next to anything you want within the Raikage's power if you were willing to hear him out." Samui said, keeping a cool glance on the Konoha shinobi also listening to the conversation. Why the hell did some of them look familiar? One was apparently a Hyuuga, another other with sunglasses was covered up quite a bit so she couldn't recognize anything about him, and the last two fair-haired ninjas were-.

Wait, she did know them.

It had been years, but yes she remembered who they were. When you were knocked out of the chunin exams finale in the first round you tended to remember the batch of rookies that went on to win it.

"Uzumaki Naruto and Yamanaka Ino yes?" Samui asked, pointing right at a confused Naruto and Ino that hadn't expected anyone to actually address them directly as long as 'Tsunade' was there. Once again though, Naruto was dreading this, because people that knew his name generally didn't want to shake his hand or give him ramen coupons, "What exactly is Konoha trying to do here with Tsunade-sama?"

"We're taking her to get rid of a bounty on her head." Ino said, looking over at Naruto with a shrug. What would the point of lying be? You had to pick and choose what you chose to lie about, so that when you finally started bluffing someone would take it easier. Ninja psychology.

If Tsunade hated Konoha why would she hire Konoha ninjas? But then again she probably stuck around Hi no Kuni more often than not, and Konoha was the only game in town so to speak in regards to hiring for something like that unless she wanted to leave the country and risk running up against other villages that might have had a longstanding grudge against her.

"Well we're willing to wait and return with her once you complete your mission." Darui said, continuing his attempt at diplomacy, "Or if she would prefer we can take the responsibility off of your hands and escort her the rest of the way."

Naruto didn't like the sound of that at all. It didn't sound like any of those choices involved turning down the offer outright without going to Kumo first, "We can't really do that or we'd fail." He tried to reason, "But you're not going to let us leave unless she goes with you, are you?"

"We can't really fail either." Omoi said almost apologetically, "Trust me, the Raikage is not the man to mess up a mission for."

"You're really going to fight me?" Tsunade-clone said, cracking its knuckles and chuckling darkly in order to intimidate the Kumo squad into backing down, "Just because I'm a medic, don't think I have any problems with putting any of you in the hospital… or the morgue."

XxX

(Miles Away in the Forest)

Tsunade's mouth involuntarily twitched into a smile that she quickly put away, 'What the hell was that?' She thought to herself, turning for a second to look back in the direction that she, Shino, Akamaru, and Hinata had left Naruto and Ino to go off in.

XxX

The prospect of fighting Tsunade got Karui and Omoi to intelligently step back, but Samui's eyes were locked onto something that wasn't there… or more accurately something that was there, but wasn't where it should have been, "Uzumaki-san, why do you have Tsunade-sama's necklace?"

Naruto touched at the gem sitting against his chest without looking away, "How do you know about this thing?"

"Tsunade-sama is an idol to many kunoichi around the Elemental Nations." Samui explained calmly, staring a hole right through him. She had of course been including herself in the wide characterization of the modern female ninja, "I know of the famous 'cursed' necklace of the Shodai Hokage. So why would it be on you?"

"Because I gave it to him." Tsunade-clone replied, "He earned it." Ino fought the urge to roll her eyes as even at a time like this Naruto couldn't help but toot his own horn, "Is there a problem with that?"

"Yes, there may be." Darui said, quickly catching onto the drift of what Samui was alluding to, "That necklace is supposed to be one of the things that were meant to prove Tsunade's identity. It's supposed to be synonymous with her. And now it's on some random Konoha ninja."

"I'm not 'random' you dick!" Naruto bristled in rebuttal to the pseudo-insult.

"Back to the point…" Darui continued, "…I'm saying that this isn't Tsunade." Why would she cough up a priceless possession such as that to some kid? Some kid from Konoha, a place she was supposed to hate?

Tsunade-clone crossed its arms over its sizeable transformed chest (how did she function normally with those things?) and sneered forward, "Well then who am I smartass?"

"That's what I plan on finding out, right before I get you to tell me where the real Tsunade is." Apparently he wasn't too fond of being deceived, because Darui drew a giant foldable cleaver with an exceptionally large handle and stormed forth at Naruto's mess of diversionary clones.

The best way to find out if someone was who they said they were was to fight them, and Naruto couldn't fight like Tsunade so he couldn't sell the ruse any further.

Luckily, he thought that the ringleader of the whole thing was whoever was transformed into Tsunade.

He was wrong, and Naruto and Ino tried to take advantage of this by running away again, until they were cut off by both Karui and Omoi blocking their retreat from front and back, "Kumo-Ryu Mikazukigiri (Cloud-Style Crescent Moon Beheading)!" Both of them swung their swords in a flashing crescent arc, attempting to cut off most of the ways that their two targets could move in.

Not particularly a fan of being surrounded and being cut down alongside one of his closest friends, Naruto was not about to humor the pair of swordsmen with a two-on-one duel with his machete. Not when he could just blow them away, "Fuumon no Jutsu (Wind Ripple Jutsu)!" Pushing chakra from his body in all directions as if he were utilizing his sonar, only nature transformed into wind, Naruto blew both Karui and Omoi away from himself and Ino before an edge of a sword even touched them, "Get out of my face!"

Both Naruto and Ino separated by pushing each other away and moving in opposite directions. Naruto cursed as Darui had managed to finish his clones off using some strange electric jutsu he'd never come up against before.

So there they were, four-on-two, stuck in the fishing village with no traps set for them to take advantage of, and not willing to move to the next rendezvous point out of risk of compromising it for the others.

Not the best of odds. But it was still better than the alternative of taking on the ANBU.

Upon getting her feet back underneath her, Ino heard the unsheathing of another bladed weapon and sighed before ducking a slash of a tanto from the heavy-chested Samui. Fast enough to avoid the attack, Ino stood back up and lashed out with a kick in return that didn't make contact in return.

Turning around, Ino positioned her hands in the seal for one of her clan techniques and smirked when she saw Samui balk at the prospect of losing control of her body, stopping herself from attacking even though Ino's hand posture was a feint. Instead of firing a jutsu, senbon popped into her hand that she was prepared to throw until Karui appeared back in front of Samui, ready to intervene.

"Come on, what did you hesitate for?" Karui asked Samui as the two Kumo kunoichi stood together, getting Ino to back down from wasting senbon that would probably just be dodged or deflected, "We could have attacked her from two sides if you'd have kept going forward."

"She's a Yamanaka." Samui pointed out, mimicking the hand-seal that Ino made moments before, "If you see her make any seal like this, disengage to make sure she misses or you'll lose control of your body." The prospect of someone taking over her body actually got Karui to cringe a bit.

"Ooh, people know about us in Kumo." Ino said, the moonlight in her eyes dancing treacherously, "I'm not surprised since we've been around for generations. But I wonder how outdated your intel on my clan is. Konoha and Kumo haven't fought each other in a long time."

"It doesn't matter." Samui said, her confidence not shaken. Why would it have been? She had the advantage, even before Karui showed herself, "Members of the Yamanaka Clan are notoriously bad at taijutsu…"

"…And I don't see a single melee weapon anywhere on her pretty little ass." Karui finished brazenly, holding up her own katana, "There's a reason Kumo has so many sword users."

'Bad at taijutsu?' Ino thought to herself with a frown on her face, 'Yeah, we're not the best, even daddy, but flat out bad at it? We're better than the Nara Clan at it.' "I'll tell you what. If you think you can get close enough to me with those toothpicks to hurt me without getting yourselves killed, feel free-. No, feel encouraged to try." She challenged with a narrowing of her eyes.

Was it smart to say? Not particularly. But the Kumo redhead was definitely going to spend the entire fight trying to birfucate her anyway, so did it really matter if Ino tried to piss her off further? At least this way she'd be more prone to mistakes.

Both Karui and Samui nodded to each other before Karui rushed forward to put Ino's threat to the test, "Kumo-Ryu Omotegiri (Cloud-Style Front Beheading)!" Karui swung her sword at Ino in a powerful horizontal motion that she was able to avoid, but cut through an entire wooden building cleanly in one move.

An on-the-move Ino hit Karui with the handful of poisoned senbon she'd been holding, but it felt a little too easy. Quickly throwing her hands together in the ram seal, Ino disturbed her own chakra flow enough to break a genjutsu that had been cast over her before something bad could happen, 'Fuck… a decent genjutsu user and someone that's going to rush me the whole time?'

She really hoped that Naruto wasn't having as much trouble.

XxX

"Boss?"

*CLANG*

"What clone-me?"

*CLANG*

"Does everyone in Kumo know how to use a sword?"

"Seems like it."

"Makes us seem prophetic for picking up something for ourselves doesn't it? Ah, switch."

Naruto and his clone substituted with each other as Darui and Omoi moved in with their respective bladed weapons to cut them down. The pair of dark-skinned men were thwarted by the sudden switch-off of Narutos, but the battle still continued nonetheless, with the original Naruto fighting against Omoi while his clone fought Darui.

Darui's eyes couldn't help but keep flickering to Naruto's choice of weapon in a simple machete. Strange, but then again with his own foldable cleaver sword he couldn't say much about strange weaponry, 'He shouldn't have the range to feel confident in fighting against a real swordsman.'

And just like that after Naruto whiffed on a machete slash, Darui realized why. The chain attached to the hilt of his machete was a lot longer than he first figured it to be and it almost smashed off of his face and broke his nose when Naruto tried to use it as a bludgeoning tool.

Or a tool that would have torn his face off, because it got close enough for him to hear it cut through the wind.

So that was why he was so confident in his abilities in close, because he had more than one weapon.

For Omoi, Naruto's chain was a much more annoying tool that he used to defend himself effectively instead of attacking. Instead of blocking any of Omoi's long katana attacks, Naruto would use his chakra chain to deal with the sword whenever it got close enough to possibly do any damage to him. How did someone learn how to fight effectively against a trained swordsman with just a chain?

A stray movement ended with the chain wrapped around Omoi's sword trying to pull it out of his hands. While Omoi didn't let go, he probably should have when Naruto dug his feet in and pulled hard, yanking him forward and off of his feet.

Darui witnessed this happen and swung a sword at Naruto to force some space between them so that he could create a hand-seal, "Omoi get up! Raiton: Kuropansa (Lightning Release: Black Panther)!" He created a dangerous-looking panther out of black lightning that flew at Naruto's clone and electrocuted it brutally into nonexistence.

"There goes that Black Lightning jutsu of his again." The real Naruto said with a slight sweat at his brow. That had been what he'd used to kill his clones at the outset of the fight.

"So you've heard of it?" Darui asked, body still crackling with the aforementioned jutsu as Omoi got up and got back to his side, smarting from Naruto getting the edge on him earlier. He couldn't believe a clone had gotten him in such a predicament.

Naruto shook his head and pulled out a quick cigarette. Hey, he hadn't had one in three days and if he was about to get killed he was going to go out on his terms. They'd already been caught after all, "No, not really. I mean, it's black and it's lightning. I really don't know what else I would have called it."

Omoi shook his head at the sight of Naruto lighting up the end of the cigarette, but he didn't attack him. If Darui didn't see it as an opening, there was probably a good reason for it. Attacking was probably what Naruto wanted, "You know, smoking is a really bad habit. Why would you do something like that that's so bad for you?"

The Raikage completely outlawed smoking within his ninja ranks. Woe to the one that was caught smoking while on the Kumogakure roster. The man was almost obsessive about health not just for himself, but for everyone else under him.

"It's a long story…" Naruto said blankly, way used to this song and dance for years already by now, "If it makes you feel any better Surgeon General, it gave me the idea for a special ninjutsu style." He'd have told him off, but he was sick of defending himself about it. Kicking someone's ass was such a better way to handle that problem, "So let's try this again."

Both Naruto and Darui Shunshined away while Omoi leapt off in the direction that he felt them move in to catch up and stay in the battle.

Naruto reappeared on a rooftop of the shantytown village first before Darui did as well, coming close enough to cutting Naruto's head to slice the embers off of the end of his cigarette. From behind, Naruto was stabbed by Omoi's katana, much to his surprise until his body started to turn to a blackened ash that stuck stubbornly to the sword in clumps.

Trying to rub and scrape the gunk off with his hands resulted in them being burned by the steaming hot ash and tar that comprised Naruto's Ash Clones.

Upon hearing Omoi's burned shout of surprised pain, the real Naruto crashed through a ceiling from underneath near Darui. While that one attacked, another did the same from another side, diverting his attention. One hit the side of Darui's legs with its entire body while the other stomp-kicked the man in the face, knocking him down and drilling his heard into the roof hard enough to smash it like a watermelon, "Bunshin Haijo (Clone Elimination)!"

This only resulted in Naruto finding a crushed chunk of rotten wood underneath his foot. A Kawarimi. That was kind of annoying he had to admit.

And now both Omoi and Darui were gone and could be taking refuge anywhere with a wall in hundreds of shacks in that little hovel of a former fishing village.

Okay, now it was really annoying.

XxX

(Meanwhile – Forests Around the Outskirts of Okumizumi-machi)

It was basically the lumberjack special, with the sheer amount of trees chopped at the trunks by Temari's belligerently destructive wind jutsu. She really hoped that the town wouldn't be pissed at the loss of so much of their trees, but if they were she didn't care that much.

Really, she was more concerned about the fact that Kankuro had been in there somewhere, moving so that Shikamaru didn't find him. Hopefully he'd been farther away than the range of her jutsu, because it had only really been the size of a full-sized playing field.

She'd been controlled in her anger at the pineapple-haired prick that had done little more than run his mouth and run away from her, because she still needed him alive. She was certain he knew where Tsunade was. She was a professional after all, and wouldn't let her anger get in the way of a successful mission.

But looking over the sheer amount of lumber she had cleared she coughed uncomfortably into her hand, 'Maybe I went a little too far?' Maybe anyone caught in it would have wound up with crushed limbs and not completely crushed bodies.

Think positive Temari, think positive.

A touch of movement caught her attention and upon heading in that direction, she found a sight that gave her a sigh of relief in the form of a large puppet of a salamander that she knew of fairly well, "Kankuro, thank goodness."

The puppet opened up enough that Temari's facepainted and hooded brother could be seen within, giving her an exasperated look, "Did you have to bring down part of the whole place on my head just because that guy pissed you off?"

"Sorry. But all of that big talk about shadows and dark, just to run for the hills when he got the chance?" Temari said with a scoff, "I figured that team was full of big talkers that couldn't back it up. Now are you going to help me look for the bodies or what?"

"Yeah, yeah." Kankuro said, using his puppet to push chunks of tree off of itself so he could help Temari search the damage zone for the dead and/or wounded. As they continued to walk, Temari stopped for a split-second while Kankuro continued forward as something had gotten her notice once again.

Before he could ask what it was, Kankuro noticed it too and cursed as from their respective positions both siblings placed their hands in a ram seal, "Kai!"

The environmental genjutsu cast over them both was broken just in time to see a rather large young man in red armor falling from the air with giant arms ready to smash down on them both. A yell of alarm quite uncharacteristic of the battle-hardened Suna pair flew from their throats as they dodged and the massive hands proceeded to break some of the fallen tree trunks around.

"Sakura, they broke the genjutsu!" Chouji shouted after the enemy had dodged his attack, "What the hell? You said it was in!"

And it had been. Sakura had done a basic copy rendering of their current environment, but since she had been hiding down by the trunks of trees that hadn't been cut down she couldn't feel that from where Temari and Kankuro had been there was a small steady night breeze going.

She'd copied everything else perfectly, but she couldn't add on what she hadn't been aware of to begin with, and that was how they broke free.

"Nice try princess." Temari said, yelling out to the pink-haired girl that had managed to put her in another genjutsu earlier at the hotel, "I thought you'd run away already. Kankuro!" She shouted to her nearby brother who had somehow managed to hide that bulky puppet monstrosity he was taking cover inside of.

"Got it." Kankuro's voice projected around the area, "Oh wow, she's really cute. Makes me almost feel bad about this. Almost."

From where she had been hiding amongst the trees, Sakura stepped her foot off of a trunk before backflipping off of it as several poison-coated kunai stabbed into the same tree and she caught sight of the freaky form of Kankuro's Karasu puppet, gliding around through the forest all around her.

Some of them had explosive tags attached and Sakura quickly darted away from the tree before it was blown to hell. That really could have been her had she not been attentive enough.

A whizzing noise alerted her to three saw blades connected to arms flying through the forest at her, "Why are you doing this? Konoha and Suna are allies!"

"That hasn't really been very beneficial to us." Kankuro said from wherever he was hiding while Sakura continued to dodge and search for him wherever he was, "Sure, we get more work and money than we used to back before, but that boost is only from the scraps that Konoha hands off, like we're the little brother village to yours. It's emasculating! No wonder villages like Iwa still don't take us seriously and try to throw their weight around all the time!"

"And having Tsunade is going to do what for you?" Chouji asked, carefully staring down Temari out in the open amongst the felled trees as the wind-based kunoichi did the same against him, "Even if she is super-strong, she's still just one person."

"One person that countered every poison that our village's expert put forth in the Second Shinobi World War and revolutionized the way that shinobi squads are put together forever." Temari amended, "You're telling me right now that you don't have anyone on your team that practices medical ninjutsu?"

They did. The one out of Team 7 that dabbled in it was currently being pursued by a weird six-armed humanoid arsenal puppet, the origin of which she couldn't get enough time to locate.

Able to tell that this was the case from the look on Chouji's face, Temari continued, "There isn't anything that Suna won't do to get that kind of a military boon. An entire generation of field medic-nin would change almost everything about the way we operate in-mission. And that's just the beginning of what she could do for us."

"She's a Konoha ninja!"

"Not for the last twenty years she hasn't been!" Temari said as she drew her fan back for a swing, "She's a free agent for all intents and purposes! Fuuton: Tatsu no Oshigoto (Wind Release: Great Task of the Dragon)!"

Instead of sending an attack right at Chouji, Temari's wind flew up into the clouds and began manipulating them around overhead. Chouji was not willing to sit and wait to find out whatever she had cooked up, as he created two hand-seals and started bringing his own fighting style into play, "Baika no Jutsu (Multi-Size Jutsu)!"

Chouji's entire body grew to twenty times its original size, giving him the appearance of a giant. Even when the tornado that had been spawned via Temari's jutsu fell from the skies, Chouji wasn't even taken off of his feet and had to smirk at the fact that she could barely budge him enough to take a step back.

So he was so big she couldn't send him flying was he? That was fine. If that were the case she could always just use her wind to cut chunks out of him until he dropped. That would certainly work for her.

Before she could even draw her arms back to swing her fan again, Chouji channeled chakra to his hands and smashed them down into the ground through the tree trunks littering the area, "Chouharite (Super Open Hand Slap)!" A miniature earthquake took place with debris and chunks of wood flying up all over.

Temari had to cover up to keep safe before swinging her fan to send all of the materials in the air away so that she could see. See the gigantic palm heading right her way that she was barely able to use her iron fan to protect herself from.

Even so, she still wound up coughing blood from the hit that rattled her insides around. But instead of crashing into wood or against the rough, hard ground she got a much softer bed to land in when she was caught out of the air by sand.

Surprise at not taking catastrophic injury from Chouji's overwhelming attack that she still should have been feeling the pain gave way to a feeling of victory when she realized that they weren't in Kaze no Kuni, so there was one reason sand would be there.

And that reason would kill everyone standing against them.

"Where have you been Gaara?" Temari asked as she was carefully placed down on the ground by her youngest brother's sand, "You were going to spend some time outside so you should have noticed everything that happened."

"I had my own opponents to deal with." Gaara stated in the chillingly calm tone that Temari had long since gotten used to. Even if he wasn't threatening anyone, that was just how Gaara spoke, "I was actually looking for them when I found that you had razed a quarter-mile of forest to the ground." Temari had the good grace to blush as Gaara looked at the gigantic form of Chouji right ahead of them, "Of course considering your opponent I guess it is understandable."

Upon seeing Gaara and remembering just what that person was capable of back when they were all kids, Chouji shouted out in alarm, "SAKURA!"

She didn't need to hear it again as she started trying to extricate herself from her conflict with Kankuro's puppet to try and get back over to Chouji. Fighting with a puppet that she couldn't find a way to disable was a little out of her comfort zone. A dodge to avoid a set of explosive pellets from Karasu led to Sakura falling into a well concealed opening that quickly closed off and trapped her inside.

"Ah, gotcha Konoha babe." Kankuro said from his hiding place as his puppet revealed more of itself, such as its horned head, six thin arms, and two thin legs like Karasu's, "It was only a matter of time before your focus slipped and you fell into Kuroari. Kurohigi Kiki Ippatsu (Black Secret Technique Machine One Shot)!"

Segments of Karasu broke off revealing blades hidden in the body parts before they stabbed into openings on Kuroari to impale Sakura. The resulting scream sounded like victory, but there was no blood. And he couldn't take Karasu's parts out of Kuroari either. Growling to himself, Kankuro broke the genjutsu again to find Sakura was sitting on giant Chouji's shoulder, "Magen: Shouri no Kotei (Demonic Illusion: Stroke of Victory)."

"When did you put a genjutsu on me you bitch! You don't even know where I am!"

"I know where your stupid puppet is though." Sakura replied, not trapped or impaled at all, "And your puppet is controlled by your chakra thread connecting it to you. I can use the puppet like a light switch to turn on the lightbulb so to speak. If I cast a genjutsu on your puppet I can creep control over to you depending on how far away you are from the damn thing."

She extended her chakra flow through his chakra thread all the way back to him and his brain to slip a genjutsu on him. For fuck's sake, what kind of chakra control did something like that take?

From her place on Chouji's shoulder, Sakura had as close to a bird's eye view of the battlefield as she was going to get. It was now three-on-two, and one of their enemies was that scary Gaara guy, "What do we do now?" She asked Chouji who didn't really have a way to respond.

"If we're going to retreat we're going to need to get creative, because Sasuke and Kiba aren't here." Chouji said, bringing up their entire reason for being away from the bulk of their squad.

"Enough." Gaara said with his arms crossed over his chest, "Where is Tsunade?" No response from the Konoha contingent, "If that is your choice…" He said, waving his hand to manipulate his sand directly in front of himself, "…So be it. Rendan: Suna Shigure (Successive Shots: Sand Drizzle)."

Gaara fired dozens of high-speed sand bullets at Chouji who crossed his arms and blocked the attack with his body due to his inability to dodge. He had to use that size and durability of his to his advantage. He wore that armor for a reason. Even so, the impact of all of the sand projectiles were pounding the air out of him.

In a bid to assist her teammate, Sakura wrapped an explosive tag around a kunai before launching it at Gaara only for his sand to stop it and cover it entirely. The sand muffled the explosion from the tag and left Gaara and his siblings entirely unharmed.

Gaara began making hand-seals, completely unshaken by Chouji's sturdy body standing up to his previous jutsu, "It seems as if your size isn't for nothing Akimichi-san. I'll have to fight you to scale then. Suna no Iseki Maisou (Sand Ruin Burial)!"

Underneath Chouji, the ground loosened and a torrent of sand flew up in large enough amounts to surround his entire body. Temari swung her fan and guided all of it into a spinning pillar of sand that seemed as if it could peel skin from bones.

As it died down though, there was no bloody Chouji skeleton within. Instead it was an uprooted tree with the bark entirely peeled off of it. Without the powerful winds to hold it upright it fell to the ground in a crash, and neither Chouji nor Sakura were there to be seen.

Another genjutsu? It had to be something like that, because Chouji didn't have that much speed to avoid the combination jutsu altogether, nor did anyone have the power to just force their way out of a razor-sharp tunnel of sand.

"Kawarikage no Jutsu (Shadow Replacement Jutsu)." That seemingly bored voice despite the fact that there was a battle going on. Temari involuntarily grit her teeth in anger at the sound of it.

From the trees, the top of Chouji's spiky brown hair could be seen as he walked back into plainer view with a smaller figure down at his feet doing the same, hands shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket, "I didn't know you could do that with a tree stuck in the ground Shikamaru." Chouji commented.

Shikamaru kept his eyes on the group in front of him with a perturbed look on his face. Getting tons of trees cut down on top of your head would put one in a foul mood, "I can teleport anything similar in size. You're as tall and as heavy as a tree bud."

"How did you not die?" Temari blurted out in anger at seeing him still standing, with not so much as a fractured limb for all of the trouble she went through.

Shikamaru just fixed her with a passing glance, "Lady, I'm talking with my friends here. I will deal with you and your brothers in just a minute." All that did was get Temari to fume and punch at her iron fan out of anger. Gaara gave her a slightly wary glance but said nothing, "Hey Sasuke, we're friends right?"

Temari and Gaara's eyes widened at the slight sound of chirping as his sand moved to defend them both, but apparently not fast enough as a pair of lightning covered hands shoved through their chests from behind, "Tch." Their bodies then turned to sand and everyone looked up to see both Gaara and Temari suspended in the air by a platform of Gaara's sand, "Fuck off Shikamaru."

Needless to say, he was not happy at his targets dodging his double-Chidori, even if it wasn't the fault of the Nara genius.

"The best." Shikamaru muttered sarcastically while Sakura was set down on the ground by Chouji's hand, "So what are you guys even doing here?" He asked the pink-haired kunoichi.

"Looking for Sasuke-kun and Kiba." Sakura said, relieved at seeing Sasuke was alright. But wait, "Where's Kiba?"

Shikamaru just smirked.

XxX

(Nearby in the Forest)

"I'm coming for you dandy-man!" Kiba said in a ferally gruff manner as he rushed high-speed through the trees, "You can't hide from me~!"

At his side, Karasu appeared, clicking noises going off to intimidate his enemy, but intimidation was the last thing that Kiba was thinking of, even when the puppet brandished a decent amount of its arsenal to try and bring him down, mostly consisting of multiple hidden blades and a giant poisoned needle in its mouth.

Kiba dropped a smoke bomb that prompted Karasu to riddle the cloud with an assortment of poisoned kunai, senbon, and poison gas only for it all to clear away to reveal Kiba wasn't there. Instead there was only a hole in the ground, and right then Kankuro realized how Kiba, Shikamaru, and Sasuke were able to survive Temari's attack if the Inuzuka Clan member could use a jutsu that would allow him to do such a thing so quickly.

"Tsuuga (Passing Fang)!"

The ground underneath Kankuro's hiding place burst out with Kiba spinning his body like an active drill, knocking against the heavily defensive side of Kankuro's sturdy third puppet Sanshouo, almost tipping it over entirely.

"How did you even find me?" Kankuro asked as he continued to take refuge inside of Sanshouo while waiting for his other two puppets to get close enough for him to fight Kiba off again.

"You smell like machinery oil, steak, and fear." Kiba said, "The fear's the most important part. It's also my favorite part. Not good at fighting in close dude?" He intentionally brandished his sharpened fingernails for emphasis, "That's too bad."

This was salvageable. All Kankuro had to do was get some more space and throw forth a full-court press onto Kiba. Inuzuka Clan members were notoriously bad at distance fighting. And right on cue, Kuroari attacked Kiba with its body open to try and capture him.

Far too quick for such a direct approach, Kiba turned in the air from a jump and kicked the puppet in the head, spinning it on the body like a top. With Karasu moving in to pick up the slack and continue pursuing Kiba, Kankuro sealed Sanshouo away before choosing to move along to a new hiding place.

Out of the corner of his eye, Kiba caught the movement and wasn't having any of that, "Nuh uh! You ain't hiding again pal!" Of all things to do, he unbuckled his pants and jumped into the air with the most wicked grin imaginable on his face. Akamaru wasn't here so it had to be him to do this, "This one's for you boy!"

XxX

"GAH! OH, YOU DISGUSTING MOTHERFUCKER! I'M GONNA MURDER YOU!"

A gigantic explosion from within the forest soon gave way to a slightly burnt, soot-covered Kiba running as fast as he could while buckling his pants into the clear-cut area where his allies were, "Hey Sakura, Chouji, what's up?" He asked hurriedly, constantly looking behind himself to where he had come from as if he expected something bad to come his way.

Sakura raised an eyebrow but answered nonetheless, "We came to get you and Sasuke-kun to get all of us moving to the rendezvous point before a big squad of Iwa ANBU that outnumbers us altogether caught everyone… but we hit a little bump." A sandy bump that could crush them and kill them all.

"I noticed." Kiba deadpanned, still looking out for an irate puppeteer to be coming that way any moment, "So now what?"

Sasuke apparently had the answer, at least from his point of view, "Who knows what else could be happening with Tsunade and the others right now?" He said, never taking his eyes off of Gaara and Temari in the air, "It would probably be best to link back up with our original teams, or at least to put as many bodies on Tsunade as we can. Kiba and Shikamaru should go. We can handle them ourselves."

A frown crossed Shikamaru's face at hearing that. True, it was probably the first thing that would have come to mind for him, but it left too many people out on the vine. True, Naruto and Ino were amongst those being pursued by the alleged Iwa ANBU that Sakura spoke of, but if there was one thing he detested it was the default plan to split off and deal with problems as they came.

There had to be another way, if only there was time to come up with one. He was about to do his best to come up with something until he heard the gigantic Chouji behind him clear his throat. Turning around, Shikamaru looked up to see his old friend smiling down at him, "It's not like you're leaving us at a disadvantage here. The odds are even."

"You guys sure?" Kiba asked, raising an eyebrow at the more *ahem* delicate member of Team 7 in Sakura, who didn't seem to be very taken aback at all in the face of the pending battle, "I mean, we've got five here against three."

"And the others have got twelve to sixteen ANBU to their five. Six counting Akamaru." Sakura replied, and that was all Kiba needed to hear before deciding that they did need to link back up with the others. He yelled for Shikamaru to follow him, which the strategist did, but reluctantly.

Gaara watched all of this from above, having never taken his eyes off of Sasuke the way that Sasuke had never taken his eyes off of him.

"It doesn't matter if they run or not." Gaara said plainly, "We'll finish you and follow them back to Tsunade. If you want to do this the hard way we have no problem with accommodating you."

"Just because you're up there doesn't mean we still can't bring you down." Sasuke said with a smirk, excited at getting a fair shake at fighting someone that had a real reputation in the world.

A few more seconds of staring led Gaara to gesture to Temari with his head, prompting her to leave his suspended platform to engage Sakura and Chouji again. He wanted to fight Sasuke himself if that was indeed the challenge being laid down. And he maneuvered himself in the air away from the others to a location a short ways away.

It could be said that they would have needed the space.

Sasuke fled from him when they were atop the hotel. Gaara didn't really expect more out of him in this meeting, but his blood was boiling for a fight and he was going to take the opportunity for one. It had been a while since he'd fought against someone that would have actually been fun to kill.

As he lowered himself to the ground, Sasuke just waited for him to finish descending, to which Gaara raised a nonexistent eyebrow, "Why haven't you taken the opportunity to attack me yet? Some fool thing like honor?"

"No, not at all." Sasuke said, tapping his temple as he spoke, "I'm just thinking. More like wondering really. After I get rid of all of that sand of yours, I wonder just how good of a shot you can really take."

Gaara's face didn't change or show that he'd risen to the semi-threat at all, "Do you remember what I said about hating the nighttime? That goes double for full moons. It makes me rather… testy." With that he split his abundance of sand into three segments and sent two of them at Sasuke.

Sasuke drew his gunbai from his back and swung it at the ground, throwing up a torrent of flame that Gaara's sand quickly put out only to find that Sasuke wasn't there. Gaara's third portion of sand quickly moved to protect the Shukaku jinchuuriki, grabbing hold of Sasuke's sharp-edged war fan before he could try and lop off a portion of Gaara's body.

The sand crept up the weapon along the handle until Sasuke let it go and backflipped away before the offensive portions of Gaara's sand could surround and capture him.

As he moved away, an end of wire sat in Sasuke's mouth and he rolled through hand-seals before utilizing a jutsu, "Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Dragon Fire Jutsu)!" Fire travelled from Sasuke's mouth down the length of the wire until it reached the handle of his gunbai and caught the entire weapon in flames.

With a jerk of his head, Sasuke pulled the flaming weapon free from the scorched sand and back into one of his hands. He formed a half-tiger seal with one hand and swung the fan, sending several flaming, winged creatures out directly at Gaara as they seemed homed in on him with screeching noises emitting from them, "Katon: Koushitsu no Tsubasa (Fire Release: Imperial Wings)!"

They exploded on contact with Gaara's sand shield, one after another in a fiery display, but did absolutely nothing to bring it down, "Mere explosions aren't enough to weaken my sand defenses any longer." Gaara sent his sand back out at Sasuke to crush the young man without fear of any sort of reprisal from him, "There are more productive ways to commit suicide just so you know. Ways that wouldn't have cost your teammates their lives either."

"I'm not worried about them, or about myself." Sasuke said as he continued to dodge up, around, and behind all of the fallen trees that Temari had cut down, "I wouldn't have volunteered us to stay and fight if I didn't believe that we couldn't beat you and your family."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. And if you think that a few fireballs are the best I've got, you've already forgotten my first move against you here, haven't you?"

With that, Sasuke's gunbai began to let off a small humming noise as small volts of electricity began to spring from it. Impressively, Sasuke's fan began to neutralize Gaara's sand as it came into contact with it, much to Gaara's shock.

Just touching the fan seemed to cause Gaara's waves of sand to dematerialize out of attack form and fall limply to the wayside for a short time, 'So his mastery over elemental transformation extends to lightning just as well as fire.' Gaara thought to himself, breaking down just what Sasuke was doing to stop his sand, 'That first jutsu he tried on Temari and I upon his arrival, it isn't all he is capable of with electricity.'

"You might be a jinchuuriki…" Sasuke said with a serious expression, twirling his gunbai around before holding it firmly in a two-handed grip, "…But I'm an Uchiha. So don't take me lightly."

"I don't take anyone lightly." Returned Gaara as he returned all of his sand to around his body, "But to your earlier question to me I have one of my own. I'm wondering myself, if I counteract your Sharingan, just long would you be able to survive?"

That was something that was sort of confusing to Sasuke. In his mind what he'd said about Gaara's sand made more sense. The sand was separate from Gaara's body. Sasuke's eyes were attached inside of his head, and thinking about losing that made him physically ill. Maybe because it involved his eyes being plucked out and because he could see Gaara gouging his eyes out with sand? Not a pleasant thought.

Prepared to make a move, Sasuke felt a stinging at his eyes and ignored it after a blink or two, proceeding to storm forth to attack.

During the chunin exam years ago, Naruto and Team 10 had basically written the blueprint for how to defeat Sabaku no Gaara. Even though it was probably far more difficult to take advantage of due to the years that had passed, the fact of the matter was that not only was it possible to get past his Shield of Sand, it was necessary if one wished to win against him.

Sasuke's Sharingan allowed him to see the billowing layers of sand coming to intercept him and he was able to analyze any safe path in getting to Gaara. He was able to see when a place was open, when it was closed off to him, when he was in danger, all of it.

But his eyes kept on bothering him, forcing him to break off in the middle of his attack pattern. Going in blind was worse than not going in at all. Upon seeing Sasuke move backwards, Gaara sent several waves of sand at him that Sasuke repelled with the electricity flowing through his gunbai.

He did not see a small tendril of sand wrap around his ankle and begin creeping up his leg, eventually dragging him to the ground.

Sasuke could feel the sand coming his way and created a Chidori in his right hand, ridding his leg of the sand around it before it was too late as a wave arched and crashed his way. Gaara had to admit that Sasuke was incredibly quick to keep avoiding his sand.

'What the hell?' Sasuke thought to himself as he continued keeping his distance from Gaara after his failed attempt to maneuver past his defenses, 'Wait, is he the one doing this?' Taking a moment to focus on more than just the pending threat of Gaara's personal sand, Sasuke smiled grimly at what he picked up on, "Didn't take you for the subtle type."

"I dabble in subtle from time to time." Gaara said, taking a bit of wry humor out of Sasuke discovering that he was spacing out grains of sand in the air to irritate his eyes and force him into making mistakes, "This isn't even my best one. My best was slowly getting enough sand little by little into an enemy's ear until I had enough to force it through his brain. It isn't always 'crush my enemies,' though that tends to be the easiest approach."

Gaara didn't even have to sacrifice a significant portion of sand to mess with Sasuke's vision, only the minutest amount was required. A stray grain of sand could scratch at his cornea.

'I really wish I had those stupid goggles Naruto wears right now.' Sasuke thought to himself as he pondered his next move. And he only had so long to do it, because while Gaara didn't move during battles he had his sand to do it for him. And it didn't seem like it would wait very long before it would come at him in force.

XxX

(With Tsunade and Team 8 – Countryside of Hi no Kuni)

"Does anyone else need a soldier pill?" Tsunade asked as she, Hinata, Shino, and Akamaru had stopped for a momentary spell to take full account of the situation. Also so that Hinata could rest her eyes for a short bit. Overuse of the Byakugan would keep her from being able to see even normally for a short time, "We can't stop moving for long."

Stopping again was not to be advised.

Even stopping when they did was only done out of necessity. Hinata had kept up the Byakugan for two hours straight after turning it on and off for much of the day already.

"It's straight to the bounty station from here on out isn't it?" Shino asked, keeping an eye on Akamaru who was steadily sniffing at the air for incoming enemies while Hinata was nursing her doujutsu for the time being, "The sooner we get there and put an end to this the sooner this can all go away."

"That's the plan." Tsunade said, her hands blue as she checked the others over to ensure that they were still all fighting fit, "Like I said, if we keep moving at the pace we've been going we shouldn't make it there much later than just after sunrise." She then noticed Akamaru whimpering and barking to get their attention, "…Maybe a bit later."

Clapping could be heard in the open field that they were resting in, and everyone saw a pair of men walking their way, one with silver hair and a wicked-looking scythe, the other tall and imposing with large stitch scars on his arms.

The more heavily covered of the two with strange red and green eyes and the full facemask happened to be the one providing the sarcastic applause, "Well 'mark,' or should I say Senju Tsunade, is there anything you have to say for yourself?"

Clearly they were Akatsuki, which meant that if they knew where Naruto was they would try to hurt him. That already put them on her shitlist. She acted like the kid was a pain and in return he acted like she was a bothersome old lady, but the two of them cared very much for each other.

She'd crack their skulls before they took his biju.

"Can I help you?" Tsunade drawled with her hands on her hips. Her chunin and ninken associates were not as vocal as she was in facing off with such potential threats, "Wait, let me guess. Facial reconstructive surgery, and a lobotomy." She said, pointing to Kakuzu and Hidan respectively.

"Wahahahaha!" Hidan cackled at Kakuzu's expense at the insult hurled his way before the second half of Tsunade's comment was processed by his brain, "Oi, you bitch! I didn't even say anything yet! How are you going to call me crazy or stupid?"

"Because you look crazy and stupid." Tsunade argued in return, "Besides, the legendary missing-nin Kakuzu is obviously the brains of this outfit."

Kakuzu chuckled deeply and stepped forward, "I'm flattered that you know about me. Your grandfather disposed of me so casually all those years ago I figured that I was hardly a passing threat to him."

"It's not what you were that the stories were about, it's what you became after your village turned on you after your failure." Tsunade said, shaking her head at the thought of a hidden village selling its own up the river for going through with a mission that they assigned. Even in failure, to take on Senju Hashirama and to try and assassinate him was something that took incredible courage and conviction, "I can hardly say I blame you, but that's neither here nor there."

The thought of what happened to him got Kakuzu's fists to clench in anger, "Cowards. I was their best. I bled for them. And they turn around and hike up their skirts the moment your grandfather came to them offering peace in return. Imprisoning me for following their orders just to make themselves look good." With that he let it all go and laughed to himself, "But like you said, that is neither here nor there. I got my pound of flesh, left with the secrets of their most valuable techniques, and now the only thing I believe in is money. It never lets you down, it stays constant, and it's why I'm here now."

Tsunade raised a delicate blonde eyebrow but said nothing as Hinata tried to observe just what their two new enemies were made of. Upon seeing them, she let out another small gasp. She was doing that quite a bit at the sight of these men.

Only now she had a close-up view of what made them tick.

Kakuzu's body really was like that of the Takigakure boy that had beaten her team and then had been subsequently killed by Sasuke in the following round in the chunin exams final tournament. Only those four masks sewn into his back gave her pause. Each of them radiated a different element of chakra, each of them making this man almost the textbook definition of a monster, because each of them contained a beating human heart.

That was what that boy had been talking about all those years ago when he remarked on being interested in implanting her organs into his body. How sick.

"Tsunade-sama…" Hinata said quietly, "That man Kakuzu, he has five hearts. I don't know what this means."

"A Hyuuga." Kakuzu said, narrowing his eyes on Hinata's form, "I never liked that clan. They never seem to know when to keep the things that they see to themselves." With that he waved his hand in the direction of the Konoha squad, "Suiton: Nami Shindou no Jutsu (Water Release: Wave Impact Jutsu)!"

From the ground, water shot out in a quick riptide-style wave that drenched the open field and would have shattered the bones of whomever it hit had everyone not moved aside.

"Wonderful." Kakuzu said, once again clapping his hands, "You dodged. I'd hate to have broken such a sweat and travelled all this way in such a rage just for a first round knockout." Though admittedly killing all of those ANBU really took a chunk off of the edge of his temper, "Show me your grandfather's strength whelp."

Tsunade pointed at herself and couldn't help but laugh, "You just called me a whelp. Ha, that's a new one. A new one that I'm not really that angry with." It was better than being called old lady or grandma. Or hag. Especially hag, "I never thought I'd ever fight anyone else that I could rightfully call an old bag of bones, but here we are." She then punched into her palm with a thick smacking noise, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't pick on these kids though."

"Heh." Hidan said, wiping at his nose, "Well look at the mama bear. I don't care how strong you are. Your dusty old tits can't take us both on and protect those runts at the same time! I'm killing somebody today!" He turned devious eyes towards Shino and Hinata only to have his vision obscured by a green jacket being thrown over his head.

"Tsuutenkyaku (Heavenly Foot of Pain)!"

And out into the air echoed the sickening crack of someone's neck snapping like a twig and the sound of the ground being pulverized.

Tsunade had moved fast enough to hit Hidan unaware with an ax kick that smashed him headfirst into the ground, a crater forming underneath where he faceplanted into the grass and dirt.

No one moved a muscle. The Konoha squad didn't move out of shock that a human being could take advantage of a self-created opening with such finality with nothing more than brutal taijutsu. And Kakuzu just didn't seem to care.

"And that…" Tsunade said, grinding her heel into the ground where she'd dropped Hidan in one move, "…Is how you do that. Questions? Concerns?" She looked up over at Kakuzu who hadn't moved at all since she'd attacked, "You should really make sure that if you're going to travel with a human meat shield they're at least moderately reliable as a buffer." She sounded nonchalant, but the fact of the matter was that these jerks were S-ranked, and she wasn't going to sleep on any opportunity to kill them.

The fact that a chance to do so presented itself earlier than she'd anticipated was no reason not to break Hidan's neck like a chicken's.

"Noted." Kakuzu said rather cheerfully for his strangely deep voice, "I'll bet you can't do it again to me. As a matter of fact I'll stake all of my money that you borrowed off of my banker, and all of the money that I'll get from turning in your corpse… as well as that quaint little necklace of your grandfather that is worth a mint."

"Your banker?"

"Yes… you borrowed money and didn't pay it back to my banker. My money." His skin seemed to darken as he glared at Tsunade and radiated intense killing intent, "Oh, and now I'm pissed off again. Go figure."

He and Tsunade sped at each other before each broke off and tried to outmaneuver each other, but before Kakuzu could make a move on the Sannin, a large swarm of bugs deposited themselves between him and Tsunade, "I feel as if you've forgotten us." Shino said as he sent his insects at Kakuzu, "That would be a major mistake."

"The adults are talking." Kakuzu replied, casting away his black and red clouded cloak to reveal a black sleeveless shirt underneath. In his back four masks were visibly sewn into his back, one of which separated itself from his body in a mass of black threads that took on the deformed four-legged form of a tiger. All the while, Kakuzu created three hand-seals, "Here. Play nice with one of my elemental affinities. Katon: Zukokku (Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work)!"

Deep inside of the black thread body of Kakuzu's fire mask, a small fireball was created that it fired out at Shino's bugs, creating a firestorm that set a vast portion of the open field ablaze. All Kakuzu did was cackle, even while Tsunade glared him down.

"Damn it Kakuzu! Could you have at least waited until I pulled my head out of that stupid crater you money-grubbing heathen?"

"Oh you're fine! Stop complaining!"

Tsunade's jaw dropped at hearing Hidan's voice again after what she had done to him. That monster was still alive. No one could have survived something like that. And yet she could see his silhouette standing up as plain as day through the fire, as if she hadn't done what she did to him mere moments earlier.

Yes, by the way… about Hidan." Kakuzu said, positively grinning beneath his mask, as terrifying as that prospect happened to be the look on the faces of his enemies when they learned of the following information just did it for him every single time, "His body is completely unkillable."

Omake: Guardian Days 10

(Two Years and One Month after Shikamaru and Naruto's Acceptance)

A trip into the capital city of Hi no Kuni near the court of the daimyo was meant to be a day off for two Guardians, but it only really ended up being a rest day for one. On duty or not, weird things seemed to happen around them all of the time, even by Guardian standards.

At least this time the weirdness didn't directly involve Shikamaru. Instead it was solely Naruto's problem today.

Sitting off on metal bench just outside of a stand that he and Naruto frequented on their times in the city, Shikamaru just sat off to side eating his mackerel and watching the scene unfolding in front of him with a placid expression on his face. Strange considering his partner was possibly in mortal danger right in front of him.

"Go away! I don't want to fight today, it's my day off!"

"Stop all of this posturing and fight me properly student of Jiraiya! It's a matter of tradition!"

It was quite the conundrum that Naruto found himself in. And if ever a situation qualified itself as 'troublesome' this one would have to be it. It had everything that Shikamaru figured to be the hallmark of a bad situation.

It involved fighting.

It involved effort needing to be given in general.

It involved a woman.

It involved a woman that apparently knew how to fight and had no problem giving the maximum amount of effort needed.

Pretty much everything someone needed to fuck a day up.

Responding to a disturbance in the streets, word of which had gotten to the daimyo's court, blind monk Sadao and giant bucket-helmeted juggernaut Kenta made their appearance along with a platoon of regular soldiers. With a sigh, first and foremost Sadao walked up to Shikamaru who was still hanging out and watching the proceedings, "Okay, why aren't you stopping this shadow-boy?"

"Day off." Shikamaru replied before continuing with his meal and ignoring the uproar in the background, "Besides, she's not stepping in so it's a fair fight." He said, motioning to the kunoichi-looking brown-haired woman sitting on the exact same bench as him, calmly watching the ongoing fight while drinking tea.

She was taller than all of them save for Kenta of course and had short hair, wore a red bodysuit with the back removed from it and a long katana strapped to her back. She didn't seem to want to fight however, so at least she was being civil.

The same couldn't be said for what was going on with Naruto.

Using his machete he blocked a wave of kunai that had been sent his way by his lovely adversary. He could do that in his sleep, but that didn't make the circumstances surrounding it any less annoying, "Seriously, I'd be a crappy boyfriend, let alone a husband! I suck!"

"That isn't an option!" Naruto's female foe replied, continuing to coat her kunai in wind chakra. She didn't expect that Naruto would have been equally adept at generating elemental chakra through his weaponry, let alone the same element as her, "Now fight like a man! I won't accept a victory just handed to me!"

Kenta had walked over behind Sadao to tower over him while the latter palmed his forehead, "What's this all about?" This merely showed how he was the most levelheaded of the bunch aside from maybe Kenta, but he didn't talk so he didn't count.

If it had been Kotoko to respond to the disturbance she probably would have shredded all perpetrators involved and walked away. If it had been Akira she would have probably started taking bets on the fight. If it had been Shinya he probably would have just sat and watched out of interest for how the fight would turn out.

The reason for this being because the two combatants were Naruto and a single girl that they hadn't seen before.

A girl Naruto's age with green eyes and black hair in a high and loose ponytail with bangs framing her face. She had on a black headband with the metal plate engraved with a flower insignia. She wore a very tight black outfit with short sleeves and the back exposed with a dark burgundy sash around her waist as well as black sandals.

She was doing a very good job of trying to cause Naruto great physical harm. And Sadao wanted to know why Shikamaru hadn't done anything yet. Day off his ass, there had to be a better reason for it than that.

"Okay. First of all, the girl's name is Shizuka. And she's the leader of the Nadeshiko Village." Shikamaru said, pausing when he heard Sadao let out a whistle, either at her looks or at the title. Probably the latter because he really couldn't see her, "Yeah. She's fourteen like us."

Naruto pissing someone off wasn't that strange, but he was usually good about keeping himself under control around dignitaries? And why was she even there to begin with? Nadeshiko Village was kind of way out of the way. Like, south of Mizu no Kuni out of the way, "That still doesn't explain why this is happening."

"Getting to that." Shikamaru replied, thinking of a way to begin explaining what was happening, "So you know how Naruto's sensei Jiraiya was hanging around and looking all skittish all week long before he just up and left yesterday?" Both Sadao and Kenta wordlessly nodded, "Well we know why he left so fast now."

It had been weird. Jiraiya seemed to be jumping at shadows. At first everyone figured that he'd just pissed Tsunade off and had been ducking her, but that wasn't the case as even she didn't know what the deal was. He'd been off of his game every time he sparred with Naruto and absentminded. Then he up and left.

Shikamaru continued his narration of the current events, "A bunch of years ago way before any of us were born Jiraiya wound up infiltrating Nadeshiko Village to do his perv thing, and on his way out after he got busted he got into a fight and fought with her-." Shikamaru stressed, pointing at the girl hurling weaponry at Naruto, "-Sensei; the old leader of their village. Their village has a law where guys who defeat their women are supposed to be engaged to them, and you can guess how that went over with him. So he didn't beat her because he knew what would happen. He just promised that he'd have the woman's student fight with his student and pick up where they left off."

"So…" Sadao tried to pick up what Shikamaru was laying down, "What, did he think that wasn't ever going to happen or anything?" He had to admit from what he was seeing as Naruto deflected a powerful stream of wind from Shizuka that he could have dodged that he was doing a good job of minimizing property damage.

"Clearly." Shikamaru said as he then watched Naruto dodge a falling kick that had wind chakra around the leg. Naruto was definitely not going to stand beneath that and try to block it. He knew better, as it destroyed a large portion of the road upon contact, "He didn't want any students back then. How'd he figure he'd end up with Naruto, or even the Yondaime? Namikaze Minato hadn't even graduated the Academy back then."

"Oh. Well that sucks." From the sound of his voice, Sadao didn't really care that much. But he kind of did. Not because he didn't want Naruto to get hitched, because he didn't give a damn about that.

No, he cared because Naruto was under contract, and if that contract was broken just so this little princess could take Naruto as her hubby, there was a good chance that such a thing could either get Naruto assassinated or start a war. Neither of those things were good and needed to be avoided if at all possible.

"You don't even know." Shikamaru said with a shake of his head, "Naruto has two options as far as I can see. First of all he can just kick her ass and wind up with her trying to take him back to her village to marry him."

Entirely possible, because while Shizuka was good befitting of her status, and had mastery of her wind techniques to a great degree, Naruto was better. He'd mastered his element as well, and he was making it hard on her just by dodging everything she was throwing at him. She hadn't touched him in twenty minutes.

Winning would be bad though, since he wouldn't kill her in victory just for trying to follow her village's customs she would try to take him with her. And who knew how bad that could wind up being, or how long it could take to settle? Kunoichi were crazy and sometimes very vindictive. Kotoko, Akira, and Tsunade were all living proof of that.

"Or he can stand there and let her flatten and possibly kill him so that she'll leave him alone." Holding his hands up like two sides of a balance beam he continued, "That's a lesser evil though. Logic would say to just throw the fight since he can take a bit of a beatdown because of the Kyuubi and because we're here and won't let her kill him-."

"-But this is Naruto we're talking about here." Sadao concluded, rubbing his eyes beneath his sunglasses, "The guy that would rather flip the shogi board than lose a game. A game that he knows he's garbage at. I can't imagine how he'd feel about losing a fight he knows he can win hands-down." Kenta tapped the smaller monk on the shoulder and somehow Sadao understood what he was trying to say, "Yeah, this girl seems to hate Naruto, so what would she actually get out of getting with him?"

"It is the custom of our village for the women to marry men stronger than them to ensure powerful offspring." The woman next to Shikamaru, probably Shizuka's attendant, said as she continued to neutrally sit and watch, "As its leader Shizuka-sama more than anyone else doesn't have the luxury of casting such a thing aside. I wouldn't say she hates him either. He just hasn't tried to hit her back from the start. She thinks he's being sexist."

"No, he's not being sexist. That's my thing." Shikamaru amended for her, "He just doesn't know if he wants to fight to win or not. Win and be engaged to some girl he doesn't know, or lose. You'd think that decision would be easy wouldn't you?"

Naruto's pride was perhaps his greatest strength and weakness. He had an unflappable self-confidence in himself to the point where every time he fought with Jiraiya he always believed he'd find some way to pull out the win, and as a Guardian you had to walk around believing that you could handle absolutely any task the daimyo or Nobuyuki decided to throw at you on any given day.

On the other hand there were also extreme negatives to that. Such as not willing to let anyone believe that they could beat your ass, no matter how much trouble actually winning the fight would be for him. You could actually see it on his face.

He knew exactly what was going on and the ramifications of either victory or defeat. He also knew that the outcome of either was all in his hands. He was fighting with himself over whether or not to let Shizuka just lay him out with one of those shots and pick his ego up off of the ground later, or to actually try to win and open up a whole new can of worms.

Oh! What if he scared her off? That could work. Whether she was trying to marry him for customary reasons or not she probably wouldn't want her name to be associated with monsters or anything like that. Girls kind of had a thing for their significant others not being freaks or what have you.

And he had one in his belly.

All of a sudden Naruto stopped and his entire body was covered in a red, fox-shaped shroud of chakra complete with two tails as his features roughened, "Oops." Naruto said in a deadpan voice, "Oh, would you look at that? My biju is showing. Sorry about that."

From the complete look of shock and astonishment on Shizuka's face he felt that his spur-of-the-moment gambit had worked. It had worked well enough that he didn't have to go ahead and flatten her to win the battle at least, which was what he wanted.

Nearby, Shikamaru looked on and nodded in silent approval. He couldn't have picked a lazier way to stop a fight himself, short of just giving up of course. But since Naruto never surrendered this was as shrewd a move as he could have made.

Especially when he immediately took his opening to hightail it on out of there back to the court, with Shikamaru finding it prudent to follow. He'd finished his lunch after all.

Let it be known that Uzumaki Naruto did not run away, he strategically retreated.

He was also going to strategically avoid that woman for as long as possible to avoid another no-win scenario if this didn't get rid of her for good.

He was also going to strategically kick Jiraiya in his scrotum when he saw him again for leaving him to this with little to no warning.

And once Naruto was gone, both Sadao and Kenta found no reason to hang around, as one of the causes of the in-town disturbance had just left. It would probably be quite some time before Naruto returned to the city after this little episode.

The functional mute Kenta nudged the smaller Sadao with his elbow, getting a nod from the blind young man who spoke for him, "You're right Kenta, there's no more issue here. You guys enjoy the rest of your stay in the capital, stay out of trouble, and have a safe trip home."

Even when the last two Guardians on the scene departed, the leader of the Nadeshiko Village couldn't help but stare at the place that Naruto had been standing at minutes ago. As her female attendant came up to her to get her attention she still didn't look away.

"Tokiwa." Shizuka said after having recovered enough to speak, "He referred to the biju, which would make him a-."

"-Jinchuuriki." Tokiwa said, finishing her sentence for her, "Yes, exactly. To think that Jiraiya would have trained one of them as his own student…" She trailed off in thought at the prospect of a biju container being the student of one of the most powerful men to ever come from Konoha.

All Shizuka did was continue to stare, "Can I defeat him?" He'd kept her at bay the entire time without using a single offensive attack and looked more annoyed than threatened by anything that she did, "Or am I just putting off my own responsibility?"

The battle technically never ended. Shizuka never struck Naruto, nor did he strike her with anything on his end so there was no real victory. Either way, she wasn't leaving yet until she got a definite fight out of Naruto that would end one way or the other.

And if she lost she would then not be giving up on someone so definitively stronger than her, no matter how long it took. After all, those Guardians operated under contracts didn't they? And eventually those contracts expired, right?