Chapter 52 - Chapter 51

(Flashback – During the Pursuit of Guren)

"I've got you Yukimaru." Guren said, still holding onto the young jinchuuriki in question as she ran inside of her crystal wheel, splitting through the ocean water as they quickly fled the island. It was a good time to do so apparently, because the tallest portion of the rocky island seemed to cave in on itself, shooting smoke and debris high into the air.

That place was done for.

Yukimaru put on a brave face despite the fact that he really looked like the child that he was from his place tucked underneath the crystal manipulating kunoichi's arm, "Do you think we lost those people from Kiri?" He asked his older guardian.

"How would they chase us out in the open water?" Guren answered his question with another question, smirking down to him as she did so, "Orochimaru-sama chose me as one of his elites for a reason. I'd have them kill me in battle before I let them have you to themselves."

Because Yukimaru was important to her master. More important than her life. She knew that and she had long since accepted that. It was a prerequisite for any true shinobi that Orochimaru deemed useful. Such was the life of an Otogakure ninja, to give oneself for their leader and everything that their ambition required.

But giving her life wasn't really planned today. The island was becoming a dot in the distance and there were dozens more in the area to take momentary refuge on to look for an opening to leave once more. Once they fled south into territory that wasn't disputed, such as Umi no Kuni, Kiri wouldn't dare pursue them and risk causing a stink down there. From there they could find their way to the mainland of the Elemental Nations and locate an Oto hideout.

For some reason the sound of water grew louder as they progressed, and it wasn't the noise of Guren's wheel splitting the waves either. Craning his neck around to see just what it was, Yukimaru's eyes widened suddenly at the sight.

A massive wave, larger than anything that could be naturally created billowed forth over the seas in the shape of a monstrous fish. In the center of the entire thing was Suigetsu, half-merged with the water and holding Kubikiribouchou in hand.

"Guren!" Yukimaru shouted in warning, but she was already aware that something was wrong as she could feel the presence breathing down their necks the moment that Yukimaru saw him, "We can't outrun him!"

Yes she knew that. Outrunning a wave that large rumbling toward them was just idiocy, even with something like what she had increasing their travelling speed. There had to be something that she could do in a hurry to stop him.

She really hated using what she was about to do in order to keep them protected, but there wasn't really much else she could do. Even if she used a potential jutsu that she had for a temporary supercharge, she wouldn't be able to stop the crashing water of a wave. It wasn't the most grandiose use of her abilities, but it would have to do.

At least until the Kubikiribouchou blade came hurtling at her from the mouth of the great water fish. The aim was well enough to score a hit and knock her right out of the wheel along with Yukimaru, "Sorry, but I don't need you pulling any tricky defensive crap. Without Haku-chan here I'm not sure what I'd do to bust up your crystals." Suigetsu said through the water. While they were worried about the big attack, there was another smaller and still extremely lethal one coming their way.

And now it was time to sweep them both away. The kid would survive. He'd make sure of it, but Guren would have to be put under and drowned. He'd focus most of the wave's pressure to crush her as best as he could while keeping the brunt of the impact away from Yukimaru.

"Kuchiyose: Rashomon (Summoning: Rashomon)!"

Directly in his path, a defensive gate with a demonic face on it, the size of one that would be posted to block entrance to a village appeared on the surface of the water and stopped him cold despite the massive dent he put into it, "What the hell is this?"

"Oh Suigetsu… getting your kicks on trying to get some vengeance against my adorable underlings are we?" That voice. No it couldn't be. What was he doing there? It made no sense, he never came out to do anything himself! Mizu no Kuni held no interest to him any longer, otherwise they would have found him at the base, "But I cannot let you continue to pursue my investment the way that you have been. I've put too much effort into young Yukimaru to allow Kirigakure to simply retake what I've bestowed upon him. You understand."

(End Flashback)

"And that was the last thing that the kid remembered before Orochimaru put him down." Asuma said with a grim look on his face as he and Yamato stood debriefing from their mission in front of their Hokage's desk, "He must have found Suigetsu's hidden clan ninjutsu too troublesome to try and kill him, especially since he wasn't even a threat at that point."

"Either way…" Yamato continued, leaning against a wall and sharing the same look on his face that Asuma had, "Orochimaru has a stake in the jinchuuriki now." So between Akatsuki and who knew what Orochimaru wanted with the biju, there were two rogue elements out in the world that had something vested in the unstable power distributed across the Elemental Nations, "What do we do?"

Hiruzen thought long and hard. Something didn't add up. The timing was off on all fronts. Even if Orochimaru discovered what had become of Gato and Degarashi Port and had then gone for his base in Mizu no Kuni to run damage control, there was no way he'd have made it in time even with the current fastest seafaring vessel in the world.

No, he knew about it before the Konoha team had even reached Degarashi Port to begin with. That was the only way possible. And sadly it wasn't an anomaly of a lapse in intelligence security either.

It had occurred in other situations when it seemed as if a mission would put Konoha in a situation where they could potentially deal Otogakure a severe blow, and it had been happening sporadically for years ever since they had been aware of the village's existence under Orochimaru's control.

"This situation of the spy in our midst is becoming extremely vexing." Hiruzen said, taking a puff from his pipe to calm his frazzled nerves. He was getting far too old to be worrying about such things. Maybe Onoki enjoyed having the rest of his hair fall out from the stress of being a kage, but he wanted to keep what grey follicles he had left, "There was no one aside from those of you on the mission, Ibiki and Inoichi in T&I, and myself that knew the details of your S-ranked mission. No one else."

Who in the world was good enough to procure such information? And how did they even obtain it?

Several traps had been set in the past to smoke out the rat, but nothing concrete ever came up for them. It was absolutely unheard of for the presence of a spy to be known of for this long without anyone blowing their cover.

Asuma took a moment to think about it before pushing his thoughts forward, "Do you think it could be Danzo?" If there was any person in the village that had the resources to pull off such a thing it would be him.

The thought of such a thing was hard to believe, with someone like Hiruzen's contemporary Shimura Danzo giving out village information to such a dangerous entity, but there was always the chance that Danzo saw assisting a village that had almost been on the outs years prior in Kirigakure as a mistake that would jeopardize Konoha. Thus he managed to procure details on the S-ranked mission and let it slip to Orochimaru in advance.

But putting that kind of information out there when the Kyuubi jinchuuriki was amongst those in the field? Either he didn't think too much of Naruto's potential abilities, or he knew of them and felt that they too were a possible threat to Konoha's safety in the future… at least the Konoha that he had envisioned once Hiruzen stepped down.

Bah! But for now all of this speculation would do no good! They had nothing but paranoia with no facts whatsoever to back it up. There was a far better chance that Danzo had absolutely nothing to do with any of it, and they were just piling up suspicion against a loyal Konoha shinobi.

"Yamato." Hiruzen said with a stern look on his face. His tone of voice got Yamato to stand up straight off of the wall at attention. This was not the gentle and understanding Sandaime Hokage that everyone loved and saw as their grandfather figure. This was the 'Kami no Shinobi' that had earned his spot decades in advance, "I want you to put together two separate squads of ANBU to watch over the Cryptanalysis Squad and Torture and Interrogation. All in the two squads will report to me directly."

"Understood sir." Yamato said before departing the office to do just as requested of him. It looked like he was putting the porcelain mask back on once again. Pity that. He liked going out without it with the others. But duty called. His Hokage and his village required this of him and he was going to deliver come hell or high water.

The work of a ninja never really seemed to be done.

Not too long after Yamato departed, Hiruzen's eyes shifted over to the form of his son who was still standing there. Normally Asuma would have taken the dismissal of one of his similarly ranked comrades as an excuse to leave as well. It was why Hiruzen always gave Asuma his directives first to keep him from sneaking out and leaving prematurely. What Kakashi was to arriving on time, Asuma was to staying all the way through meetings.

But there he stood, and he hadn't even taken the initiative to light up a cigarette, not taking Hiruzen's use of his pipe as an excuse to do the same.

"So Jiraiya-sama can't find this guy or girl, whoever they are?" Asuma said, finally getting to his point of staying behind to speak afterwards with his father, "I figured that you must have sent him a message to call him back when I found out that he had gotten here a week before Naruto and Shikamaru were to return. I guessed that this was why."

Who better to sic on a spy than Konoha's own master of espionage in Jiraiya? The man had fingers in any place that he felt he needed to have them in around the other hidden villages. He knew of regional uprisings with local landlords and bandit groups before the mission requests even came out from the small communities requesting assistance.

"Asuma, you have to burn the field to flush out the field mice for the cat to hunt." Hiruzen said with a wry smirk on his face, "We've tried the subtle approach to no results, well now it's time for scorched earth. With everything that has happened recently and with the knowledge that someone let our sensitive intelligence slip to Orochimaru, Yamato will be a bloodhound when it comes to picking people to shadow our information organizations."

If that didn't put the squeeze on the person (people?) involved, they were truly dealing with a dangerous individual to shrug off such scrutiny and continue working. Of course, if this went in line with the other trends through the years this person was about to shut down for another eight months to a year to let the investigations cool off. At least until some kind of vital information that would affect Otogakure came up. Anything fabricated wouldn't work; they had learned this in the past when traps had been set.

Very well then. They would just have to go and get some real intel wouldn't they?

XxX

(Konoha Archive Library)

The sight within the wide open library was one that hadn't been seen there in years. Anyone perusing the tomes within would find that there were several copies of the exact same person, carrying several scrolls and books and trying to skim through them to find something useful on whatever they were all looking for.

Meanwhile there was one of them; probably the original, sitting at a long table, surrounded by even more books. But he wasn't necessarily reading them. Everything in front of him was open and turned to a page, signifying that he had been reading them, but the figure in question was letting out muffled snores from where he was laying facedown in his own arms on the table.

His harness containing his sheath and machete weapon of choice lay on the table for comfort's sake, and for some reason he had Tonton with him as well. The pig was sleeping on the table right next to his head.

The slam of a book on the table prompted the haggard and tired Naruto to pop up suddenly, sitting ramrod straight in his seat as Tonton jumped up and would have fallen off of the table had Naruto not caught her. Looking around for the offender all he saw was a puff of smoke next to him. Bastard clones. They only had to exist for a few hours max to find what he needed. When they dispelled he was the one that was going to feel the mind-numbing hours of searching and reading, not them.

It wasn't like he wasn't working too. Everything potentially worthwhile was brought to him directly to read while his clones searched for more.

"Bullshit." Naruto muttered to himself, rubbing his eyes before picking up where he left off in his last book, "…All of this stuff on genjutsu, and nothing about doujutsu based techniques." Tonton let out a yawn and curled up in Naruto's lap while he continued to try and find what he needed about those damnable illusions.

He could break them. That wasn't the problem. While he might have sucked miserably at actually casting them and utterly despised them in general, breaking them had been something that he had long since worked out, and he had even created a tool to help him assist in seeing through visual illusions. But until he could meticulously construct a new pair of special protective eyewear to replace the surprisingly fragile ones that had been destroyed in battle he would have to find a way around the most dangerous chink in his ninja arts armor.

Itachi's Sharingan had double-woven him into two illusions, the second of which he hadn't been able to break. That left a very bad taste in his mouth.

Come on. There had to be some records of how to negate the Sharingan's genjutsu effects. The Uchiha clan had been a major part of the village for almost an entire century. There had to be someone that figured out a way to deal with them without getting mentally screwed to the wall. Someone obviously managed to pull it off in the past. Someone with a big and awesome hat that could make forests with a flick of the wrist.

Yeah, where was the book on the Shodai Hokage Senju Hashirama's memoirs? There would probably be four straight chapters on his fights against Uchiha Clan members, not even counting Madara which would probably be a whole chapter in of itself.

All of this trouble pondering what he was going to do the next time that he was to take on just one member of Akatsuki. One! There were still eight others left to worry about, only one of whom he knew anything about! Enough with the damn studying! He needed to be out hitting the gym instead of the books! But he couldn't do that until he knew what he needed to do to prepare.

A little relief was soon to come his way as a finger tapped him on the shoulder and Naruto turned to face the more grown up Shiho smiling at him behind her glasses, "Any luck?"

"Not really." Naruto returned with a scratch of his head as he put what he had been reading off to the side and picked up another, "How can there be nothing on the Uchiha Clan? They're like the most famous clan in the world."

Frowning at the sight of all of the books and scrolls that Naruto had with him, Shiho eventually just shrugged it off. After all, it wasn't like she was going to be the one to put them all back. Nope, that would be the genin interns who would do that. She had long since been promoted to full-fledged decoder now!

Taking a moment to sit down near her old 'student' Shiho decided to look over exactly what he had been reading. Someone seemed to be having some trouble with genjutsu, "Well they're clan secrets. It's not like there are extensive files on the Byakugan of the Hyuuga Clan, or of the insects of the Aburame Clan."

Yeah, Konoha didn't need to keep those secrets somewhere for everyone to see. Those clans were on their side and understandably kept their own abilities secret at a painstaking cost. It was only the enemy villages that tried to compile information on the clans in other villages, based on previous engagements and conflicts and the recounts of survivors. They never really had anything in-depth and broken down. It was why obtaining the bodies of the enemy happened to be such an important facet of information gathering.

You'd have to get that kind of thing straight from the source. And the Uchiha Clan was gone now except for two of them. One of them happened to be a rogue ninja and one of the strongest people in the world, and the other one was… right there in Konoha somewhere.

"Damn it." Naruto muttered to himself. He felt like smashing himself with one of the books, but that would just end up with him getting hit by Shiho or her boss that outranked him, "I think I've been in here too long if I didn't think about that after not finding anything good for three hours." Flipping the book shut he leaned back dangerously far in his chair with an exasperated sigh as he held on to the pig in his lap.

Shiho just smiled wryly as she heard the dispelling pops of all of Naruto's clones across the library, "Yeah that happens when the only thing you see all day is kanji. We're having our own share of troubles around here too."

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Are you any good at coming up with new coding systems complete with explanatory legends that link to the last coding system that we used?"

"…I wasn't even any good at the coding systems we learned in the Academy. It changed while I was gone too didn't it?"

"Yes it did. Once every year. It's standard procedure."

"…"

"…I'm sure someone can catch you up Uzumaki-kun."

XxX

(Konoha Strict Correctional Facility – 4th Level Special Ward)

The prison of Konohagakure no Sato. It was a small spearhead-shaped island of land that sat in the mouth of a volcano with one bridge on and off, miles outside of the walls of the village.

In addition to Konoha-borne criminals arrested by the Konoha Military Police, it also contained all of the prisoners captured alive during missions and sent back to the village for processing to be dealt with accordingly.

Depending on what was going on at the time, the severity of the offense the perpetrator committed against Konoha, and their affiliation to another village they could be executed, held indefinitely, or released to the custody of their villages to let them deal with them (sometimes).

Capturing others in the field was usually pretty rare though unless missions required it specifically. It was too much trouble and required too many resources for most people to take them back alive, so they usually just left them where they defeated them, allowed them to retreat if they were able… or they killed them. Once again, your fate after losing a battle depended on different conditions of what was going on at the time, and also how much of a jerk the person that had you at their mercy happened to be.

Within the deepest confines of the prison lay a captive that was deemed important enough to keep for later on an S-ranked mission. That was incredibly rare to say the least. He was kept alone though due to the danger aspect of having him amongst the other prisoners. Even while constantly shackled and bound he was still exceedingly dangerous to others.

"That's the guy?" Inoichi in his T&I director uniform asked his uniformed daughter who stood next to him observing her capture from the last outgoing mission, "This is the person that almost skewered you and Anko ten times over?"

In the corner of a thickly padded cell, sound-proofed to shut out his screaming whenever he transformed, Juugo sat in his prison issued clothing, in the corner with his knees cradled to his chest. Very odd for someone so large and imposing-looking. A solid iron door with a small, dense glass opening for the two Yamanaka Clan members to look through happened to be the only window outside of that little slice of world.

"I know he doesn't look it." Ino replied to her father, tugging at her bothersome and dreary grey T&I uniform, "But I told you, he's got the nastiest nasty mood swings you'll ever see. I'm sure that if these walls weren't padded to space out and cushion damage he'd punch his way out if he turned all homicidal."

He was a dangerous prisoner indeed. Maybe too dangerous. But his body housed some very important secrets, as did his mind. Ino had seen some of them. If they could find some matches to the landmarks that he had seen inside of his head they could probably find more Otogakure bases all over. Maybe they could do more than that.

It would just take one brave individual to try and get them from him, and they would have to pray that he didn't slip into his murderous mode while doing so. But being imprisoned alone didn't do it, so what the hell was his trigger? They seemed to be completely spontaneous and unrelated.

"So we can't get anything out of him without risking the lives of our men?" Inoichi didn't like the sound of that at all, "Is there some way to monitor his stability? Or can't you just sedate him?" Ino merely shook her head in the negative.

On the ship coming back someone had to go in there and keep him under every thirty minutes in shifts due to how resilient he was to Ino's sleeping and paralysis concoctions. They had to keep making sure that he was still down.

Keeping track of time for how long Juugo should have been under the influence of any of her poisons was not the same as it would be for anyone else. Due to whatever transformations his body underwent in one of his moods, his physiology was completely incomparable to a normal person's and her toxins didn't account for that in the equation of how long they would last.

Due to the fact that there was nothing to compare the effect they would have on him to, she had to waste basically everything that she had kept on her person and in sealed storage for the mission in order to keep him under for the trip home.

"I don't think the mind reading amplification machine can hold him." Ino admitted, turning away from the glass opening in the door and leaning on the wall nearby, "It's not meant to really restrain conscious people. That's a sensitive piece of equipment. If he wakes up in the middle of an interrogation, he'll bust that machine like wet newspaper and run through everybody in the room."

Inoichi and Ino both had to walk by the mess that Juugo had made while in one of his rages upstairs in the place where the regular top level prisoners were held, just one level above. Those were the worst and most dangerous that the place had to offer, and they had probably been trying to strong-arm him while he had been acting meek. Bad idea, because now they were coating the walls and floors with a fine sheen of dark red with their blood and bodily remains.

According to the report it had only taken Juugo two minutes to kill eighteen of them with his bare hands that he transformed into objects of death, and then he returned to his docile state, horrified at what he had done. So stunned was he that he allowed them to put him down in the most secure cell in the entire prison of his own free will.

With the 'astute' way that his daughter had just described how Juugo would break the machine, Inoichi merely grunted, picking up on just how strong Ino was implying that he was, "And if Ibiki tries to start in on him and he transforms we're going to have to find a new lead interrogator."

He didn't want that damn job. He got enough of that crap being as high-ranking as he was currently. The last thing he needed was more of it.

"Can I go home and change now?" Ino whined, momentarily taking her father's attention away from pondering what they were going to do about Juugo, "I wasn't even supposed to work today daddy, this is my time. You could have at least let me wear my regular clothes for this trip."

Anko was still ordered to be on rest leave, so she wasn't going to be asked to do anything like accompany the Torture and Interrogation Department to the prison for something that lower-ranked Ino could do, thus Ino was unluckily stuck with the obligated duty to come with her father on her day off for some background.

"So you aren't concerned with what we're going to do with this guy?" Inoichi asked with a twitching eyebrow at his impetuous offspring. Just like her mother she was.

"I'm not the one that gets to make the decision in the end anyway, it's way above my pay-grade. And Anko and I caught him to begin with so what else do you guys want from me? I put all of this in my report already." A pouting Ino stated with her arms crossed. Wearing that stupid ugly uniform made her so cranky. Crankier than usual anyway.

Inoichi wondered just why his girl was such a fantastic ninja of their clan, but so impulsive. It probably had something to do with the company that she kept most often as far as her teammates went. Naruto was a good kid, but did he have to rub off on Ino in that way?

"Fine." Inoichi said, rubbing his temple in exasperation, "We need a doctor to check him out before we can start planning the interrogation techniques we'll use anyway. Take the rest of the day off, you're back in the office tomorrow morning. You know the drill. Your reassignment hasn't been approved yet so you're still full-time T&I." A dejected Ino let out a groan at hearing that she still had to don that horrid uniform on the morrow.

Still, something came to mind about what he had just said to her, "Uh daddy, what kind of medic-nin in their right mind would volunteer to give Juugo a physical?" You'd have to be Tsunade-level good to figure that you could get away with it, and to her knowledge most of them couldn't really fight.

"Well Tsunade-sama and her apprentice are in the village, but she probably won't do it." Inoichi said as he walked with Ino to exit the prison, "So they'll probably use one of the lower-level medics. One that can do good work, but doesn't really possess overwhelming skills that would be detrimental if lost. A middle of the road ninja if you will."

A scowl crossed Ino's face at the thought, "Good thing I just dabble in basic medical techniques…"

XxX

(Sometime Later – Ichiraku Ramen)

A party of three sat at the counter of the ramen stand enjoying their food in a bit of downtime. Naruto, Shikamaru, and Chouji. Of the three of them, two were happily chowing down, while the third looked between them and then at the little pig that was sitting in the stool next to Naruto eating a bowl of chopped vegetables, "Really?" Shikamaru voiced aloud with a raised eyebrow, "Nobody's going to ask why he's got Tonton with him?"

And apparently nobody else cared, because Chouji just shrugged it off and kept eating and Naruto acted as if he hadn't heard him at all. Seriously, while Chouji might not have known the origins of the small animal, Shikamaru did. It was Tsunade's and to a lesser extent (or greater depending on how you looked at it) Shizune's pet.

Why the hell was Naruto rolling through town with a pet that didn't belong to him from perhaps the most troublesome woman ever created by the cosmos to make his life hard?

"Naruto…" Shikamaru deadpanned, poking his partner in the side of the head until he got a questioning grunt from the still eating Naruto, "Why?"

Naruto swallowed his food before looking over at Tonton who looked back at him. Hey, she didn't have any problems with having spent the whole day with Naruto. There was way less yelling and destruction of random property with super strength with him, "When we got back from the mission I found out that Tsunade-baachan was stalking me down because we ditched her at the capital… so I kidnapped Tonton to get her attention away from trying to find me. That way I could go home in peace."

He kidnapped the personal pet of the strongest kunoichi in the world to get heat off of him? Yes, because that was a great idea for anyone to do. Steal property from one of the most dangerous people in the world in the hopes that they'd forget about you and wouldn't find out that you were the one that stole from them.

"What if she finds out that you took her?" Chances were that if he had taken Tonton and said pig was as cool with her abduction as she seemed to be at the moment, he'd just been casually strolling through the village all day with the pig in plain sight, and everybody would have known about it by now, "Then she's going to double-kill you. You know how this is going to end already. We've walked this far in the snow before, remember?"

"You can't double-kill somebody Shika, that's impossible." Naruto assured him as he started drinking down the broth in his bowl.

Chouji stopped eating and stroked his chin in thought at the conversation at hand, "Well she's the best medic-nin in the world, so she can technically beat you until your heart stops, revive you, and then do it all over again. That counts, right?" He asked before returning to his meal. Even as hungry as he was, he had the common courtesy to not order anything that had pork in it for Tonton's sake.

That did count. Damn it, he had a point. Man, if Chouji spoke up more often without being prompted to give his opinion beforehand more people would figure that he was actually a really smart guy. Or at least pretty attentive to what was going on around him.

"She won't beat me to double-death." Naruto said in a hollow voice that showed that he only half believed himself at best, "I mean, it's not like I drank her booze. I just took her pig. A pig that loves me by the way. It's a glorified day out."

Shikamaru just shook his head and reached across to pat Tonton on the head a few times before turning back forward in his seat, "Naruto, that woman chased you off of the daimyo's property because you smoked too close to her office window one time and she could smell it from inside. You stole her pig. You're dead. Just accept it."

Naruto did not accept it. He refused to throw himself at Tsunade's mercy because she would have none, but he felt that she would be rational in this regard, "Stop bringing up old stuff! We've all grown since then! Physically, spiritually… ecumenically."

Besides, at the first given opportunity when he could find her without Tsunade as well he was going to give Tonton back to Shizune, whom he was certain would not try to see if she could knock him clear over the village walls from the Academy rooftop.

"Naruto, do you even know what that word means?"

"Yes, but it doesn't matter if I know what it means or not." Naruto replied flippantly to the rowdy foreign voice in the conversation, "It's provocative." He then swiveled around in his chair to look at the newest apparent patron to the ramen bar, "Oh, hey. What's up Kiba? What are you doing here?"

Kiba had changed in looks since the days of their youth. He still had the red fang marks on his cheeks, but gone was his hooded jacket, replaced with a sleeker looking black one that was zipped up to his chest along with black pants, black sandals, and a black headband. Akamaru looked exactly the same, only now he was absolutely huge.

He had a big grin on his face as he walked through the curtain flaps and gave Naruto and Shikamaru some hearty pats on the back, "Look what the hell the cat dragged in. I thought I could smell you two along with the scent of ramen. Long time no see jerks." Akamaru let out a few deep barks in greetings as well before his eyes affixed onto Tonton and stayed there, staring the pig down.

In response, Tonton instantly hopped into Naruto's lap trying to use his body as a natural shield against Akamaru just in case. A ninken as old as Akamaru was usually disciplined and smart, but a ninken was still a dog and prone to chasing after things that it wanted at times.

Kiba flicked Akamaru on the nose to get him to stop before he even started and sat down in the empty seat that Tonton had left next to Naruto to further deter his partner from acting up, "I heard you two were back in town. And you just got off of some high-profile mission too… lucky. How do you pull something that big without having even been back for a week?"

Having a vested interest in the person behind the mission request helped, but if Kiba had known just what the mission entailed and how much of a multi-faceted pain it wound up being… well he'd probably be even more riled up at having had it go over his head to them.

"Sasuke seemed kind of miffed about that too." Chouji added in, patting his now full belly with over half a dozen large empty bowls sitting in front of him, "We never get missions so important that no one can know where we went while we were on them." And personally Chouji was good with that. But Sasuke always wanted the missions that would test his skills as much as possible. Personally he could do without them.

Speaking of Sasuke by the way…

"Do you know where to find Sasuke by the way?" Naruto asked, replacing his previous expression of basic comfort to one that seemed important, "It's kind of a big deal that I find him and talk to him."

"Ugh, you seriously can't wait more than a day after we get home to go find some other troublesome situation to get us into?" Shikamaru said with his usual lethargic look on his face as he shoved his cheek into his hand, elbow posted on the counter, "I'd like at least a week of comfort before we go back out after some psychos willing to kill us and wear our skins like some kind of Team 10 trench suits."

They couldn't really duck the Akatsuki because they didn't know much about them to do so, and it wasn't a good idea to ignore such a thing and just go on trying to live their lives, but still… just a short break. Nothing big, just two days to regroup and recharge before everything went to hell all over again. Was that too much to ask? Shikamaru really wasn't a fan of tangling with Hoshigaki Kisame, and the thought of there being eight other guys around his level of strength made him want to grind his teeth.

In all honesty though, since returning to Konoha almost two weeks ago, they had only been in Konoha for a grand total of four days; three days before setting out to Mizu no Kuni, and one day to the current day after returning to the village.

Both Naruto and Kiba just looked at Shikamaru with dry expressions before turning to Chouji expectantly for the answer to the question. It was only Naruto's business really, but Kiba was nosy and wanted something interesting to do after his team had broken off for the day from training.

"Not telling." Chouji asserted firmly from his seat, "If I tell you where he is, just what are you going to talk to him about? I'll bet it'll be about either that Cursed Seal guy you told me you caught, or Sasuke's brother who you ran into. Probably the last one, but both of those things are equally bad to talk to him about."

Naruto sighed and held the bridge of his nose in exasperation, "Look… we're all adults here." For the most part anyway, "Sasuke's a big boy. So I'm pretty sure that ignoring the fact that Itachi is alive and still exists somewhere won't do anyone any good. There are only two people with Sharingan, and he's the only one I know well enough to ask for help on this. If he comes after me like he says he is, I'm not sure how well I'd do against him."

He knew Kakashi had it too from reputation, but the man wasn't his sensei, and someone that wore a mask all of the time, 24/7, was probably pretty secretive. He didn't know him well enough to just go asking him to start giving away his own playbook secrets on Sharingan genjutsu. Who was he? Just some punk chunin. So what reason would Kakashi have to tell him much?

Well, there was that one thing he could bring up that would probably get Kakashi to pay attention to him, but he'd rather not rely on that information that he had procured while away from the village until it became unavoidable any longer.

But back on topic. If he told Sasuke of Itachi and let him know exactly what the score was, that Itachi was in a group of badass super-villains trying to kill him painfully, he'd be more inclined to get some kind of assistance from Sasuke. It was a better idea than a cold approach to a jounin that he had only had limited dealings with.

Kiba had been stealing a fresh bowl of ramen that had been placed in front of Naruto to replace his old one while they had been talking, but when talk drifted towards Sasuke's brother he started choking on the meat and noodles, "You ran into Sasuke's brother? The one that killed off the Uchiha Clan? Damn it, where was I for this mission?" As frightening a prospect as that idea really was, it was still unquestionably awesome, and he wished he could have been a part of that. Either way, that brought up another question, "Wait… what the hell would Uchiha Itachi want with you?"

That query gave Chouji even more reason to require info on just what Naruto wanted with his teammate, "Yeah. Just what is all of this supposed to be about anyway?"

At that, both Naruto and Shikamaru looked at each other as if sharing the same thought. They were sitting there speaking with their contemporaries. This meant that in the future there was a chance that this whole Akatsuki thing could involve them.

And at this point there wasn't any reason to ignore the elephant in the room so to speak.

With a subtle hand gesture, Shikamaru gave his input on what to do, "You know, you might as well tell them. They both fought Fuu, remember? And there's always a chance that you'll wind up busting out some of its chakra later in front of them too." Both Kiba and Chouji looked confused at the inside conversation transpiring in front of them.

"I guess so…" Naruto replied, rubbing the back of his neck in an uncomfortable manner while Tonton pawed a hoof at his stomach from his lap, "Alright. Listen up guys, wait until I'm done talking, and don't freak out."

"-Don't freak out in the ramen stand at least." Shikamaru interjected as an addendum to what Naruto was saying. Most of this was his own story to tell as best as he could, thus he would leave it up to his buddy to do so.

With a snap of his fingers, Naruto pointed at Shikamaru as if he had said something very smart/important, "Yeah, what Shika said. Feel free to go somewhere else and run amok about it later in private, but just not here in public."

"Then why are we talking about it in public to start with?" Kiba asked with a dry expression on his face. Was a ramen bar really the place to talk about sensitive information? Favorite establishment to eat of the one doling it out or not.

This time, Shikamaru gestured to the fact that other than them the only other people in the ramen stand were Teuchi and Ayame who were just working with looks on their faces as if they had heard this before, "Because everyone else here knows the important parts of this already. It's a long story." Not really. It was actually a very simple story to be honest, but saying that made it sound better.

XxX

(Konoha Strict Correctional Facility – 4th Level Special Ward)

"You're sure you're up for this kid?" The large and imposing figure cut by the scarred-up Morino Ibiki walked slightly behind the medic-nin that had been sent to run the physical for the recently captured prisoner Juugo. The commander of Konoha's Torture and Interrogation Force felt he had plenty of reason to feel that way due to the edgy young man with him, "You don't seem to be very… confident."

Kabuto turned halfway around and gave a timid smile in return at Ibiki's questioning of his ability to carry out his assignment, "Oh, don't worry about that. I just always get this way when I'm stuck doing medical duties in the prison. Especially on this level… I've never been down this far before."

Ibiki let out a grunt and shook his head slightly before they reached the thick door that led to Juugo's special padded room, "Well here it is. I'll be right here in case anything goes wrong." An empty assurance of safety because from how close Kabuto would be, Juugo could kill him in a heartbeat if he freaked out, "Don't be a hero in there."

"Me a hero?" Kabuto replied with a bit of a laugh, "No, not a chance. Don't worry about that." The door was unlocked and opened as Kabuto tentatively stepped inside with a deep breath, at least he would have until a klaxon went off throughout the entire prison, "What's going on?"

Ibiki pulled Kabuto back out with a grunt and shut the door once again, locking it back as the footsteps of a chunin guard rushed up to them through the dark hallway of the bottom level, "What's going on?"

"Somehow weapons got smuggled in!" The chunin replied, pointing upstairs, "We counted thirty-one inmates with weapons in the courtyard on level one and in cell block A on the second level!"

With a scoff, Ibiki turned a gaze towards Kabuto before barking his next order, "Fine, stay with the medic and watch over him. Don't move to combat the prisoner if he turns hostile, just get yourself and the medic out of the room." He had to go put down a prison riot and figure out just who happened to be the ringleader of this little escapade. Someone's stay would be getting a lot worse, if they survived the consequences of their own actions that was.

A nod of understanding came from the underling chunin as Ibiki stormed away and prepared to handle business. Once he was gone he turned to Kabuto and stared at him before dropping dead on the spot.

Kabuto's demeanor changed to one of nonchalant detachment as he looked down at the dead prison guard. He had located and killed the man in his home that morning and had temporarily reanimated his body with Shikon no Jutsu (Dead Soul Jutsu). Having to locate an exact ninja that he could easily assassinate and one with the shift that he needed was risky. It was the first time he'd had to put himself at such risk within the sphere of Konoha's influence since he had been spying on them, but it had to be done in order to get what he needed.

He then used the man to sneak in weapons to prisoners that would cause enough trouble for him to do as he needed without doing too much to disrupt his activities. With a roll of his eyes, Kabuto pilfered the key to the cell from the deceased guard's uniform and unlocked the door before hurling the body inside.

It had to be admitted, that Konoha had come up with a great method of creating walls that couldn't be broken by brute strength. A good cell. No wonder they didn't have many of them, "Juugo, Juugo, Juugo…" He said upon walking inside.

Juugo made to react at the sight of Kabuto, standing up and pressing himself against the far wall, but before anything else, Kabuto streaked forward swiftly while making five hand-seals before his hands were covered with blue chakra and he jabbed at Juugo's knees and elbows to drop him facedown on the floor of the room, "Ungh… Kabuto. What do you want?"

The sadistic medic had managed to utilize his special jutsu to cut important tendons to keep him disabled, so even if he transformed there wouldn't be much he could do.

"You went and got yourself captured." Kabuto said, sounding slightly amused at what had happened, "I didn't think it was possible really. So I've come to do what spies do… you know, keep leaks from my own side from springing out. The last thing we need is them interrogating you on sensitive secrets."

"I don't know any Oto secrets." Juugo said with a grit to his teeth.

"Oh I know that." Kabuto said, a sinister glare from the light in the room reflecting onto his glasses, "But you know who I am, and that's something I can't risk them getting out of you."

"Why is that door open, and where is the guard?"

Great. So there were already sentries checking on things down there? He thought he'd have gotten more of a window to set things up and kill Juugo while making it look like he escaped. Damn it, he'd have to cover his tracks later, "Sleep." A quick use of the tiger seal brought many billowing illusory feathers in front of Juugo's face, putting him into a deep slumber, "Nehan Shouja no Jutsu (Temple of Nirvana Jutsu)."

He needed Juugo clammed up and isolated for long enough to rethink another way to get a shot at him.

But right now he needed to keep his cover. Kabuto popped a pill and jabbed himself harshly in the stomach with a knife-handed strike before dragging the deceased guard's body out of the cell and leaning against the opposite wall outside as two men arrived on the scene, "Shut the door, hurry! I don't know how long it'll be before he flips out again!"

Knowing how dangerous and unpredictable Juugo happened to be, one of the men wasted no time in shutting the door while the other checked over the dead guard and Kabuto who was bleeding heavily from the mouth, "What the hell happened?"

Kabuto kept his victim act up, trying to activate a healing ninjutsu as if he were trying to save the dead man in front of them, "I… I…" He stammered as if trying to regain his composure, "I hadn't even started when he went nuts and injured me with a single punch! The guard tried to help me, but he couldn't stop him, and I couldn't do anything before he seemed to get enough and he shut down! I can't revive him, there's too much damage done internally!"

"Tch." The guard that had shut the door back kicked it in disgust at what Kabuto was telling them, "What kind of human being is that?" A look of pity then crossed his face as he saw Kabuto hyperventilating at not being able to help their comrade survive, "Hey, that's enough. You can't do anything else. Worry about healing yourself right now. Don't worry. No one's going near that monster anytime soon."

Looking dejected, Kabuto allowed the guard that had been helping him to keep him sitting upright so that he could begin trying to fix himself up while he was still healthy enough to do so. It was almost difficult to keep the smirk off of his face. Being the medic on hand he'd run the autopsy of the corpse once he healed himself, and he'd made sure to kill via rupturing the man's organs to begin with.

He'd have to start making arrangements to leave soon, the moment he found the opening to do so without attracting notice. Still, he considered his time there a smashing success. An important part of the very village he was spying on was the entire reason that he was created as far as his skills of infiltration were concerned, and the man would never know that his own actions were the catalyst to his own home's security breach.

Sometimes coaxing this village into one way of thinking or another from within was as simple as forcing them to look at all of the scary things that were all around them.

XxX

(Within the Uchiha Clan District – Southern Border of Konoha – Naka River)

After managing to inform two more of his friends about just what kind of can of worms had been opened on his life from day one, it didn't take too much more coaxing to get Chouji to tell Naruto where he could probably find Sasuke.

Traveling with Chouji who already knew where to find him, and Kiba (with Akamaru) who could pinpoint the exact area where Sasuke was with his sense of smell, it didn't take too long to find Sasuke at the southernmost point of Konoha at the very outskirts of even the Uchiha Clan's former area of living.

The location was a very deep ravine with a river running through the bottom of it, and the rocky and somewhat desolate surroundings made for a good place to train in private, which was why he was a bit put off when he found Naruto, Shikamaru, Kiba, and his own teammate Chouji coming his way as he stood on the ledge between the river far below.

"What do you guys want?" Sasuke asked, turning around with a hand on his hip before he addressed Chouji in particular, "I thought we weren't supposed to meet up until tomorrow to accept a mission."

Chouji shrugged before the sizeable teen pushed Naruto forward, "Naruto had a question to ask you, but he's got to tell you something first for some background, don't you Naruto?"

"Yeah, yeah." Naruto said before clearing his throat into his fist and opening his mouth to begin what everyone else thought would be along drawn out explanation of what he knew of his origins, "I'm the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi."

"Really?"

"Yep. Since I was a baby."

"Not a stupid joke?"

"Sealed in my belly."

"Huh…"

"Yep. Problem?"

"No."

"Cool."

And that was as far as that explanation went, getting Kiba and Chouji to look at Naruto and Sasuke oddly as if they hadn't just downplayed perhaps the most monumental information that had been shared with them in their entire careers and probably their lives thus far, "Wait, what the hell was that supposed to be?" Kiba asked in an outlandish fashion, "How do you just shrug something like that off?"

"Because I don't really care." Sasuke said with a shrug, "I'm pissed we didn't know about it beforehand, but nobody else shouts their personal business from the rooftops in this village so why should he?"

"Because all of the adults all knew and didn't tell any of us ever?" Chouji tried to answer rhetorically.

Kiba did the same in an unsure manner, "Because the Kyuubi is the strongest monster ever, and we were sitting right next to the guy holding it in his gut every day for years?"

Once again, Sasuke's expression showed one of complete and utter detachment, "If it was that big of a deal back then it would have come up, but it never did so it clearly didn't matter." He then turned his gaze toward Naruto, "Kyuubi or not, when it comes down to it I can still kick his ass."

Naruto just stared at Sasuke blankly until his right hand drifted up to the machete sheathed on his back that he would have pulled loose had Shikamaru not restrained him with his shadow. With a disgruntled grunt, Naruto relented and began to ask his question, "Fine tough guy. Okay, part two of the story. There's a pack of super-strong lunatics called Akatsuki after my head because of the Kyuubi, and your brother is one of them. And I do mean that brother. Can you help me?"

Sasuke's eyes widened at that and Kiba palmed his forehead at the blunt revelation, "You couldn't have sugarcoated that any?"

"What would easing into it have done?" Naruto asked, turning to Kiba with a raised eyebrow, "Either way I would have had to come out and say, 'Uchiha Itachi and friends want to suck my chakra out with a bendy straw and throw my empty husk into the compost heap.'" If Kiba had an eloquent and insightful way to say that to Sasuke's face that wouldn't make him catatonic he'd have loved to have heard it on the way to the goddamn ravine.

"You're a master orator you are." Shikamaru commented sarcastically, "I can't wait until we have you at the bargaining table hashing out our treaties and ceasefire arrangements."

After getting a few seconds to mull around what Naruto was saying to him in his head, Sasuke finally found the stones to speak on what he was being told, "So Itachi wants to capture you for the Kyuubi?" Naruto nodded, "Does that mean you know where he is, or how to find him?"

"Afraid not." It was clear to see that this wasn't the answer Sasuke had been looking for, but he seemed to understand. If it were that easy to come up with the answer he wanted he'd have found it himself years ago, "We ran into two members of Akatsuki during our mission in Mizu no Kuni. One was Itachi, but we were stuck fighting one of Orochimaru's best instead of just going up against each other."

It figured. Sasuke deduced the same thing that Naruto had on the spot during the battle. The distraction that Kimimaro presented the two of them kept Itachi from fully focusing on Naruto. It seemed that Naruto owed an enemy a thank you. Too bad he repaid Kimimaro for his interference by burying a machete into his spine and turning his insides into an organ smoothie.

Before the conversation could continue, both Kiba and Akamaru sniffed at the air and subtly caught Shikamaru's attention, "Hey, it looks like we've got an eavesdropper. I smell ink in the air." He whispered as Akamaru kept a low rumbling growl inside of his throat.

That wasn't good. Even in a village of their comrades, anyone standing aside and listening to what they had to say without permission was never really welcome as far as a ninja was concerned, "How close?"

"I'd say thirty-eight meters west…" Kiba said quietly without giving anything away in his body language, but gesturing with his eyes to a rocky outcropping near the desolate cliffside, "Trying to conceal themselves over there. I don't know how long the person's been there though. Why didn't you sense him?" He asked Naruto.

"Screw you, why didn't you smell him sooner Inuzuka?" Naruto replied. How was he supposed to know they were being followed? He didn't use his location jutsu in the middle of his home turf. It was only useable in bursts, not active constantly like a natural sense, "Look, that doesn't matter now."

Everyone had caught on by this point and knew not to do anything too abrupt or risk spooking their unwanted listener, "So what's the play?" Chouji asked, his visage set in a stony countenance, "I don't think I'm fast enough to get over to him before he takes off."

Shikamaru already figured as much and had accounted for as much, "Same here. But that's okay, I'm sure we've got others good enough to make that move for us. And that makes us the two that'll cut whoever this is off when they try to escape. You guys ready?"

Everyone including Sasuke nodded. He wanted to get back to the conversation that they had been having before they had been unceremoniously interrupted by their 'guest'. And this person had the gall to intrude uninvited on Uchiha Clan land? True, everyone else there had done it too, but one of them happened to be his teammate and the others were his friends… kind of.

From underneath the arm-warmer on his left arm, Naruto slowly snaked a chain comprised of chakra into the ground, slowly sending it burrowing in the direction of their enemy, "Five seconds."

Sasuke cracked his neck just as the sound of the ground bursting open hit everyone's ears and a blur leapt out from behind the cover of rocks that it had been hiding behind prior. Without missing a beat, Sasuke and Kiba both rushed over in an impressive show of speed with their gunbai and nails drawn respectively.

Both of their attacks cut clear through their enemy that turned into ink that puddled on the ground. With a growl, Kiba turned his head and sniffed at the air again to locate who they were looking for once more, "Guys!"

"I know!" Naruto shouted, having taken a flanking position elsewhere in the rock field while Sasuke and Kiba had been the first to make the actual moves, "You can't hide from us! Giga Shintou (Giga Impact)!" Naruto reached his hands down onto the ground and twisted before pulling them up and causing a good portion of the land to implode and crumble.

"Holy crap!" Kiba commented loudly, glad that everybody else was clear of that attack before Naruto used it, "I thought we were trying to catch this guy alive!"

Shikamaru had his hands held in the rat seal with his shadows ready to go, "That didn't kill anyone." He said, sounding completely sure of this fact as his eyes searched around with Chouji standing back-to-back with him, "That was just a message." That Naruto could and would crush him underground if he was dead-set on hiding down there as if they didn't know he was there, "This won't be though. Kage Nui no Jutsu (Shadow Sewing Jutsu)!"

With a shift of the hand-seal, Shikamaru's shadow branched out into dozens of spears that rapidly and accurately stabbed into the ground all over where Naruto's previous attack had focused, simultaneously avoiding all of his friends flawlessly as he rended the already softened up rock into a rubble pit.

Sasuke's eyes were peeled all over the place, looking for the slightest hint of movement before he saw it over by Naruto, who had been in the thick of the danger zone from the outset, "Dobe don't move! Katon: Housenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Jutsu)!"

Small bursts of fire flew from Sasuke's mouth over at Naruto who didn't move an inch in any direction as requested, but he did turn around when the pulverized ground lurched upward and two large, muscular humanoid black and white figures came up from the ground in an attempt to smash him. Sasuke's fire attack hit them directly, peppering them in flames that Naruto sliced from two standing entities to four segments as his machete went clean through them in one swing.

Amidst all of the commotion, a bird flew up over the side of the ravine into the air over the opposite side. A strange pale young man with black hair and a strange outfit looked down at them impassively from above as he tried flying away.

"Bullshit!" Kiba shouted as he, Akamaru, and Shikamaru ran to the edge and tried to gauge how far of a jump it would be to try and make it across. None of them could make that leap, "I couldn't pick him out from all of the stuff he created with his jutsu! All I can smell is ink, ink, ink! Even that bird is made of ink! It's like other than that he doesn't have a real damn distinguishable scent!" But he did smell something else nearby. The faint scent of something burning, with a loose hint of explosives, "Oh, fuck."

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu)!"

A chain of explosions caused by explosive tags lining the ridgeline of the ravine went off, sending the entire cliffside collapsing and spilling down the long way into the waters below, but no Konoha ninjas were amongst them as two relatively large blurs managed to escape the blast and make it across the span to the other side to pursue the strange shinobi that had been spying on them.

Kneeling on the head of a toad the size of a small house, Naruto looked back slightly to make sure that Shikamaru and Chouji were there as well, and indeed they were, holding on in crouched positions as the mammoth amphibian covered large amounts of ground with every leap it took.

"This is really annoying." Naruto commented lowly before he then saw a shadow over them and looked up to see a huge brown hawk in the air with both a panting Akamaru and an uneasy Kiba in its talons, "Sasuke-teme can summon hawks now?"

Either way, they were all in pursuit of ink bird that had the headstart jump on them. The toad and the hawk were keeping up over the flat plains, but

"I really didn't expect to run into trouble like this inside of my own village today." Shikamaru said, sitting down on Naruto's toad's head, hands locked in his thinking position as he tried to break this situation down, "It's one guy… "

One guy, and he was giving the lot of them the runaround. What a pain.

A glint of sunlight when he first flew away let them know that he had on a headband, a Konoha one if they had to guess (Sasuke would be able to confirm that for certain), but he wasn't heading back to the village.

'He's sticking around my clan's property.' Sasuke thought to himself with a bit of annoyance, 'He knows that no one comes to this part of the village, so he's free to try and lose us here before slipping away.' The thought of someone using the land set aside for his deceased family to hide out like some criminal brought out a deep sense of loathing for whoever thought such a thing would be a good idea.

Tactically? Yes, it was a good idea given the circumstances. The Uchiha Clan compound covered 2.5 square miles and had within it training fields and dozens of buildings that had not been inhabited in a decade. And as they started flying over the homes and shops of the district this became clear. Plenty of space where nobody else would intrude. It was a ghost town.

But for the fact that the person chasing him considered himself the last real Uchiha walking the face of the continent? No, it was a horrible idea. Sasuke would pursue him like a rabid animal until he finally took him down if this was how he planned on escaping them. Not on his hallowed ground. Not a chance.

While Sasuke continued to fly, Kiba kicked around irritably in the grasp of his hawk, "Why the hell do you have to live so far away from everybody else? Nobody heard that explosion and nobody that sees this from the village is going to know what the hell to make of this! Even a Hyuuga would think we were just dots in the sky!" Let it be known that Kiba wasn't exactly a fan of heights or being held in razor-sharp talons, even as gently as the hawk was being.

"Shut up." Sasuke said, holding his gunbai in one hand as he charged lightning chakra through it, sparks flying off of it. He just needed to maneuver his hawk into range, but it wasn't that easy, as smaller bats and owls flew off from their airborne adversary and rushed through the air at them to attack, "Tch."

XxX

On the ground, in the middle of the streets of the Uchiha Clan district, Naruto's toad sat patiently in the streets holding up Naruto, Shikamaru, and Chouji on its sizeable head over the roofs of most of the buildings, giving them a great view of the ongoing dogfight above them.

"I trust your plans and everything Shikamaru…" Chouji said with one of his arms transformed to the size of a giant's and cocked back with Naruto sitting in his open palm waiting for action, "But when it involves one of our friends like this… well…"

"I'm good with it." Naruto said, giving a thumbs up of consent but not taking his eyes off of the happenings in the sky.

Gesturing to Naruto as if to tell his bulky friend that he told him so, Shikamaru craned his gaze upward as well, "See? Naruto's fine with it. Look, that guy has the advantage up there even though Sasuke can apparently fly too. All he has to do is avoid Sasuke's hawk and keep up what he's doing while the hawk has to get them danger-close to even attack." It wasn't a real battle, it was a chase, and their little intruder didn't have to do anything other than get away, "Sasuke's smart. All we need is to give him an opening and we can end this."

If Sasuke didn't have his hawks then they would have lost him by now. Naruto couldn't take a damn giant toad through town, and his scent wasn't distinct enough for Kiba to distinguish from the ink creatures that he seemed to be able to make.

"What if I miss?" Chouji asked, trying to judge the distance that he would have to hurl his jinchuuriki buddy at the speedy dark figure moving through the air, "Naruto can't fly." And there was a very good chance he'd miss. Killing one of his closest friends really wasn't on his to-do list today.

"Just get me in the general vicinity and I'll make it work." Naruto said, eyes locked on the skies. The sun was almost completely set by this time. To think, this all occurred because of the need for a conversation with Sasuke, 'Is it me? Am I just bad luck like that?' He thought to himself as he waited to soar.

Whatever. If both Naruto and Shikamaru were saying that it was alright to launch Naruto like a shot put then it must have been alright, "Fine. Get ready then." Chouji said as he tried to wait for a good moment to make the throw, "Fire!"

Chouji hurled Naruto who uncoiled his legs at the end of the arm's movement and rocketed out of his grasp, spiraling through the air with the wind from his speed flapping his face back. Chouji's aim had actually been very good, and Naruto had gotten close enough to see the momentary look of pure shock on the face of their pale spy before he missed wide. Apparently he couldn't believe that someone had been insane enough to even attempt something so inherently stupid just to reach him.

The jaw of Chouji dropped and he started sweating at the thought that he was about to watch Naruto go splat somewhere on the ground, but Shikamaru's face showed that he didn't seem to care and even Naruto's toad let out a disinterested croak as it watched as well.

As he fell, there had been a large looping slack in Naruto's chain that he had created even before Chouji threw him. Sasuke and his hawk both saw Naruto hurtling through the air and as he began to fall they took note of how wide open the loop of the chain connected to him happened to be.

Swooping down to save him from painting the dirt road or some rooftop with his lifeblood, Sasuke's hawk caught Naruto's chain around the topside of its neck and continued to fly without missing a beat.

Kiba and Akamaru looked down to see Naruto just dangling beneath them via some kind of chain that seemed to be connected to two tenketsu in his arm on the underside and the top like IVs to veins. So weird, but now wasn't the time to call him on it.

"Welcome back." Commented Kiba glibly, "By the way, what was the thought process of even trying that?" The Inuzuka standout asked as Naruto held on to his own chain with one arm to stay up there with them, "You didn't have a chance in hell of making that work."

"I know that. I'm not stupid." Naruto stated flatly in return. Oh ye of little faith, "How else was I going to get up here?" Naruto admitted before yelling up to Sasuke, "What's the rangiest jutsu you can do teme?"

"It doesn't matter. At this range he'll just dodge it." Sasuke muttered out just loud enough to be heard over the wind, red Sharingan eyes locked onto the young man leading them on. The light of the sun was almost completely gone by this point, and it didn't help that now having to ferry Naruto as well limited their capabilities to fly dexterously even more, "There's no way for me to adjust my aim for what he might do when he can literally maneuver in any direction at all."

In a fight it would be different, but this was just one party chasing after another.

"Stop being so goddamn grumpy." Kiba snapped at Sasuke from his useless position stuck in the talons of the hawk. But hey, he didn't ask to be there the whole time, "Can you at least try? What do we really have to lose?"

It was either that… or drop them all and continue the chase all alone, but then he'd have to justify to the Hokage and all of their friends and family just why he dropped two chunin-level shinobi and a ninken to their untimely deaths.

He had to admit that Kiba had a point too. It wasn't like they were making ground on shooting him down even before Naruto bummed a ride. Sasuke's hawk couldn't seem to cut him off without running headlong into a flurry of smaller aerial pests to deter them first, and that only gave him time to slip away.

Without another word, Sasuke set his gunbai on his back and quickly went through hand-seals before inhaling deeply, "Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu)!" As the large fireball flew from his mouth through the air, Sasuke's hawk flapped its wings and let loose a torrent of wind that only fueled Sasuke's flame to a far larger size that forced the ink bird ahead of them to outright swerve to the side in a barrel roll to avoid being incinerated.

It didn't save its wings from being clipped and sliced clean off by the much more subtle fast-moving chain tipped by a fast-moving machete that had been hurled through the air and the firestorm itself though, "Setsudanki Hassha (Slingshot Guillotine)!"

At first Sasuke just blinked in surprise before glaring down over the side of his avian ride at Naruto who still had his free arm extended underhand, retracting his machete back to hand's length all the while, "If you were going to do that why the hell did I have to shoot a fireball at him?"

"Because he'd have seen the machete coming if you hadn't." Naruto replied as if it were obvious, "The first move is always a feint. Duh. I thought you were a genius." Good combination of wind and fire though, he had to admit.

"Whatever." Kiba said, sounding quite pleased by the turn of events as they watched the bane of their afternoon and early evening go down and crash land in a lake, "There's no 'I' in 'team'… but there is in 'win'. As in I say we win, so let's go catch that motherfucker and make him sing like a canary!"

XxX

(Elsewhere in Konoha – Administrative Division Offices)

"Even his office is completely dreary." Jiraiya commented as he sat in one of the very few chairs in a rather bare-bones office. There was nothing in there other than a desk, the aforementioned chairs, and a portrait of the Shodai and the Nidaime Hokage standing together on a cliff overlooking Konoha in the early days, "We're not going to find anything incriminating or absolving in here at all."

The person that the office belonged to didn't keep any scrolls, files, or any kind of paperwork in the room at all. He probably kept it all on himself in a sealing scroll or two personally. Paranoid perhaps, but not without reason. He was probably never there for anything other than appearances.

After all, he did have both Jiraiya and Tsunade in his office waiting on him to make his last rounds of the day before leaving.

"I don't like Danzo either, you know that." Tsunade said as she peered through the shut blinds of one of the windows, "But I don't see someone like him giving any kind of village information like that to Orochimaru, no matter what he'd get in the process. There isn't much he'd sacrifice anything of his own for, but the village's security is probably the only thing I can think of."

Jiraiya tapped his own head with his fist as he sighed in thought, "I know that. But Orochimaru and he had some kind of weird thing going back right before he left. I think Danzo knew about Orochimaru's more questionable experiments before Sarutobi-sensei did, but kept it to himself."

When someone brought up things like that, things that had occurred in Konoha while she had been gone, Tsunade felt a twinge of guilt that she wouldn't have felt years ago. Maybe if she had been there some of the things that had befallen her hometown wouldn't have happened. Maybe Orochimaru wouldn't have defected. Maybe an entire clan of Konoha shinobi wouldn't have been exterminated in one night by the most gifted of them all.

She could have kept up that train of thought until the moon came up, but the door to the office cracked open. First, in walked a man with an ANBU mask and a white cloak who seemed to tense up at the sight of two of the sannin inside of the office. Both Jiraiya and Tsunade stared at him impassively, but began leveling their respective crushing presences onto him to try and paralyze him with fear, but he didn't seem affected by it at all.

'No fear?' Tsunade thought to herself, narrowing her eyes at the masked ANBU. He had to know that they would crush him like an ant, and he didn't seem to be concerned with his own potential well-being.

A hand set itself on the shoulder of the ANBU, getting him to calm down as another man walked past him into the room. An elderly man with messy dark hair and an 'x' scar on his chin walked in. His right eye was bandaged and he had a cane in hand as he wore a white kimono shirt underneath a black robe slung over only one shoulder that seemed to serve as a sling for his bulkily covered, badly injured-looking right arm.

His single visible eye scanned between both Tsunade and Jiraiya, but other than that he barely seemed to care that they were there, "I came back to lock up my office for the day, and here I find the two of you waiting here for me. To what do I owe the pleasure of my old friend's students' company?"

"I'm pretty sure that you know the results of the S-rank mission dispatched out to Mizu no Kuni." Tsunade commented wryly, "It's common knowledge to anyone seeking it by now, and nothing of that nature gets past you."

"Indeed I am aware of the 'successful' outcome." Danzo said with no real expression on his face despite the clear sarcasm behind part of his words, "I can't say that I was a fan when I learned that our jinchuuriki was sent into the lands of our potential enemies to confront an enemy with a history of spiriting away subjects he finds interesting. No doubt he now considers the strength of a biju 'interesting' nowadays. Times are becoming tumultuous aren't they?"

Wait, so Danzo actually saw value in Naruto? Or was it just that he saw value in what was inside of Naruto. It was to be noted that he didn't identify Naruto by name, just by title of what he happened to be.

"Things had to pick up eventually." Jiraiya replied with a shrug, "It's a vicious cycle, you know how it is. All it takes is something binding us all to upset the status quo and then just like that we're in the middle of insanity again." Just like the good old bad days.

"I'm assuming that you're referring to Akatsuki as that something you speak of." Danzo said as he turned around to leave his office again, "I was referring more to the threat that we seem to have closer to home." Of course he was referring to the spy that they had in their midst, "It's ironic that such a master spy allowed another one to infiltrate his home village while he was gallivanting off at the capital. Or could it have been while you were pursuing Orochimaru to the ends of the continent?"

"And you're just going to absolve your own responsibilities from this as well?" Jiraiya replied, trying to hide the grit to his teeth at having the blame of a spy in deep cover of Konoha, "I may have been gone, but I did manage to dig up information on several threats to the village abroad while I was gone. Meanwhile you remained here, but were so busy playing your own games that you never noticed that we'd had our security compromised."

Danzo's sharp brown eye hardened on Jiraiya's stern glance as the two refused to give any ground, "My house is well within order. I sincerely hope that the next person Hiruzen plans to hand off the seat of Hokage to isn't you. If so I fear for the future of this village."

Jiraiya stood up and imposed his size advantage over Danzo as they nearly got face-to-face, "What would you care about the future when all you can ever do is look at yourself as the answer to everything you-."

"That's enough!" Tsunade snapped, roughly pulling Jiraiya back by his arm. Goodness, the woman almost dislocated his shoulder, "Danzo we didn't come to fight. no matter what we think of one another… we need your help." She admitted with great difficulty, "Sarutobi-sensei would never do such a thing, but ignoring the expertise that you bring to the table wouldn't be wise in this situation."

In a rare show of surprise, Danzo's wrinkled eye opened up wider than usual at hearing Tsunade of all people say such a thing to him, "I don't know how much you can expect me to do without Hiruzen bestowing some kind of authoritative position upon me. I have a bit of influence and prestige as an elder shinobi, but-." He stopped when he realized that neither Jiraiya nor Tsunade were buying any of his pleading the fifth B.S.

Sometimes it was hard to remember from the way that they acted that these two were some of the best and brightest that had ever been produced within the walls of Konoha. He could still see them as the children running around Hiruzen, forcing his hairs to grey early in their youth.

Good lord, had that really been almost fifty years ago?

And here they stood all this time later, ignominies aside, perhaps the most respected people in the entire village with the exception of the Hokage himself.

With a shake of his head he cast off the wave of nostalgia that had washed over him and finished walking out of the office, his normally cold façade giving absolutely nothing, "That's not necessary. Perhaps if Hiruzen were not so soft in times of peace this would not be an issue, but it is of no matter. The situation is under control, I can assure you. I will not let any true harm ever befall my village."

"But Danzo, just listen to-."

"I will keep Konoha safe, by any means that I see necessary. The village survived just fine while you two were away tending to your own affairs, and why do you think that was? We're leaving Torune."

The departure of one of the most ambiguous figures in the entire village and his ANBU bodyguard soon followed. And neither Tsunade nor Jiraiya knew what to make of it. Both of them just looked at each other, wondering just what Danzo considered safe for the village, and just what he meant by 'any means necessary'.

XxX

(With Naruto – Uchiha Clan District)

Much to Naruto's surprise, the lake that they had shot down their eavesdropper into was the lake that he had oftentimes seen Sasuke sitting on the docks in front of, just staring out at the water back in their youth. But those were sadder times for the both of them. Now things were better so to speak.

Not right then necessarily because they were searching for a body that they couldn't seem to find.

"Come on…" Kiba said to himself under his breath as he and Akamaru kept doggedly sniffing at the air, getting more and more heated by the minute as they searched the forest around the lake. By now the village was bathed in moonlight, but that didn't seem to deter him a bit, "Come on damn it!"

His anger was understandable. The scent of their enemy was everywhere. Strong ink smells were clogging his nasal passages, and if he had been blind and only able to navigate by scent he wouldn't have known which way was up. He couldn't even smell the water due to the blatantly oppressive odor.

If you couldn't hide your scent, the next best thing was to put it absolutely everywhere.

Shikamaru stood on the elevated road by the lakeside and heard Naruto appear next to him in a Shunshin. With an expectant look, all Shikamaru got in return was a shake of the head, "Fifty clones spaced out all over the place, sending out enough sonar pulses to have this whole place laced. If a squirrel farts in its sleep in these woods I'd know it, but we haven't seen our pale friend at all."

With an annoyed growl, Shikamaru turned back to the lake, "It doesn't make any sense. We all saw him go down and double-timed it over here. There's no way he got far enough away from here in any direction where we couldn't catch him before he hid." Even though the bird that had been shot down exploded in a torrent of ink all over the place, that only took care of Kiba's ability to track. Not Naruto's.

"We're not going to get any official help either I'd wager." Sasuke grumbled as he stomped up the hill and onto the dirt road, "That guy had a Konoha headband, so he was a ninja of this village, and he wasn't really listening in on any state secrets or anything… other than the Kyuubi thing."

"Oh please. It's the worst kept secret in the history of ninjadom I swear." Shikamaru deadpanned while Naruto nodded in agreement and lit up a cigarette for his smoking pleasure, "Not only does every adult in Konoha already know about it, but anyone that's ever seen a jinchuuriki anywhere else and seen Naruto fight using the Kyuubi's chakra knows without being told what he is. Do we even know how illegal it is for someone that's not you to talk about it?" He concluded questioningly to Naruto.

Naruto just shrugged cluelessly, "I honestly don't even care about it anymore. No matter what anyone thinks about me, you can't really get a worse reaction for being a jinchuuriki than having nine jackasses trying to suck the biju out of you… no offense Sasuke."

Sasuke didn't take a lick of offense though, "What? Itachi's apparently trying to get the Kyuubi out of you and he's a monumental jackass. You think that's an insult to me?" He then looked toward the forest to see Chouji and Kiba with Akamaru coming out, the latter two looking rather ruffled, "No news on our newest friend I'd wager."

That comment didn't ease Kiba's mind any as he turned and spit on the ground, "No nothing period." It was a personal insult to him that someone was able to evade his tracking abilities within the limits of his own village, "Fuck it."

With a dejected shake of the head, Chouji had to give up the ghost as well, "He's gone guys. No blood, no tracks. There's nothing at all."

Who was that guy?

XxX

(Meanwhile – Underground Root Chambers)

Slow footsteps echoed out in the tunnels connected to the waterway systems beneath Konoha as a lone figure slogged through the shadows cast in the dark. There was a significant limp to his step, but other than that, you could tell there was nothing wrong with him from the expression on his face.

'I didn't expect that the Kyuubi jinchuuriki would be so ready to react.' The pale spy that had been keeping tabs on Naruto thought to himself as he saw the tunnel open up into a wide chamber that seemed to be a center portion of an entire cylindrical facility.

There were wooden bridges and metal struts connecting suspended barracks of various purposes all over the midair space with pipes running through the walls.

A swift descent from the tunnel wound up with the figure of focus landing in a crouch on one of the bridges. At least he was safe now. Pushing his luck while in the presence of an Inuzuka was a terrible idea, but the target of interest in Uzumaki Naruto was in the midst of a serious conversation with what Danzo had constantly stated was one of the largest potential domestic threats to Konoha in Uchiha Sasuke.

That was something too potentially dangerous to miss out on. It was something he needed to hear and relay in turn. Especially since the point of the conversation that sparked his interest in the first place was his estranged nuke-nin brother in Itachi.

This had been a warning sent to them for years. Keep the two of them far apart by any means necessary.

"Sai." Turning around to find a presence that he hadn't felt before, the young ninja caught sight of one of his Root comrades. A man older than him by a few years with short auburn hair in a high ponytail and emotionless amber eyes. He wore a short black jacket with red straps on the shoulders, a burnt orange kimono top, black gloves, black pants, and black sandals, "Your position in spying on the Kyuubi jinchuuriki has been compromised?"

There wasn't any need to hear an answer. It was as clear as day all over him. He looked like he had just walked in from a warzone with how utterly worn out he looked, no matter how he tried to hide it.

"Yes." The young man now identified as Sai confirmed, not having any need or thought on easing into the truth, "But as ordered I have been following him and keeping tabs on him since the day of his return to the village. I was unable to test him alone in a battle to witness the extent of his control. Since my surveillance began there had never been enough of an opening to do so unfettered by outside interference."

Today was just proof positive of that statement, just ramped up to level ten. The entire day he had spent in heavily populated areas, and even when he ventured to an isolated location he did so in a party of five. Apparently Naruto had a healthy level of paranoia, because all of that was intentional. Everything he had done all day long and every day that he had been in the village since returning was expressly done to ensure that he didn't stay alone for any prolonged period of time.

"Another way will be found to continue reconnaissance on the boy." The older Root operative assured Sai in a stiff tone of voice, "His time spent as a Ninja Guardian could potentially have caused his ties to the village to wane, akin to his sensei Sarutobi Asuma years ago. If this is the case we all know what will be requested of us by Danzo-sama."

A jinchuuriki with questionable allegiance to Konoha was simply a danger that couldn't be allowed to roam free. Three years working for an outside entity in the daimyo after only a year as a genin and chunin had to have affected him negatively in some way, and with Jiraiya and Tsunade playing major factors as the role models and adults in his life there was even more of a risk in the stalwart eyes of Danzo and his fanatical Root forces.

The enemies at the gate… were they really as dangerous as the possible enemies within?

It didn't matter. There could be a few rotting branches on the great tree of Konoha. Just as long as the Roots below were strong enough to stand firm and break them off.

Omake: Guardian Days 7

(One Year and Two Months after Naruto and Shikamaru's Acceptance)

A rather long and grueling detail seemed to finally be coming to an end as four of the seven current Guardians slogged back across the border heading southwest from Yu no Kuni into their home country of Hi no Kuni. It was all forests though so it was oftentimes hard to tell where the border was if one were not using certain landmarks as a marking point.

They did not have that luxury on this day.

The party consisted of Naruto, Shikamaru, the strange hooded and white-clad albino young man, and the short skirt and shredded t-shirt punk looking young woman that served as Naruto and Shikamaru's seniors on this mission; Kondo Shinya and Ishii Akira respectively. None of them looked too poised and in command at the moment though.

Everyone seemed to be covered from head to toe in cuts, abrasions, bruises, light burns, pretty much anything you could think of, and all of their clothes seemed to be battered beyond further usage… even as far as Akira's intentionally frayed pink shirt that went over her mesh armor was concerned. The black heart in the middle of the piece of clothing was completely shredded.

"This is the worst mission ever." Shikamaru said, voicing the opinion of pretty much everyone else there, "Really. This isn't the first time I've almost been killed before, but at least then it didn't drag on for three days straight." Slow burn peril was always more nerve-wracking than sudden surprise death. They were walking to save their energy for when they would need to run at night. That was when the raids would start again

"This was the one time where the decoy thing actually wound up being useful didn't it?" Shinya said, sounding completely exhausted as they continued to slowly travel. Even underneath his large hood sweat coated his face, and his usually clean and white clothes were covered in dirt and foreign blood, "Who hired those pricks to pick a fight with the Fire Daimyo?"

"Technically they didn't. Attacking us doesn't count as aggression against the daimyo." Akira pointed out, running a hand through her short cut black hair. She was quite certain that there were too many different bloodtypes griming her hair up after the day of pursuit and combat that they had dealt with, "We're just the muscle. We're expendable, meant to make sure that someone doesn't get the chance to try anything on the court."

Shinya knew that much, but he then pointed back at Naruto who was walking with more apparent energy than the rest of them, but with an apprehensive look in his eye, "Naruto was transformed into the Daimyo! You know he's got the best damn Henge out of the lot of us, and the ambush didn't come from close enough for any of them to tell it wasn't the real deal in that middle carriage."

"Sometimes bad guys are just that ballsy." The fourteen year old Shikamaru reasoned, holding a loosely bandaged wound on his head from the back-to-back battles. This week had not been kind to him at all, "There's no use worrying about it now. Let's just worry about getting the rest of the way back to the capital. We've still got two days of travelling left."

The party had been dispatched with the other Guardians as a part of an entire protection detail for the daimyo who had ventured further north into Kaminari no Kuni and Kumogakure to view the chunin exams.

Upon departure the idea was to send the daimyo and his viewing party that consisted of parts of his family out to head off for home ahead of schedule under the cover of night and protection of the three most experienced Guardians in Sadao, Kotoko, and Kenta.

Meanwhile a second decoy caravan would be deployed in the morning in open sight for all to see, manned entirely by the four other Guardians, centered around one in particular that could clone and disguise himself dozens of times over to simulate the roving guard that usually stayed by them in traveling scenarios.

It was a good thing it was the red herring too, because the Kage Bunshin decoy convoy got absolutely annihilated on the way back.

They had been travelling on a mountainside path right before they reached the border of Kaminari no Kuni when all hell broke loose and a rockslide sent them over the edge and nearly killed them all. From there it had been all downhill, literally and figuratively.

The enemy had been Otogakure, though the point of attacking the Fire Daimyo wasn't clear, nor who hired them to do it. Luckily by the time the attack had happened, the real daimyo had been halfway through the next country down, far away from any harm.

A dogged pursuit followed, trying to stamp out any survivors, but this failed as well at least up until that point. The first attack had been the worst as the only two Guardians conscious after the fall off of the cliff had been Shinya and Naruto, but a panicking Naruto turned out to be their best bet at getting out of that deathtrap alive.

Apparently the Kyuubi wasn't such a big fan of being sent off the side of a mountain pass and chased by a pack of forty-plus faceless jerks in masks either. Go figure.

Either way, the first blitz ended up with twenty-seven enemy outright dead (Naruto killing eighteen of them) before the Otogakure platoon wised up and decided on hit-and-run tactics throughout the forested countryside to pick away at the Guardian Ninja team for the next few days.

The simple fact of the matter was that getting into a slugfest with a jinchuuriki who was scared that his friends were sitting ducks for death was not the most brilliant tactic one could take, even with the numbers advantage.

"So you're a jinchuuriki." Akira said bluntly to Naruto who seemed to tense up at the sudden question. "Kami, that's so lucky!" That… had not been the expected reaction to such a thing, "Why didn't anyone tell us we had a romping-stomping real life honest-to-goodness jinchuuriki with us?" She seemed rather ecstatic at the thought of having one watching her back.

"They did tell us." Shinya stated flatly, lowering his hood and revealing his long white dreadlocks due to their cover from the sun making his hood covering his face unnecessary, "Remember when Nobuyuki took Sadao and Kotoko to Konoha to meet with them? He came back and told us about them, and you were doing your nails through the entire meeting like you always do."

"Yeah, because why would I care if we were getting two underage kids joining up with us to fill out the ranks? That's boring Shinya."

"Well that's why you missed the snippet about our buddy Naruto here being a jinchuuriki. We all knew almost a year and a half before you did. Way to miss the boat."

While their seniors quietly bickered amongst themselves, Naruto looked at Shikamaru in near disbelief, "Wait, I thought the whole jinchuuriki thing was a big deal." Didn't people usually freak out about that? That was what he had been led to believe from every bit of interaction with every other jinchuuriki he had ever met.

Shikamaru could serve to indulge his teammate as to why it wasn't such a big deal after the initial surprise wore off, "Well you kind of stomp on the original jinchuuriki myth of how they're all hateful and unstable with spiked boots on." It also didn't hurt that some of them actually got to know him first before they found out about what lay within. He then noticed Naruto's eyes narrow on the forests around them as he slowly drew his weapon from his back, "Ugh…"

Not needing to know what the general feeling amongst them happened to be at the moment, Naruto rolled his own eyes and held his blade at the ready when everyone else let out exasperated groans, "Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I just feel them coming. It's not like I'm telling them to keep coming at us."

"Again?" Akira seemed extremely upset at finding that Naruto was readying himself for another attack, "Are you sure?" A silent nod was her only answer, "Fuck. You think they'd stop trying to get so close after the second time they breached the Kage Bunshin perimeter." She was already setting her hand-seals to begin casting her genjutsu the moment she got word on where the enemy was.

Shinya pulled his hood back over his head as a part of his own pre-battle ritual as everyone watched Naruto's eyes move and dot out where he sensed the Oto attackers were setting up from, "They're getting desperate to keep us from reaching Hi no Kuni. They're attacking during the day this time."

Shikamaru's shadow was already stirring and ready for action at his feet as he smirked, seeing slight bits of movement in the trees around them, "Well does this means that we can actually get some sleep tonight or are we still going to have to run again?"

Thirteen against four were not really the best of odds, but after a week like this one they'd take it in a heartbeat.

Ongoing Stats (Out of 5)

Konoha Ninja

Team 7

Uchiha Sasuke

Ninjutsu: 4.5

Taijutsu: 3

Genjutsu: 3.5

Intelligence: 3.5

Strength: 3

Speed: 4.5

Stamina: 3

Hand-Seals: 4

Overall Score: 30

Haruno Sakura

Ninjutsu: 2.5

Taijutsu: 2

Genjutsu: 4

Intelligence: 4

Strength: 2

Speed: 3

Stamina: 2.5

Hand-Seals: 4

Overall Score: 24

Akimichi Chouji

Ninjutsu: 3.5

Taijutsu: 3.5

Genjutsu: 1

Intelligence: 2.5

Strength: 4.5

Speed: 3

Stamina: 3.5

Hand-Seals: 1.5

Overall Score: 23

Hatake Kakashi

Ninjutsu: 5

Taijutsu: 4.5

Genjutsu: 4

Intelligence: 5

Strength: 3.5

Speed: 4.5

Stamina: 3

Hand-Seals: 5

Overall Score: 34.5

Team 8

Inuzuka Kiba

Ninjutsu: 3.5

Taijutsu: 3

Genjutsu: 2

Intelligence: 2

Strength: 3.5

Speed: 4.5

Stamina: 3.5

Hand-Seals: 2

Overall Score: 24

Aburame Shino

Ninjutsu: 4

Taijutsu: 1.5

Genjutsu: 2

Intelligence: 4

Strength: 2

Speed: 3

Stamina: 3

Hand-Seals: 2.5

Overall Score: 22

Hyuuga Hinata

Ninjutsu: 3.5

Taijutsu: 4

Genjutsu: 3.5

Intelligence: 3.5

Strength: 1.5

Speed: 3

Stamina: 2

Hand-Seals: 3

Total Score: 24

Root

Sai

Ninjutsu: 4

Taijutsu: 3.5

Genjutsu: 3

Intelligence: 3.5

Strength: 3

Speed: 3.5

Stamina: 3

Hand-Seals: 4

Overall Score: 27.5

Torune

Ninjutsu: 3.5

Taijutsu: 4

Genjutsu: 3

Intelligence: 2.5

Strength: 3

Speed: 3.5

Stamina: 3

Hand-Seals: 3

Overall Score: 25.5

Fuu (Yamanaka)

Ninjutsu: 3.5

Taijutsu: 3

Genjutsu: 3.5

Intelligence: 3

Strength: 2.5

Speed: 3

Stamina: 3.5

Hand-Seals: 4

Overall Score: 26

Shimura Danzo

Ninjutsu: 5

Taijutsu: 4

Genjutsu: 5

Intelligence: 5

Strength: 3

Speed: 3

Stamina: 3

Hand-Seals: 5

Overall Score: 33