Naruto is own by Masashi Kishimoto and his staff and his editors and his publishers and the million other people who have a hand in it. For the record, we are not of that type. Of person I mean. Meaning we don't own it, so don't sue us. Aojori, Onryuuden, Juuki and Jinsoku are OCs, but everything else comes from the Naruto canon. The fic is co written by myself and my sister, which accounts for the different styles. Names are in the Japanese styling, meaning that family names come first and individual names come second (Ex: Uzumaki Naruto instead of Naruto Uzumaki).

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The war with the Cloud was already getting bloody. It hadn't been all that long since the conflict began, and already it had claimed casualties that had hit Shinreigaku Jinsoku very hard. The eighteen year old had formed fast friendships with many of his fellow Konoha shinobi over his eight years as a Jounin, and a lot of them had died in the initial bouts of the fighting. More had died in the years that had passed since then. As the Jounin leapt through the high branches of Konoha's forest, he struggled with those feelings once more, for another set of precious friends had just become lost to him.

The enemy's trap had been perfect. In most situations, a single such trap would do, but these enemies seemed to know this group's talents well. First had come an area trap, a ring of explosive tags set to be triggered when the Jounin entered the area. That one had been easy enough to avoid. The second had been triggered when they moved into that ring after the tags had been disarmed. Kunai flung at them from spring-loaded devices set up in the trees. Again, it was an easily avoided trap, but that had only been a setup. The real trap was sprung by another four man cell, laying in wait for Jinsoku's team. Their objective: stop the leaf Shinobi from returning to the main camp with the intelligence they'd collected.

They had known all to well that Jinsoku and his comrades were not ones so easily defeated as to simply step into a trap and be done with their lives. Those traps had been set just to lure the four into position. The real attack came from four Jutsus of four different element types: lightning from above, water from below, fire from the right and wind from the left. They had nowhere to dodge this time, and despite activating defensive Jutsus, two of the team members had been killed immediately. Jinsoku and one other had been left standing after the initial onslaught, and only Jinsoku himself had remained completely unscathed.

The Jounin had been quick to strike back. His hand seals formed quickly, ending in the sign of the Bird. "Fuuton," he called out, "Grand Tornado Jutsu!" At that, a massive whirlwind had appeared on the scene, twisting and swirling about, attacking the enemies that had so easily cornered them in a huge gust of wind. Using the opportune distraction, Jinsoku had grabbed the last remaining teammate in his group, flinging his injured body over his shoulder and escaping the scene. A Kunai that soared toward him as he leaped away found its mark in a wooden stump, a result of his quick Body Replacement Technique. With that, he was in the clear despite impossible odds.

He didn't bother to stay in one place, but instead started running straight off. He didn't expect this escape to be an easy one, but he had a comrade to protect and, if he could, a mission to salvage. Keeping his eyes wide open, the gray-robed ninja had sprung quickly through the trees, heading back toward the main Konoha forces. There, he would be able to take refuge from these ninjas and, more importantly, get his friend the healing she desperately needed. There would be no surprises when enemies appeared, for Jinsoku was expecting to see a good couple of ambushes on his way back to headquarters this night.

The first of said enemies appeared in a sneak attack, with an enemy springing up out of the ground and gripping Jinsoku by the ankle. Jinsoku responded by tossing his friend forward, his stomach slumping over a single tree branch. That allowed him to focus all of his attention on the attacker. That was when the real fight started. Jinsoku was smashed into the ground face-first by the attacker, but that blow wouldn't go unanswered. He made his hand seals quickly even as he flipped over the spot he'd rebounded up from, slipping out of the attacker's grip in the same motion. He didn't say the name of this jutsu aloud, but when the Chakra-made sword slid down toward his feet, the attacker got what his evasion pattern: He jumped back into the tree branches. However, this was falling into Jinsoku's trap perfectly. He never saw the ninty-nine other swords that were approaching from behind him. 'Chigatana:', Jinsoku thought, 'Rain of One Hundred Swords.' Pierced by every one of the attacks which had been intended to hit, the attacker fell forward from his tree-branch perch, falling lifelessly to the ground as the chakra swords disappeared.

The second attacker surprised him. He had let down his guard, thinking that the enemies in the area were now defeated, but that was not the case at all. It became apparent as a Kunai streaked straight for him, imbedding itself deeply in his knee. "Gaah!" Jinsoku cried as he fell to his back. He quickly sat himself up to examine the wound quickly. It wasn't looking good. Not only was it bleeding, but a thick, clear liquid was oozing out of it. 'Poison?' Jinsoku wondered as he pulled the kunai out. He tore off a large strip of his robes, banding up the wound to try and prevent any further bleeding. 'I'll have to see a medic-nin as soon as possible,' he thought.

That was when he started to wonder. Why hadn't his attacker thrown more Kunai at him? It took him a while to realize why he wasn't dead yet. Another battle had started, one so silent that Jinsoku hadn't even noticed it was happening until he had started looking for it. That was the way of Shinobi, though. They could be raging a battle all about you and you wouldn't even see it, unless they wanted you to. The second attacker was in a fight with somebody else… but who? He lost the time to ask himself that as another Shinobi, this one wearing a Konoha head protector, jumped down beside him. Jinsoku didn't recognize him, but he was carrying the other of his fallen teammates over his shoulder.

"Jinsoku-sama," the man asked, "Can you move?" He thought about that for a while, trying to move around his knee a bit.

"I'm not sure. That last opponent might have poisoned me, too, but I'm not feeling any of its affects yet."

The subordinate nodded, taking Jinsoku by the waist and helping him up. "Come on, I'll help you walk. We have to escape quickly." With a nod, the Shinreigaku struggled on one foot, using the support of his fellow Konoha shinobi to the fullest.

That was the memory that had come to Jinsoku in his dreams that night. He didn't say anything aloud, but he remembered what had happened in the couple of days since then. Upon examination, a medic-nin had revealed that the thick, clear substance that had been oozing out of Jinsoku's knee had not been poison at all, but his own joint fluid. His kneecap had also been shattered, and it had only been his own mental fortitude that had allowed him to continue the mission through that pain at all. He wouldn't be able to use that knee for a long while now. They had put his leg in a cast and given him crutches to walk on. Still, at least the mission had been completed, and though two of his teammates had died, the reinforcements sent to back him up had been able to retrieve the body. With the intelligence they had gathered, the Leaf would soon be able to launch a strong counter-attack against Cloud. Despite that, though, two of Jinsoku's comrades had died. He wouldn't have considered the mission an actual success because of that alone.

Upon his return to the village, he had been immediately debriefed by the Fourth personally. During the debriefing, he practically begged to somehow stay involved with the war effort despite his injury. Much to his own surprise, the Fourth had not been opposed to the idea. In fact, he had encouraged it. Although it was true that he could no longer take on dangerous missions like the one he had just come from, that didn't mean he couldn't still serve Konoha in its war against the Cloud. He was assigned to a team of Genin just graduating from the academy. By the time they were Chuunin, Jinsoku would be completely healed and had enough surplus time to get his injured leg back into shape. At the time, Jinsoku had thought it a perfect solution, but now that he was getting ready to meet the Genin for the first time, he couldn't deny being a little bit unsure…