I do not own Naruto; they wouldn't sell it to me.

Dis is an answer to MikeJV37's Naruto Fic Challenge: Birth of The Soul Ripper

Edited by ShikaIno1

Ch. 1

Awakening

"Hey, Ino…."

"What is it, Sakura? You're being serious all of a sudden…."

"Um, Ino-chan…"

"So, what is it?

"You like Sasuke-kun, right?

"Uh!"

"Then we're rivals from now on."

'Why… why am I remembering that event?' Ino thought as she suddenly remembered the moment she lost her chance at Sakura as the scene unfurled before her.

The sound team was attacking team 7. Naruto and Sasuke were out cold from earlier, Lee was knocked out by the sound attacks of a boy whit bandages over his face and Sakura was now being held down by the sound kunoichi who had grabbed her by the hair.

"Hey, Ino." Shikamaru drew her attention away from the scene before her. "What are we going to do?"

"I know we have to help, but we can't do anything!" Ino irritably answered. "We can't just jump in there." 'Even if I join now… I'll just get beat.'

"Your hair is glossier then mine. If you have time to care for your hair, train more." The sound kunoichi said, while she simultaneously thought. 'Just because you don't run a risk of being molested at every turn in your village, you shouldn't slack off.' She envied the Konoha nin's for being able to take time for the small pleasantries in life. "Hey, Zaku. Kill the mark and check what scroll they got." She said.

"Gladly." The other boy said.

"What about her and the other one." Bandage face asked.

"Leave 'em, they can slow some other team down." replied Kin.

"Hehe, your too kind Kin, I'm gonna kill both of 'em in front of her." Zaku said and started to move towards Sasuke and Naruto.

'I can't move…. I'm… just being a nuisance again…. I've always been protected… This is vexing…! I thought that I won't be one this time… I thought that it was my turn to protect my important people.'

"Let's do this."

A corrupt purple chakra slowly started to rise from Sasuke's neck where three tomoe's slowly formed.

"Hey, Sasuke and Naruto are in trouble." cried Shikamaru.

"What was that!" shouted Kin, and turned towards the sound. Unfortunately for her she loosened her grip on Sakura's hair.

She took her chance, pulled a kunai from her leg holster and cut off her own hair, throw the kunai at Zaku, who skipped back, then continued the motion and stretched out a leg to sweep at Kin's legs. Kin made a back flip to avoid the leg but immediately had to defend herself from an on slot of kicks and punches from Sakura.

Ino was in shock, Sakura had cut her own hair and now she was fighting. She was the brains of her team, weak and always in need of protection. But now SHE was protecting her team.

Seeing Kin occupied by the pink haired girl, Zaku pulled out a small tube from his pouch and screwed it on to his hand and put a solid projectile in it.

"Oh, you going use THAT?" asked Dosu.

"Yeah."

"You may hit Kin."

"Yeah, so?"

Dosu shrugged, he had said what he had to and in reality, he didn't care. Kin had always been weak and in the world of ninja there was no place for the weak.

Zaku dropped to a knee for stability and took aim by splitting his fingers, like some Vulcan greeting, and aimed at Sakura's back.

As the pressure was building up Sakura and Kin looked at each other. Kin moved slightly to her right, she saw what Zaku was doing and BANG; the shot went off.

Time seemed to slow down for Ino as she saw the projectile fly threw the air into Sakura's back, out through her chest and into the sound kunoichi's left shoulder. She couldn't believe what she saw, they had used some strange jutsu while their comrade was in the line of fire, and she seemed shocked as well.

Kin stepped back out from Sakura's grip, stumble on her ass but capped on backing up until she hit the root of one of the giant trees. Her eye's never let go of her team mates, same team mates that had sort of protected her from the rest of the village. But she saw that shot could have been fatal to her as well if she hadn't moved in the last second. 'Would they have killed me, without a second thought?'

Sakura started to fall and as she fell team 10 burst in to the clearing, Ino catching Sakura while Shikamaru and Choji focused on the two sound shinobi.

"Aah, that hurts! Still needs some fine tuning." stated Zaku, while clutching his arm to his side.

"Indeed, but it makes vermin come out of the wood work." said Dosu while at the same time, Neji and Tenten came out and flanked them.

Neji had used his byakugan and seen at a distance what had happened and he was royally pissed at the sound shinobi even if it didn't show, to use a jutsu like that while a team mate was in the line of fire? Had it been just Sakura it'd be one thing, they were told they run a risk of dying and he wouldn't get away without a betting, but to fire while his team mate couldn't get out of the way, unforgivable.

Then suddenly a great dark chakra washed over the clearing and everyone turned towards the hollow where Sasuke and Naruto are, only too see Sasuke standing in the entrance with a madman's grin; strange black markings across his face and corrupt chakra leaking from him. When Sasuke saw Sakura in Ino's arms and the pool of blood forming, he asked:

"What happened to you, Sakura?"

"~Cough~… Shot through the heart… ~cough~… and your to blame." she said with a small smile.

"Ooh, who was the one that shot you? Tell me so I can rectify this blame."

Sakura just continued coughing.

"It was him." Choji answered in her place and pointed at Zaku.

"This pal didn't even try to stop him from shooting his own team mate." Shikamaru added.

At this all Konoha ninja blanched, while Sasuke looked around and saw the sound kunoichi in shock and clutching her left shoulder. Filling his gaze Kin turned her head towards Sasuke and he said:

"Those who disobey the rules are trash… but, those who abandon their friends are lower than trash." And disappeared and re-appeared behind Zaku holding his arms.

Mean while Sakura was still coughing and Ino tried to calm her down.

"There dear, calm down. Slow and easy, my love."

"…Love… ~cough~… I thought you liked Sasuke?"

"I do, but it is you who holds my heart."

"Hehe… ~cough~, ~cough~… somehow I… cough… always know that. … Can you do… ~cough… a last thing for me."

"What?"

"Kiss me."

Ino was stunned, 'Did she just say that?' Ino looked into Sakura's eyes and saw no lie, her features softened and she leaned in for what was to be the kiss of death. Ino poured all her love into that kiss and she felt Sakura's response, and then as the warmth of the lips faded something… snapped.

Sasuke had just broken Zaku's arms. 'This power…. This power is just the tip of the ice-berg, what more can that Orocihmaru teach me,' he thought.

Suddenly everything was quiet… no rustling of leaf, no animal calling out, no one even seemed to breathe… as if…

A new force flooded the clearing, to say it was killing intent (KI) was a joke, it was like Shinigami himself had decided to grace them with his presence. Everyone turned to where this killing force (KF) was coming from, they saw Ino laying down Sakura, and they were engulfed in chakra that seemed to dance and coil around Ino making her hair dance with it. As she rose, the chakra color depend to a deep marine blue and her hair tuned to the purest white and when she turned to face them her eyes had turned completely black.

A/N: The original challenge Ino's eye's turned white but I got permission from Mike to turn them black instead.

R&R