Chapter 3

"Let's find out who's gotten stronger. The Nine-Tails, or Sasuke…" Orochimaru taunted. Naruto let out a feral growl in warning as his eyes seemed to get redder and his fangs grew larger.

Megumi gasped as he started to scratch the ground with his elongated nails. He looked down as his now guttural voice seemed to shake him. "You give him back!" Sai's eyes widened with surprise as Naruto became engulfed by a red type of chakra.

Kabuto smirked at the reaction as he adjusted his glasses and sent a menacing smirk in his direction. "Again with these accusations? Sasuke came to us of his own accord, you can't dwell in the past here." He crossed his arms and mockingly chuckled in their direction. "It's really quite unbecoming of a man."

"Shut up!" Megumi snapped. She could tell how his words had affected Naruto and she couldn't take it anymore. "You don't know how others feel about this! All you know is cold logic." Orochimaru continued smiling as if nothing was wrong.

"If you really want to know about Sasuke, then I guess you're just going to have to force it out of me…if you think you're up to it." He said with fake pity in his voice. Yamato was still behind them watching the situation, 'This is bad. We aren't ready for actual contact with Orochimaru. We're going to have to retreat.' He thought with clenched hands and was going to call them back when Naruto suddenly pounced towards Orochimaru leaving splintered wood and dust in his place.

"Naruto! Don't do it!" He called, but it was too late.

Naruto had been able to land a direct hit to Orochimaru's face with enough force to send him flying through the forest surrounding them and shaking the bridge. "Naruto?" Megumi called. Her eyes widened as he turned to look at her. He wasn't himself anymore, his eyes had grown sharper and more animal like, the whisker marks on his cheeks were more prominent, but the most alarming feature Naruto had gained were the ears and tail the chakra surrounding him had created. "Wha-?" She murmured.

Megumi took a deep breath as she tried to think about what had just happened. "Ok…" She murmured, after another quick breath she started to run towards Naruto in hopes of perhaps offering some sort of support.

"Megumi, stop!" She halted in her steps at the sound of Yamato's voice and gasped as she realized her mistake. The bridge moved back and forth as Naruto's earlier attack had broken some of the support holding it together. The Tenchi Bridge could fall at any moment and she had unknowingly walked right into the middle of it.

The situation had, if possible, worsened when Orochimaru slowly walked out of the trees. His face seemed too had been ripped to shreds and strangely enough as it revealed a different face underneath. The face even seemed to have grayish hair and looked to be like a young man's features but they couldn't dwell to long on these details as Orochimaru put a hand over the torn sections and revealed his real face without a single scratch. The bridge eerily shook with each step he took growing closer and closer to Naruto with a happy smirk.

"Well, wasn't that surprising? I can't help but be curious for my Sasuke. We should put his growth to the test and pit him against Naruto here." He stated almost as if asking the others around him. His smirk deepened as he watched Naruto's reaction.

The chakra surrounding his body began to bubble and expand. "You don't own him. Sasuke is not your property!" He seemed to reassure himself. It was like he was fighting the transformation as he glared at his opponent while panting, growling, and digging his nails again into the now splintered floorboards. Was the red chakra hurting him? "Don't talk about my friend that way! Especially in front of me, you rotten bastard!"

The chakra surged through the air as small pieces of wood and grass flew along with it forcing Yamato, Megumi, Sai to step back a bit for their own safety. As quickly as it happened though, it abruptly stopped leaving behind even more damage to the bridge. "So it happened." Megumi turned towards Yamato as he looked towards Naruto. "The Nine Tails Cloak, three tails." He mumbled. Megumi gasped as she looked towards Naruto and what once was two tails of chakra had now been split into three.

While they watched in shock of his actions, Kabuto seemed to care less as he was still smirking and answered Orochimaru. "Naruto may have come a long way as a Jinchuriki but it still seems like he's not even close to Sasuke's level."

Naruto's eyes quickly shifted to Kabuto and started to growl. Low at first but slowly growing louder and louder until finally he let out what looked to be a yell but turned out to be chakra released from his mouth quickly going towards his target. His team could only watch as Kabuto was directly hit and flung past their direction and hitting a tree behind them.

Yamato couldn't believe what was happening. A simple reconnaissance mission that had now turned into a battle for Naruto against Orochimaru, and they couldn't do anything to supply support. "Sai! Megumi! We have to get out of here!" He called towards them. But as they took a step back, the bridge began to shake uncontrollably and the force of Naruto's attack took it'd toll as the bridge began to crumble from the middle and fall apart towards them.

Unfortunately for Megumi, she was on the wrong side of the bridge, if she moved one way the secure place she had found would quickly crumble and lead to her death before she could even react. "Gonna have to jump for it." She encouraged herself. As she readied to jump though the rest of her block of the bridge crumbled and she found herself falling along with the rubble. There was no solid place so she couldn't release any chakra to jump to the top; her eyes widened though as she saw the shadow of a bird come from the sky and start to fly forward towards Megumi. It was Sai on top of one of his paintings brought to life, she was going to be saved. She smiled towards him but it quickly disappeared as he started to pull up and almost as if in slow motion, smirked at her and let her fall. "That bastard." She growled.

Luckily, her mind started to work faster allowing her to come up with her next plan. She quickly brought out a Kunai knife and tied a strong thread on it before throwing it towards Sai with an extra push of chakra. Megumi was soon being pulled out of the cliff and dragged towards Sai's unknown destination. He looked down at her with slightly larger eyes while she held on for her life. "I must say that was quite impressive. But what will you do about this?" Sai said with a flash of a kunai knife.

Megumi's breath caught in her throat as she saw it and glared at him despite knowing it would do nothing. "You wouldn't do it."

"You'd be surprised." Before he could cut the wire though the ink bird they had been riding on flew back a bit and was soon hit with a strong gust of wind as what seemed like an explosion appeared underneath them. His eyes widened as he looked at the scene unfolding in the forest.

"What?" Megumi looked down in confusion but quickly wished she hadn't. Below their location in the sky, Naruto was surrounded by a crater of dirt that was once full of trees and seemed to have grown another tail of chakra and up on a tree a one armed Orochimaru seemed to look like he was chocking and as he looked up at the sky seeming to be in pain, something or someone started to come out from his mouth. First came hands, then a black mess of hair atop a head appeared until finally a completely healed Orochimaru came out of his own body still smiling as if nothing was amiss. "Bu-but how is that possible?" She mumbled to herself, she soon gasped as she felt the thread she was holding on to start to move uncontrollably and looked up to see Sai jumping from his bird as it started to deteriorate into ink. "No…"

Sai didn't even think twice as he jumped onto a branch on a tree and began moving. He heard someone land behind him but didn't have to turn around to know that Megumi had landed safely and was now chasing after him. They soon came to a stop though as another explosion of air came from where Naruto was currently located. As they hid behind trees to protect themselves from the strong winds they couldn't help but stare at each other, knowing that something would happen between each other.

The moment the wind had gone back to its normal small breeze they were off, knives clashing with each other, punches being thrown, they seemed to be evenly matched as they dodged and countered each other's attacks perfectly. "You don't even know why we're fighting, do you Megumi?" Sai asked as he ducked in time to miss a swipe of a kunai knife.

"I don't need to know." She retaliated. "You disobeyed orders from a superior and left your team during a mission." She dodged his own kunai but didn't see his leg until it had connected to her side giving him the chance to push her up against a tree nearby.

Sai maintained his regular blank stare as he yanked her mask from her face and looked into Megumi's glaring brown eyes. "So you are going to take me back to the Captain in hopes of getting answers as to why I left." She merely nodded as he placed more pressure to her neck. "What makes you think you can take me back when you couldn't even manage to bring back that traitor Sasuke? You don't even know what I'm going to do and whether or not it would be beneficial to the mission"

While she knew he was only trying to annoy her more, Megumi just couldn't stop the feeling of wanting to kill Sai envelope her body. As she was about to attack though, Sai had pushed her back and stood behind a tree across from her as something flew between them leaving a path of destruction. Megumi shielded her face from the strong winds as she reached towards her dropped masked but gave out a small shriek as someone's hand came upon her face and pulled her to a high off branch.

Her fist was about to connect to the person's face when she realized it had been Yamato to pull her aside. "You dropped this." He stated as he handed her back her mask. She nodded her thanks while staring at him with waiting eyes. Yamato gave a nervous laugh after he saw her un amused look. "I guess I should explain. Uh, while what you did was right at the time it would prove more beneficial for us if we just observed Sai's actions and see why he's doing this."

Megumi nodded as she watched Sai's movements, he looked around a bit hoping to find any sign of her around him when he started to approach the original sight for Narut's battle with Orochimaru. Apparently the object that had flown by themselves had been Naruto himself and all that stood now was Orochimaru inside the crater glaring at Saia she approached him.

The wind was once again proving to be a hindrance to Megumi as she could not hear a single word of the conversation being spoken by them but if Ao had taught her anything, it was that body language could be just as important. At one point Sai had been attacked by one of Orochimaru's snakes turning into a sword that soon revealed him as a clone made of ink. The fact that Sai was still alive after he showing himself proved that the conversation was very important. Now though, she was standing in shock of what she had just witnessed.

Kabuto had appeared and had Sai on the ground with a kunai at his neck. Fearing that he would be taken prisoner, Megumi readied herself to save him but was stopped by a hand at her shoulder. Yamato continued to stare at the scene making her turn back in time to see Sai be released and willingly follow Kabuto and Orochimaru to an unknown location. "It was just as we feared." Megumi could only silently agree as she saw another leaf ninja willingly leave with that snake. "Megumi."

She jumped at his suddenly stern voice. "Yes, sir."

"I need you to stay here, you'll find Naruto and the real Yamato will meet up with you in a bit. You will then have to wait for further orders."

"Wait. You're not Yamato?" She asked incredulously.

He shook his head while looking all around himself. "No, I'm a clone he created. I have to go now to track them so please wait now to continue the mission."

"Alrigh-" Before she could finish saying the word he had already moved on with his own goal. "Ok." She told herself as she started to head to the center of the crater herself so that they would spot her more easily.

AN:

I forgot to mention what the whole note thing with Tsunade and Mei was about, sorry. When I first saw Mei in the manga and that she was the Mizukage, I had a strange story get into my brain. It was basically about the possibility that maybe she had met Lady Tsunade some time ago and they became friends. And yes, the note was a bit of a joke about their, umm… well endowed womanly assets, I guess you would call it.

On a side note, sorry about the delay! It was completely unintentional for me, but my laptop had other plans and decided to kill my battery. It's all good now so expect some regular updates again. Maybe even a few new stories 9.9 Anyway I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Please leave your Reviews!

-Michelle