Chapter 7

The fight is on! The Hidden Leaf Village vs. Anamaraki!

Shikamaru touched his face, his mood sour. When he was brought back to face Anamaraki, they had thrown him into this small room. It contained nothing more than a chair. He figured they had already charged him with attacking one of their men. He smiled a little. "Boy, would they be surprised if they had learned it was a kid who did it."

I hope she made it. He frowned again. There wasn't any word on where the others were, or if the kid had been captured. At least the others will be able to get away. That's all I hope for.

The door in front of him clicked open. A tall, strong individual walked in. His face showed no emotion, hands at his sides, eyes stern. Shikamaru rolled his eyes. The pompous Lord of Ego has returned.

Anamaraki scowled at the man before him. He appeared to be the lazy, neutral type. This can't be the one who attacked one of my men. He's weak and complacent. "Who are you," he asked gruffly, his patience thin.

"Shikamaru Nara. Pleased to make your acquaintance," he said. He kept his gaze on the man before him. It appeared Anamaraki valued his strength over brains. He was alone and chose no guards to be present. I could take him out by myself easy enough. Yet, there's always hidden factors.

"Where are your traveling companions? And where is the girl," he said coldly, saying the last word like a swear word.

Shikamaru decided to play this out. "Since you're asking, I'm assuming she got away and your men have not been able to find her. She more than likely alerted my friends, and they are hiding."

Anamaraki's body shook with anger. The girl was important to his plans. He had to get her back. "I'll make a deal with you. Trade the girl for your life."

"Ah, so she is extremely valuable to you. That's very interesting. I think I'll let the cat stay in the bag, for now. After all, you're not the only one with a trick up his sleeve."

"You're in no position to barter," Anamaraki snapped.

"I'm not? Funny thing is you know nothing about us to make that assumption. We may be smaller in numbers, but sometimes, the smaller numbers can make a huge difference in a battle plan."

Anamaraki narrowed his eyes. "If you won't tell me where the girl is hiding, I'll simply send my men to all of the inns in the village. Your companions can't hide forever!" he stomped out of the room leaving Shikamaru staring at him coldly.

"Unfortunately for that guy, he's going to anger a Uchiha and Hyuga. They are two very bad people to mess with. Oh, well," he said nonchalantly as he tottered in the chair. "I'll be sure to put flowers on his grave when I get out of here."

(Scene Change)

Onari wasn't sure what was going on. She sat on the floor munching on a delicious, warm dumpling. Neji had snuck out of the inn, disguised as someone else to get food. It was incredible how he had managed to use some sort of jutsu to physically alter his physical appearance. He had decided to copy a woman who was passing the inn.

The mere shock of it had sent Onari running to Sasuke. It took a while for him to calm her down. Neji had to turn back into himself several times to convince her it was really him. Now she was comfortable with the weird things that were happening around her.

Onari picked up another dumpling. She was fixing to bit into it when she was stopped by Sasuke. "Onari, how many of those have you had," he asked her. She held up two fingers. He walked over to her, taking the dumpling. "Bean paste dumplings are not healthy. You have to eat something else now."

Onari pointed at it. "Sasuke, Onari like that." He shook his head, pointing to the bag. She put her head on the table, her equivalent of a pout.

"Choose something else, Onari. Neji brought back plenty of things for you to eat," Sasuke said firmly.

Neji laughed. "Welcome to the parenting world." He watched as Onari fished in the bag. It was good for her to have a healthy appetite, but Sasuke was correct. She couldn't live off of dumplings. Her strength needed to be renewed.

"Now that we know what we're up against, how do we approach the situation? Attacking at night when they are the most vulnerable would be the likely scenario. Why are we choosing to attack during daylight when we can be seen and are easier to attack," Neji countered. "What is this Akaihi that the girl is talking about?"

"We're not really sure, Neji. It may have something to do with why Anamaraki doesn't want Onari to leave," Sasuke said. He looked back at the girl who was happily eating to her heart's content. Onari looked back at him with a celery stick in her mouth. She tilted her head at him. "You're going to get sick from eating so much," he told her.

Kiba thought for a minute. "Sasuke and I can get into where they are holding Shikamaru easily enough."

"I see where you're going with this," Sasuke said. "Who's the prisoner and who's going to be the capturer?"

"Oh, I don't know. I could be the prisoner, but I might make a bit of noise when it comes to rescuing Shikamaru," Kiba said grinning.

"Our best bet is for Sasuke to be the prisoner. He can use Sharingan against anyone who gets in the way," Neji said.

"Then it's settled. We'll show them Kiba fighting Sasuke and then taking him to Anamaraki. I don't think they will be expecting one of their own men to betray them," Rock Lee said.

"We're going to have to make it look convincing, or it's not going to work," Sasuke said.

(Scene Change)

Sasuke stood in the middle of the road, his eyes watching Kiba. His friend and companion had used a transformation jutsu to turn into one of Anamaraki's men. It was one of the oldest tricks in the book.

They had tied up the man they had caught some time ago and stuffed him in the basement of the inn. It had been a piece of cake to lure the man into following them. Anamaraki's men really are stupid.

"Did you really think you could hide forever? Where are the others," Kiba said in a gruff voice, his stance firm and serious. The villagers around them were standing away, watching with anticipation.

Sasuke smirked, his arms crossed in an attempt at a mild form of defiance. He narrowed his eyes, shifting his weight to his left foot, bringing it out a little. "Why should I tell you? What are you going to do about it," Sasuke taunted.

Kiba kept his stance firm and threatening. He didn't want to make any sudden movements, or it would appear fake and unrealistic to the villagers. "If you won't hand over your companions to Captain Anamaraki, then we'll search the village for them!"

"Search all you like! You won't find them. Right now, you have me to deal with," Sasuke challenged. He swiftly ran at Kiba, his blade drawn. Kiba stood his ground, bringing out his own blade to counterattack. Sasuke swung upwards, barely missing Kiba's arm by a few inches. They had to make the fight look real, at all costs.

Kiba rebounded, moving away from Sasuke as he tried again to slice him. Kiba slid to his left, bringing his left arm around to hook right behind Sasuke's head; just as they had rehearsed. Sasuke grunted loudly and fell to the street, his body sliding in the snow.

Sasuke gritted his teeth clutching his head as he was doubled over. Damn it, Kiba! You put all of your strength into it! He staggered to his feet, turning around quickly only to have Kiba coming at him sooner than he expected.

By the expression on Sasuke's face, Kiba figured he was quicker than what was originally planned. He was on Sasuke in a matter of seconds swinging a left hook, then a right. The villagers gasped as the fight came to an abrupt end.

Sasuke lay motionless on the cold road, his head back, not responding to Kiba pushing his limbs with his foot. Kiba felt bad about punching him as hard as he did, but Sasuke did say that it had to be convincing. He bent down and heaved Sasuke over his shoulder. "It's all over everyone. You can all go back to your shopping." Kiba made his way back to where Anamaraki was holding Shikamaru. It's going to be much easier now to bust Shikamaru out.

One guard lifted his head as Kiba came walking down the road with the unconscious Sasuke slung over his shoulder. "Who is it? Oh, it's you, Tataroshi. We wondered what was taking you so long," the guard said as he smiled. "But I see you brought a prisoner. Good job."

Kiba smirked as he walked pass them with Sasuke. He avoided eye contact on the whole. Now he just had to figure out where they were holding Shikamaru. He sniffed the air, but did not find his comrade's scent. The building wasn't very big, so it should be easy to sort him out. He sniffed again. A few scents wavered in his direction; they were small and few. It proved that Anamaraki was underestimating them, by a long shot. The captain of the snow village surely had most of his men searching the village for them.

Kiba set Sasuke down against the wall. He shook his companion hard. "Sasuke, wake up. You sleep much longer and I'll beat 'em all by myself."

Sasuke grunted. He opened his eyes, looking around at his surroundings. "If you hadn't of hit me as hard as you did, then I wouldn't be out cold, would I," he said with strong annoyance in his voice.

"Sorry, but you said to make it look as real as possible," Kiba said.

"Yeah, I did. That will be the last time I tell you to do that," Sasuke said as he got up. He started to walk down the hall freely, keeping his eyes alert. "This place doesn't have a cell for holding someone, so where could they have him?"

Kiba sniffed the air again. "This way," he said, going down another hall. It appeared this building was used for storage and nothing more. "How about we just knock on the doors and see who comes out? If it's not Shikamaru, we deck em."

"Crude, but effective," Sasuke said. "We don't want those two coming after us just yet. They could alert anyone in ear shot. We need to be quiet about this and catch them by surprise."

"You take the fun out of everything," Kiba said. He started to check the doors on one side of the hall and Sasuke on the other. Sasuke tapped the doors cautiously to see if anyone would answer. Kiba remained focused as he listened for any sign of life behind the doorframes.

Shikamaru lifted his head, his eyes were bloodshot and his neck was hurting. He rubbed the back of his neck, complaining, "Ah, man, this is lame. My back is killing me." He stretched a bit, bringing his arms overhead.

As he stood up, he heard something crash farther down the hallway from where he was. There was a threat issued, then another large crash. He put his ear to the door, listening. If there was a fight going on, then he had a chance of escaping. What is going on out there?

"You need to learn when to back off. I'm out of your league," he heard a voice say. Another voice came into play, "Neither of you will get away with this!" "Yeah, we know. And you won't be getting away with what you've done to the sprout," a gruff voice said as it came into hearing range.

Shikamaru listened harder.

"Last warning: Back off," the first voice said. "Fire style jutsu!"

A voice yelped in pain and died away as quickly as it had sounded. There was a flash of orange light under the door. "Sasuke?" Shikamaru started to beat on the door, yelling, "Hey, Sasuke, let me out of here!"

Sasuke turned his head, hearing a faint pounding noise coming from one of the doors. He walked to it, and then broke the handle with his ninja blade. Yanking the door open, he revealed a beaten, haggard looking Shikamaru. "Man, you look terrible."

Shikamaru looked up into Sasuke's red Sharingan eyes. He mustered a laugh. "I think I'm doing quite well for a guy who hasn't had any rest in two days."

"Alright, stop fooling around! Recess is over! Those two guards from the front are coming," Kiba shouted as he rounded the corner. "We've got to move!"

Sasuke lifted Shikamaru onto his back, looking behind him as two angry men came running at them. "They don't know when to give up, do they?" As the guards got closer, Sasuke and Kiba took off down the hall.

Two paper bombs started to burn as they went pass. The guards were falling right into their trap. One guard threw a blade at Kiba's head and missed. "You guys couldn't hit a fat guy with a rubber ball," he yelled back at them.

The paper bombs went off a split second later. They high tailed it down the street being mindful of where they were. Meeting up with the others was fixing to be delayed.

"It looks like he isn't so dumb after all," Shikamaru said. Standing in their path was Anamaraki with five ninja behind him.

"We're surrounded," Sasuke said coldly. "Someone's been anticipating our next move."

All around them were ninja watching them from atop the buildings in the area. The villagers had no idea what was going on. Fights rarely happened in their secluded village. They were starting to get out of the street as fast as possible. For an instant, Kiba regretted having Mabae stay behind. "Now what?"

Shikamaru looked around, his mind trying to come up with a solution. "We're totally outnumbered. I don't know how we're going to get out of this. We can't take them all on."

"I warned your lot the first day you came here. I even told your little bug eyed friend to keep his nose out of my affairs! None of you will leave here alive," Anamaraki stated.

"Bold threat coming from an arrogant ass who has no idea who he's up against," a voice said from behind the captain.

The captain of the snow village glanced behind him to see a man with long brown hair watching him. "And you think the mere four of you against thirty of my men are reasonable odds," he said as he grinned.

"The odds aren't against us. They are against you," said Rock Lee as he stepped out from behind the man with brown hair. "Math seems to be an under privileged subject in this village. There are seven of us against thirty."

"I'm a reasonable and tolerant man. You have no idea what you're dealing with," Anamaraki threatened.

"I'm through listening to a guy who tortures children for being different," Neji said angrily, his fists clenched.

"That girl is an abomination," Anamaraki threw back.

"You turn her out and abuse her to keep her in her place and I refuse to let you harm her," Lee challenged. His eyes turned into pit of fire. He stood firmly his body stance showing he was ready to fight. "You're the one who needs to be put in his place!"

Anamaraki's men all started to form hand seals. "This isn't good," Shikamaru said. They weren't the only ones who were in trouble. A large snarling dog came out of nowhere at the first group of guards. Mabae shoved them aside, sending several men into a wall, knocking them unconscious.

"Way to go, Mabae," Kiba said. He stopped. "Wait. You're supposed to be with the sprout!"

Sasuke looked around them. Where was she? Was she hiding? Shit! Sasuke moved back quickly as a guard came at him swinging. With Shikamaru on his back, he was an open target.

"Let's even up the odds, shall we?" Kiba formed hand seals quickly. "Shadow Clone jutsu!" Several copies of him formed. The snow ninja were surprised. "Good, now that I have your attention, let's end this!" His clones started to attack the guards.

Neji had his own problems. The ninja on the roofs were attacking him at full force. He dodged a swing from his left, and then came back, spinning and hitting vulnerable chakra points on the man. "Thirty-two palms!"

"Come on, Mabae! Let's hit them hard this time," Kiba formed hand seals after feeding Mabae a food pill. "Man Beast Clone!" Mabae barked, forming into a doppelganger of Kiba. Together they started to run at several ninja who were grouped together like a pair of bowling pins. They both jumped in the air at the same time, spinning, "Man Beast Open Taijutsu!" The group of ninja started to run from the pair, but were outmatched as Kiba and Mabae came spinning at them in a deadly combination of wind and force. "Fang over fang!" They hit the group hard, sending them flying in every direction possible. Kiba came to a slid, grinning. "Nice job, Mabae!"

Anamaraki couldn't believe what was happening to his men. He snarled looking through his fallen comrades towards Sasuke. That was the man who had started this whole mess. The one who had been going around looking for the girl and questioning the vendors. He had heard about it from several of his guards. It was time to stop this once and for all. The only way to keep that girl here now was for him to hurt her where it mattered.

Sasuke took down one guy after another with his fire jutsu. He couldn't let them get too close. Hand-to-hand combat was not going to be easy with Shikamaru on his back. His friend was too weak to fight, that much was apparent. He saw Anamaraki coming at him, the man's anger boiling over. Sasuke had to defend himself! He moved back swiftly, but the man was on him in no time.

"I'm not letting you get away," Anamaraki yelled, the fury in his eyes blazing. The captain of the snow village formed quick hand seals. "Blade of wind!" He sent the hidden blade straight at Sasuke's abdomen, a most vulnerable spot.

Sasuke erupted in his chakra defense. The area around him jolted with the sound of a thousand birds. The kunai was hit, the ninja weapon deflected as it fell to the ground. Sasuke narrowed his eyes bringing out his grass cutter sword. "Moron," he said with malice in his voice. He pointed the sword at Anamaraki, his chakra shooting the blade out farther slicing through the man's chest.

Anamaraki's clone poofed as soon as it was struck. The wind increased again from overhead. Sasuke looked up to see kunai raining down on him. Anamaraki had used a distraction to be a step ahead of him. Not so wise. As the kunai hit, the ground around Sasuke lifted, snow going in all directions. Manda shielded him from the attack, the kunai appearing like small spikes on the back of the snake.

Sasuke's form shifted to that of snakes falling down to the snow. He was not where he seemed. Anamaraki immediately armed himself expecting the man to come at him from behind. He whirled around, but there was no attack. How was he able to move that fast carrying the man on his back?

Sasuke popped away from where Manda was, throwing Shikamaru aside like a rag doll. Despite the large snake covering him, rocks in the ground had been up lifted. Several of them had pelted him. There was a cut on his hand from a sharp stone. "Sorry, but you're in no position to fight."

"I gave you warnings. Now you die," Anamaraki sneered the moment he had spotted Sasuke's new location.

Shikamaru's eyes stayed focused on Sasuke. Sasuke was not down for the count yet. He hated to be a burden, but he was weak right now and could not help. Shikamaru looked up to see a familiar face watching in horror at was happening. "No, go back," he warned the child. She shook her head at him, fear in her eyes.

Anamaraki raised his hands, an enormous double edged kunai in his hand. He was going to attack Sasuke again. Onari couldn't let him. Sasuke had given her a name. He had watched over her. "We fight to protect the ones we care about," Shikamaru said. "Sometimes the odds are in our favor, and sometimes they are not. If we are determined, the odds do not matter. What matters is that you give it your all. Everyone is capable of doing something good. There is no such thing as limitation when our heart is in the right place." Shikamaru tucked her into the furs.

Shikamaru tried to get up, but his body went down. Two days without food, or rest was taking its toll on him. The girl was going to do something drastic. He watched as she ran to Sasuke, sliding in front of him, to protect him. "No! He'll attack you," Shikamaru yelled at the girl.

Sasuke's eyes widened. Onari was in front of him with her arms out in a protective stance. Her head was lowered, back to him. Sasuke ran at her trying to get her to move aside. "Onari, run!"

Anamaraki grinned coldly at the girl. "Onari, huh? So that bastard gave you a name, little snow weasel? It won't save you!" He threw the double sided kunai at Onari. It sliced through the air.

Sasuke's heart stopped, his eyes watching in horror. "ONARI!" She stood her ground, hands coming in front of where the blade was aimed. What had happened? She was still standing there, her body stiff and threatening.

Onari looked up at Anamaraki, her yellow eyes narrowing. The enormous double sided kunai was hovering in front of her palms, chakra gluing it to her. "Onari…'e Sasuke's!" She raised her head, her foot moving behind herself as she rotated on her heel. "Reverse!" The blade flipped around. "Back!" She sent it flying straight at the captain.

The captain gritted his teeth as the blade came back to him. He wasn't expecting such a bold move. It hit him in the shoulder, his body going backwards as blood spilled out the other end. Anamaraki slid backwards into a crouch. "You are testing me, girl," he said lowly. "I won't fall for your simple tricks!" He was bleeding profusely, blood escaping his mouth.

How was Onari able to do that? Had Shikamaru been training her while on the mountain? Blood dropped onto the snow from Onari's new wound. She had managed to stop the kunai going through her body, but it had gone through her hands instead. Sasuke tried to approach her to check the damage.

Anamaraki had to take her out now, before her chakra awoke from its slumber. The girl had no idea what she was capable of; she didn't remember, but he did. He formed hand seals biting his finger. "Summoning jutsu!"

Shikamaru watched in horror as Anamaraki's hands touched the ground. The snow started to form into a creature. "What the hell is that?" A large white beast formed behind Anamaraki. Its black eyes were watching the girl. It appeared to be a white bear. It was as big as a building!

Kiba stopped fighting. He looked to his right to see the captain of the snow village challenging Onari. His large beast bellowed, sending a gust of wind at the girl and Sasuke. They were sent flying backwards. He had to do something. "Mabae!" They went running at the captain.

Anamaraki turned his head, glancing at the man approaching him with his dog. He narrowed his eyes, pointing at them. "Kurayami! Attack!" The large white bear sat back onto its haunches, then lowered its front paws, sending a wave of trembling earth at Kiba and Mabae.

Kiba and Mabae were sent flying from the sudden impact of the ground splitting in all areas.

Rock Lee turned to see a white beast towering over the road. His eyes widened. Sasuke and Onari were on the ground. Kiba and Mabae had been thrown off into the distance. "Neji," he yelled to get his teammate's attention. Neji turned around, bringing his arm up, swinging backwards, and punching a man in the face that had decided to approach him from his blind spot. "Oh, no! Onari!"

Neji dashed towards the girl. The beast was now facing the girl. The quickest way to stop an animal from taking orders, it to take out its master! Anamaraki spun around to face Neji. He came running at him, his speed matching his. Their blades crossed and clinked several times. I have to stop him! He could kill Onari and Sasuke with that beast!