AN: I graduated tech school! I'm now a permanent party member of the US Air Force. Haters be warned, flaming of my choice to serve my country in the same tradition as at least six known generations before me will be met with immediate ignorance and/or beration via my next AN. In story news... Kuraito is a badass, yes. But, he does have extremely sensitive hearing, to those who will most likely read this later and be like 'WTF, Chryo, why does loud noise take Kuraito down in an instant?', but every badass must have an Achilles' Heel. I don't own Naruto or any of its characters, they all belong to Kishimoto-san. Kuraito Eien and his abilities/techniques are mine.

"We need to get him out of there... But how?"

"We could distract that Oto nin and let Sakura-san get Naruto, Sasuke, and Kuraito out." Chouji said, while munching on his chips.

"And how do you propose we distract them, big guy?" Shikamaru said, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know, but we can't just leave them there..." Chouji said as he looked towards his friends , Naruto and Kuraito, who, along with Shikamaru and Kiba, were the only people that would even talk to the Akimichi boy while others made fun of his size.

"Maybe we could put him in a position where I can get him with my Kagemane no Jutsu (Shadow Imitation Technique), but I wouldn't be able to hold him for long..." Shikamaru mused.

As the two boys discussed a potential plan, Ino and Sakura were sneaking away to flank the Oto nin. They moved to a position on the other side of the clearing, out of the immediate field of vision of their foe, who was now scanning the area for Sakura, unaware of the presence of the other Konoha genin.

Sakura made the first move, jumping out of the bushes to distract their opponent. She threw several kunai, which he dodged.

Meanwhile, Ino was performing the hand seals for her Mind Control technique when she saw Kuraito stop writhing and start to stand again. Ino stopped preparing her jutsu and watched in amazement as Kuraito stood, ears still bleeding.

Kuraito was exhausted, there was no doubt about that. He still had a splitting headache from the assault on his hearing that nearly killed him. While his vision cleared, Kuraito heard the sounds of bsattle near him and tried to flare his chakra in preparation, but stopped when his ears seared with pain in response.

Instead, Kuraito chose to draw his swords, crouching in a ready position as his vision finally cleared. He took stock of the situation and saw Sakura fighting against the Oto nin who had incapacitated him. The Eien boy's temper flared as he saw that the enemy ninja was merely toying with Sakura, dodging and evading her at every turn. He gritted his teeth and blasted a gargantuan amount of chakra to his arms and legs.

'This is gonna hurt in a bit,' he thought as he crouched lower.

Kuraito sprinted towards the Oto nin and let his swords trail behind him.

"Ken no Kage!" He shouted as he slashed at his foe with invisible speed.

The Oto nin had no time to react as he was cleaved in two by the fury-driven attack from Kuraito. His midsection and lower body separated cleanly as he fell over. Blood sprayed onto the ground as the Oto nin's body hit the ground.

Kuraito sheathed his swords and released the flow of chakra to his limbs as soon as he sat down. As soon as he did, his legs flared with excruciating pain. He looked down to see that every single fiber of his legs' muscles were stretched to nearly breaking point. He started panting heavily, looking for anything to bite down on to in order to prevent the release of a deafening scream of pain he knew was coming. He resorted to putting the handle of a kunai in his mouth and bit down with enough force that the metal near his teeth started to crack.

Sakura ran towards Kuraito, a look of pure shock painted across her face as she realized how quickly Kuraito had just dispatched another ninja. She also took note of the muscular spasms his legs were still generating after his chakra flare.

"Kuraito!" She screamed. "Are you alright?" Sakura was openly worried about her friends's safety and health.

"Ow!" Kuraito yelled through the kunai in his teeth. He spit the weapon out. "Not anymore!" Kuraito pulled out what Sakura thought looked like a soldier pill, but realized it was too big for that.

"Kuraito-kun, what is..." Sakura began before Kuraito slammed the pill into his mouth and dry swallowed it whole. What happened next amazed Sakura to no end

Kuraito's ears immediately stopped bleeding and all the abrasions that used to cover his body were now healing at an amazing rate.

"Ugh, those pills are always nasty." Kuraito wiped his mouth in disgust. He saw Sakura staring at him still and spoke again. "Accelerator pill, engineered specifically for people like me, who assault their limbs with chakra flares regularly." He gestured toward his legs. "As you can see, my legs are no longer swollen and pulsing like they were before..." He winced as a twinge of pain lanced up his leg again.

"Where did you get that kind of medicine?" Sakura asked, amazed at the engineering that obviously went into the pill.

Kuraito stood once more. "I made it."

"You..." Sakura reapeated slowly. "Made it?"

Kuraito looked at her, one eyebrow raised. "You sound surprised, and not in a good way..."

"Yes, well... you see..." Sakura began.

Sasuke groaned and began to move. Sakura ruched to his side, blathering every variation of "Sasuke-kun" possible. Kuraito made his way towards the near-incoherent pink-haired kunoichi when he saw what appeared to be a seal glowing on Sasuke's shoulder.

"I'm assuming the snake gave that to you?" Kuraito said as glowing markings grew to cover half of his classmate's body. "It suits you, I suppose, being that you never did want your own kind of strength. You always depended on others to..." He was cut off as Sasuke rushed at him with no warning and open killing intent.

Kuraito blocked his rival's attack and looked at the Uchiha's eyes. In each was a single tomoe in the now red irises.

'Fuuuuuuuuck me...' Kuraito thought as he forced himself to channel more chakra to his eyes than ever before. He grabbed his head as he felt his ocular tenketsu expand to accomidate the influx of chakra. "GaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHH!" He screamed as his eyes started channeling more chakra than ever. He tried to direct the flow away from his eyes until he saw exactly what his ability could do.

*Extended Flash Forward*

Kuraito stood in an open chamber, looking at Sasuke who was incapacitated with astounding pain from the seal Orochimaru had given him. His body morphed as two giant hands sprouted from the Uchiha's back, his Sharingan fully awoken, showing three tomoe. His face looked almost feminine, gray like a cadaver's and a black shuriken-shaped mark between his eyes.

A voice sounded from all around Kuraito. "I am the Watcher, voice of time. This is what the Uchiha will become. There is no stopping it unless you kill him here and now. But you will not. You will withhold yourself and let him live for your friend's sake and you will show this mercy until you must finally kill the last of the Uchiha clan's decievers, and end this useless war they have with the Senju." The voice paused, almost to let Kuraito absorb the information. "You will help your friend, the son of the village's savior, but you will not tell him of his heritage. You will learn from the last of the Senju and the Sage of the Toad Contract. You will surpass your ancestors, and you will avenge your father, though you know him not."

The scene shifted to show what Kuraito thought was an unknown man, but he realized was himself, twenty years older. The world around him was changing swiftly, yet he remained the same, as did Naruto and two other people he could not detect before the scene shifted to the present. It showed Sasuke as he gripped Kuraito by the throat, the only two people capable of seeing the future preparing to destroy each other. The scene faded and he saw one last image: that of a man with spiky white hair and a notepad in his hands. "This is the Sage you will learn from first. Try to not damage him too greatly."

*End Flash Forward*

Kuraito forced Sasuke off of him. Drawing his swords, he poised one at the throat of the Uchiha. "Stand down, Sasuke-san. I don't want to fight you. I just want to get this damned test done."

"And I want to prove how strong I am..." Sasuke began before lunging at Kuraito. "By killing you!"