AN: Go.

She ducked under a devestating kick, then dodged the taller Kusa-nin's follow up tanto strike by leaping back. Sakura could see the poison glisten from the blade and knew she would need to avoid it, she went through a short sequence of seals and substituted herself for a fallen branch just as her opponent went to stab her. Now that she had some distance, she began a genjutsu that would make the opponent see himself get stabbed by her.

Sakura saw the Kusa-nin seize up and let go of her seal thus disconnecting her chakra from the shinobi's network, deactivating the genjutsu. But the damage was done, after seeing and somewhat feeling himself get stabbed through the chest with a kunai by Sakura moving incredibly fast, he just turned and stared with wide eyes at the real Sakura approaching him. She jumped up to knee the older ninja in the face and caught him clean, but she wasn't done. While in mid-air, she reached into her pouch and retrieved ninja wire, which she then did a graceful manouever with them while flipping over him and falling to the ground.

Now that her target was entangled she began weaving seals for her electric chair technique, the result was the smell of frying skin... Sakura looked down coldly at the genin who was practically a man. She did not appreciate what he said he would do to her after he won... she shuddered and her skin crawled.

"Don't underestimate me." Sakura whispered, then walked away towards where her teammates were fighting their own opponents. Earlier they had come across two teams of Kusa-nin who had most likely begun an alliance for the test. Sasuke's preemtive strike plan, which usually included liberal use of shock tags, had taken one ninja down permanently and definitely evened the playing field. Sakura doubted she would be able to take on two at a time and be able to calmly strategize.

XxX

"Ah, Sakura took you long enough! Turns out these guys had two earth scrolls, so it's like we passed twice, haha!" Naruto exclaimed, his two opponents lay across from him badly burned but they would live. Sasuke's would not...

"Alrite! Now I can get over to that kid right away. I'll leave the scrolls to you Sasuke." Sakura looked over at Naruto, and wondered why he was so giddy over that. While it was nice to see him excited and overflowing with energy like when they first started as a team, it unsettled her to think that he was so excited to go off and face enemies alone, without them. But maybe it was something he felt he just had to do.

She walked over to where Sasuke and Naruto were discussing how they would meet back again, and a few precautions on what to do if anyone was injured while they were split up.

"Naruto... be careful please! Don't do anything reckless... please," Sakura looked up at Naruto with a hint of a tear coming from her eye. She obviously was afraid of losing another teammate and close friend. Seeing this made Naruto blush a little and almost hesitate in his reply.

"Don't worry Sakura-chan, I'll definitely be okay no matter what. We are all strong now thanks too Jiraiya-sensei!" Naruto spoke with his fist held up with a proud mug. With his sedge hat off, his one blue eye lit with the same determination as always. Sakura smiled a little, he hadn't called her that in awhile.

"I'm going." He turned his back and was about to leave.

"Make sure you keep the skirmishes to a minimum, we could already be heading to the tower and passing on the first day if it weren't for your feelings for this boy, you loser." Sasuke said with a sly smirk. Sakura had a horrified look, and unseen to them a vein popped out from Naruto's forehead, and for a moment everyone was quiet.

"WHAT! It's totally not like that! You ruined such a badass moment for me you bastard!" Naruto turned with his fist raised again and fire in his one visible eye shouting in a comical way. It was quite the sight in his new outfit, as he stomped his wooden geta sandals he had got from Jiraiya.

Sakura giggled while Sasuke raised his hands in an 'Oh well' manner with the same sly smirk. Naruto raised his arms exasperatedly and turned again, although his teammates couldn't see it he had large smile on his face. These were the moments he enjoyed with his team and would give anything to keep. Which is why he would come back, he had too. If not for him, then for them...

"Whatever, I'll try. I'll see you's tomorrow for sure!" And then, after putting his sedge hat back on, he disappeared in a burst of speed while his teammates did the same headed east, the opposite direction.

They would setup camp by a river for a water supply since they had none on them at all and after two clashes with, one with two teams, Sasuke and Sakura would need rest soon. Even though it would most likely become a high traffic area by nightfall, if it wasn't already.

They had been running for about 20 minutes when Sasuke looked behind him to his right and saw Sakura still looked somewhat troubled at leaving their teammate on his own. He held his fist up in the signal to stop movement, and signaled them to head down into a clearing.

He had his Sharingan deactivated to conserve some chakra and honestly, he hated to say it, but there was no point in keeping them always active when there was noone to intimidate. Sakura wasn't really thinking straight and probably wouldn't be reliable in a major fight... He had this feeling that he had to fix it, and fix it now! He walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

Sakura was a little startled at the unexpected contact and looked up at Sasuke, and blushed. He was staring directly into her eyes, smiling warmly.

"Sakura, I know I've said some harsh things in the past but that was because I was angry at my brother and it was childish of me." Then his look became serious, "Despite what I may have said in the past you are strong, and I apologize..." Sakura was so astonished words didn't even come to mind, she just continued to listen.

"And now having said that, you need to believe in Naruto. I believe in Naruto and I believe in you, so for the moment at least you can't think about things like that because..." Sasuke took his arm off of her shoulder, closed his eyes and sighed. He really had a bad feeling.

He opened his eyes showing the three-tomoed Sharingan, and looking into the dark brush in what appeared to be a random direction to Sakura.

"I believe we've been followed..."

"...Kukuku."

XxX

Naruto had been traveling for about 20 minutes already before stopping at an area surrounded by large rock outcroppings that rose about 5 meters into the air each on average, with tiny bushes dotting their surface. It kind of reminded him of his Team's training ground except there was a slight fog permeating through the area. As it was starting to get dark the area had a somewhat eerie feel to it.

"You know... you guys are really good, but you're going to have to work on your stealth a little bit more if you want to catch me off guard," Naruto turned around and was treated to the ordinary sight of a team of leaf genin that he didn't recognize from around the village, although he didn't find that unusual, as Jiraiya's training had basically isolated them from the entire village.

But, there were definitely some things unusual about this bunch... They each wielded a standard issue katana, and each of them had it in the same position as the other on their utility belt, except for the one in the middle who was left handed. He also had a white bandanna type forehead protector as well, the teammate to the right of him had a somewhat distinctive horizontal scar on his chin with shaggy shoulder-length brown hair that covered different parts of his face depending on the way he moved while the other had dull gray hair that was pulled into a pony-tail. They all wore the same uniform as well, that being the uniform chuunin wore under their vests, and each seemed to be around 18 years old. Yet they all stood completely professionally with an emotionless, unreadable look in their eyes.

Naruto thought he probably looked the same, as he realized it was because all four shinobi in that clearing knew that in the upcoming struggle there would be death. The air was tense, as both sides were quiet. Naruto was growing anxious and was now kneading chakra inside of his body prepared to release large and small amounts at a moments notice.

"Tch... So be it." He raised his hand and gathered visible black chakra into his hand and just like that the clearing burst into action. The 3 enemy leaf shinobi seemed a bit surprised but all of them got over it just as quickly as it flashed across their features. Naruto used an odd move like this early in the fight intentionally to gauge their reactions. And just as he expected, he saw it in their eyes... These were Ninja who had been tested time and time again, they had seen many peculiar techniques, and would adapt and fight on till the end.

These were not Genin...

He only wondered what their objective was as the one in the middle leapt over his beam of chakra, while his teammates dashed away in either direction, and quickly peformed seals, firing a Grand Fireball at Naruto. Yet Naruto was already on the move, dashing to his left to gain more distance. But his teammates were not idle, infront of Naruto was one of the leaf genin with the scar on his chin dashing with him at the same speed intentionally. 'Damnit, this one is at least faster than me!' Naruto gritted his teeth.

The ninja swung his sword in the opposite direction they were moving towards to stop Naruto from doing precisely that. Naruto had unsheathed Sekiryou to parry and then taking advantage of momentum, spun away from the blow bringing his blade with him and slashed at his opponents unprotected side.

The scarred ninja wasted no time in ducking but Naruto had expected this possibility, and knew the other ninja would want to take advantage of his blindspot. The grey haired ninja appeared just on time for Naruto as he kept going with the spin move. The ninja was obviously surprised and hastily blocked the slash, having to use two arms to aborb the blow completely, Naruto couldn't help but smirk. Naruto quickly materialized a wall of black chakra twice the size of himself behind him, undoubtably saving him a moment to try and take the one in front of him out of the fight.

Black chakra gathered in his left hand, aiming it for the ninjas stomach. While not as powerful as the Rasengan it was definitely quicker to form, and he couldn't quite focus on holding up a wall even if it was for a few seconds while forming a one-shot kill technique like the Rasengan yet. The real question was not whether he would be able to incapacitate him, it was if he would be able to do it before the third member of the team interfered!

The answer to that was no he decided, as he substituted himself with one of the few shadow clones he had hidden amongst the stone quarry. It couldn't even be considered half a second later he witnessed his clone die from the teammate wearing the bandanna, who was quite tall, impaling him vertically through his body starting from the base of the neck. It was probably sticking out through the bottom of his pelvis, Naruto grimaced and as the clone exploded into smoke he canceled those memories from transferring to him. He did not wish to experience that.

That first scuffle probably lasted only a few seconds, but Naruto hypothesized had he somehow evaded the third strike they would have kept up with their strategy of a constant bombardment of attacks. It was a somewhat unorthodox strategy and he wondered if they were doing it to prevent him from what he was currently doing... He lifted his headband, unveiling his demonic looking Eternal Mangekyou. No they couldn't know about something like that... could they? 'It's time to end this, I may have wanted answers before but these guys are way to dangerous to just incapacitate, I'll be killed trying. Lets see how they deal with overwhelming power!' He thought as he flew through seals from his perch.

Towards the end of his seals sequence, the grey haired nin looked up in his direction, prompting his teammates to do the same. 'So they can sense the chakra buiding, well it is big after all.' Ending in the Tiger seal he announced his jutsu.

"Katon: Ryuuki Doki no Jutsu!" Naruto unleashed seven large Grand Fireballs at the trio of highly skilled genin. Naruto could not see the Shinobi with the scar on his chin performing seals of his own smoothly without fear nor hesitation, nor did he know his teammates showed no worry on their face.

A huge explosion erupted within the quarry destroying tall stone outcroppings, charring the earth, and even clearing the fog. When all the smoke had cleared the sight Naruto was greeted to left him astonished...

In the middle of a somewhat large crater, standing up vertically on its mouth was a bronze statue of a... fish, standing up vertically on its mouth with a live, moving eye... It darted around the clearing till it focused on him. Within the narrow crevice of its mouth was the leaf ninja with the scar on his chin crouching down on one knee so as he could fit in the tight space and no doubt his teammates were within it as well. He was looking down at the floor, his hair covering his face, his left arm was resting on the corresponding knee and his right hand held up in a half-Tiger seal. He looked up, staring Naruto directly in his eyes and said the first words that anyone on his team had spoken.

"Hmph, Kuchiyose: Buronzunamazu." He spoke giving up no emotion in his tone.

Naruto could finally read this one's expression! This guy... this guy looked bored!

Chapter End!

AN: Heh, heh, been awhile huh. Lolz but last chapter there were a few Jutsu I forgot to translate so here they are as well as this chapter's. BTW I don't translate Jutsu that everyone should know from the manga only ones that I made up.

Katon: Ryuuki Doki no Jutsu

Fire Style: Dragon King's Wrath Technique

Kuchiyose no Jutsu: Buronzunamazu

Summoning Technique: Bronze Salmon

Last Chapter

Raiton: Denki Isu no Jutsu

Lightning Style: Lightning Chair Technique

Suition: Umi Baria no Jutsu

Water Style: Barrier of the Sea Technique

Find out next time!

Who is the Mysterious person following, Sakura and Sasuke!? And who are the unknown Genin that have attacked Naruto before he could reach Henko? They aren't interested in Scrolls that's for sure!