An even later update this time... you have my sincerest apologies, I blame writer's block in part, but no one wants to hear lame excuses, so I offer good ones instead: A list of stories that I've read since my last update which grabbed my attention by the short hairs and refused to let go, in some cases not even after I'd finished them.

Naruto Genkyouien by Daneel Rush: This story is OC heavy, and rather silly/perverse, but well written and the OC's are fleshed out so well that it fills me with shame for how two dimensional the pokemon are in mine, a fact I intend to address ASAP. I recommend it for a read, though it won't be everyone's cup of tea, particularly since the OC's are quite a bit overpowered in comparison with other characters.

One Small Kindness by DigitalTart: This story centers around Sasuke's mother and Itachi, as well as the Uchiha as a whole during the time leading up to the Massacre, well thought out, and the reasons for things happening make a lot of sense.

Daybreak: Part 1 by DigitalTart: Sequel to above, this story timeskips to the start of the Naruto series, with Naruto and Sasuke as the primary characters, It is also a quite interesting story given the considerable differences resulting from 'One Small Kindness'.

The Empty Cage by Rathanel: Interesting take on the 'Naruto is Kyuubi' concept, with Kyuubi having his own motivations, limitations, and believable goals, Also the Ninja world is a bit more hardcore and prone to actual violence and conflict here.

Swapping the Cage by Rathanel: Kyuubi from above is exchanged with the Cannon Naruto, which pisses him off a lot, but is also an interesting read. Both this and the above can be compared favorably with the pair of stories by Nugar. ('People Lie' and 'Ask Me No Questions' both of which I also recommend, particularly for anyone fond of the Cthulu mythos.)

Naruto: Ramen Days by Rathanel: Naruto as a video game character, done in a very amusing manner, since he doesn't have access to a manual and has to trial and error his way through things, though eventually he'll apparently be able to keep other people through death-resets. (Also, this one really messed with me while writing the current chapter, since I really like the way he used the Sound trio, gave me a nasty bit of writer's block working on my own versions, Kin especially.)

Hopefully a bribe of good stories will grant me forgiveness for the tardy update, hehe.

As an aside, I plan to fix chapter 1's 'wall o' text' issues within the next day or two, though I don't plan to change anything beyond that and whatever typos/grammar issues I catch in the process.

And now, on with the Story...

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.


Naruto and Kirlia awoke in an instant as she sensed something at the edge of her range, and a wave of anxiety coursed through them both.

"What is it?" Sakura asked, drawing a kunai as she leapt to her feet and moved towards the entryway in preparation for whatever disturbed her more reactive allies.

After retrieving his damaged pack from the tower roof, and the first aid kit contained within, Naruto had treated the girl's wounds and sent her to bed while he kept watch and did the same for Sasuke.

He wasn't too worried about his own injuries, the few scrapes and slashes he'd received were more troublesome for the damage they'd done to his outfit than for the harm to himself.

Plus, Sakura-chan had treated his worst injuries already.

She woke up looking refreshed and feeling much better, and ordered Naruto to get some sleep as well. It wouldn't do if Orochimaru's henchmen found them while they were still exhausted from the earlier fight, and she certainly didn't trust him to give them time to recuperate.

That had only been a few hours ago, but as ever, Naruto was wide awake the instant he needed to be. Just another strange quirk of the boy, who could easily 'zombie-walk' through the morning if he didn't feel it was absolutely mandatory to be up.

"Someone is near, searching," Kirlia replied. "She feels of anticipation, and worry... and hope."

"Does she know where we are? And are her teammates with her?" Sakura asked, wondering if the Sound ninja had arrived already.

"No... and yes," Kirlia replied, confusion coloring her words. "She knows someone is near, but isn't certain where yet. I cannot sense anyone with her."

"I'll take a look," Naruto said, moving through the altered tunnel to create a small number of shadowclones from beside the false wall.

As with the fence, a couple of the clones appeared on the far side, though it was a far cry from the horde who had manifested through the more porous chain link fence.

The bulk of the clones dispelled, while one crept towards the entrance, where it henged into the giant spider again.

Kirlia continued 'watching' the girl, her evolved senses even catching the surprised stutter and a flash of expectant joy apparently triggered by the appearance of the clones.

How had she known?

Eager excitement drove the girl forward, and she raced towards where she sensed the burst of chakra.

She crested the shallow hill formed from the dirt cast out when the living spider dug it's den, and skidded to a stop, staring when the henge'd clone was revealed.

Remembering the spider's actions when the exploring clone found it in the first place, and eager to put the previous spider-clone's practice to use, this clone raised it's forward four legs in the air and skittered towards her unsteadily.

The intruder was apparently a genin from Grass, or someone pretending to be such, a pretty little redhead with glasses.

At least until she got an eyeful of the threat display from a spider bigger than most farm animals she'd seen.

It was hard to consider someone pretty when they're that terrified.

The clone, who shared Naruto's memory of the small demon fox, was really wondering why this forest kept making him do stuff only a total jerk would want to.

The girl let out a breathless shriek and turned to flee, but the dew-damp grass betrayed her, and she slipped, tumbling down the mound.

She scrambled furiously, trying to stop, ripping tufts of grass and clumps of dirt from the ground as she slid inexorably backward, as she forgot even the basics of her ninja training in her fear.

When she realized the sun had suddenly vanished, she risked a look up, right into the arm-long fangs of her apparent demise.

With a strangled squeak, she threw herself into a ball, covering her head with her arms and praying for deliverance, as she waited for the end.

The shadowclone peered down at the petrified girl beneath it and silently cursed the Forest of Death viciously. He would be happy to get out of this forest just so he could find something nice to do for someone to make up for it before karma kicked him in the metaphorical nuts.

He still had a lot of money left, maybe he'd buy some toys for the orphanage... It was only right for ninja to do cool stuff like that on occasion, 'Inspiring the next generation' and all that.

Standard ninja wisdom would say to kill her, or otherwise incapacitate her in such a way that she would be incapable of becoming a threat. It wouldn't even be a difficult feat, since the fangs and leg-tip spikes benefited from his claw-henge training.

The motions needed would be easy enough, even with his inexperience in this form.

A simple heatbutt-like lunge for the fangs, or a spear-like thrust for the leg-tip claws. Simple and quick.

But two things stayed his hand... and fangs.

First: Naruto wasn't a cold-blooded killer. It wasn't in is nature, and he couldn't shake the memory of how eager Kyuubi had been to kill Ralts, Sakura, and Sasuke.

It had wanted to kill, just because the act might aid it's goal.

Naruto would never let himself become like that. Killing the girl might be the right course, but to do it here and now would just be... wrong.

And second: Where were her teammates? It was obvious this girl wasn't a combat type.

If she died, her team was done, so they had every reason to protect her, unless they knew there was no threat.

Or if they had already failed the exam, permanently, and she had somehow survived.

But why would she come poke around near their hide, when she should be running for the gates like her hair was on fire?

Something strange was going on here, and he wanted answers. Which meant the Boss would want answers too.

Making certain that the fangs were out of killing position, the clone lunged at the girl in a move that was half headbutt and half barely guided fall, and it struck at the girl's head with it's closed mandibles.

He missed completely, bruising her shoulder instead, and reared back for another attempt, expecting to have a harder time of it, now that it was 'do or die' for the girl.

Instead she went completely limp, muscles which had been stretched tight enough to snap, falling completely loose.

Cautiously, the clone nudged her with a leg, and the girl's head lolled bonelessly, revealing eyes rolled back in her head.

'I hope she just fainted or somethin',' the clone thought. He would never live it down if he gave her a heart attack by accident.

Carefully grabbing onto her boot with his mandibles, he backed awkwardly back into the den, sending a thought to Kirlia to notify the others of his actions.

At the rate things were going, the Sound team Snake-teme was sending after them would turn out to be a bunch of preschoolers... with puppies.

And somehow he would end up beating them up and making them cry, just to make him feel more like a teme himself.


Karin awoke to find herself suspended uncomfortably by her arms and legs, which were somehow trapped within the wall behind her. She looked around silently, quashing her instinctual desire to scream, but it was impossible to make out anything in the pitch-black darkness.

She was amazed to wake up at all, since she figured she was barely a snack for a monster that large. It's fangs were large enough to punch right through her!

Noticing the numb ache in her shoulder, she wondered if that was what happened.

Could the majority of the spider's venom have ended up on the grass beneath her? Would the spider have noticed? And was she doomed to hang here until it got hungry enough to return for her and realized the mistake?

Would it make the same mistake a second time?

She whimpered involuntarily, at the thought of spending days hanging here, waiting for a slow death from starvation and dehydration, or massive spider bite, and not knowing which was the worse option.

"Finally awake, eh?" A male voice commented from the darkness before her.

"Yes, I'm over here," Karin called quietly. "Did the spider catch you too?"

"Nevermind that!" Interjected a female voice angrily. "Why are you here? Did someone send you to find us?"

A light-seal flared to life, illuminating the short tunnel she hung in and back-lighting a pair of ninja at the end of it.

Karin blinked in the glare, aimed directly at her. And realized that she was in more danger than she'd thought, if these people were able to control or summon a spider of that size.

"I... I was looking for someone..." Karin replied fearfully. "I'm not looking for a fight, honest! My team is... gone, and our scroll with them, so it would be useless for me to try..."

"Then why didn't you head for the gates when you had the chance?" The female asked further, and Karin didn't miss her use of the past tense.

"There was someone I was hoping to talk to, when I got the chance." Karin replied honestly. "I was hoping we would both make it to the tower, and that I would see him there... but when my team died, I decided to leave and try to find him in the village before I leave..."

"That still doesn't explain the detour ya took to get here," Naruto replied, more curious than angry. Kirlia could tell she was sincere, so far.

"I'm a sensor type ninja," she explained hesitantly, aware that she had little choice in the matter. "When I concentrate, I can 'feel' the chakra around me. I'm a bit better at it than most genin, so I was using it to avoid running into any ninja or pokemon, but when I recognized the person I wanted to talk to... I thought it was worth the risk."

"Must be important," Naruto muttered graciously.

"You can identify specific ninja based on their chakra?" Sakura asked, more sharply than she had intended.

"Sometimes," Karin admitted. "It's easier when the person has something unique, like a bloodline, but it's possible to do with anyone, with enough practice."

"And you're certain it was the right person?" Sakura pressed.

Karin nodded emphatically, or as much so as she could in her uncomfortable position. "It had to be him! The only team near me was them!"

With a start, Karin realized what that had to mean.

"It's you, isn't it?" She asked hopefully. "The team with the Uzumaki and Uchiha?"

She would be able to tell instantly with her chakra sensing ability, but it took some effort to activate, and if these two were worried enough for this cloak and dagger stuff, they would probably object to any attempt to mold chakra.

"Lemme guess, you're lookin' for the Teme?" the male said exasperatedly, approaching her with heavy steps.

"What are you doing? She's the enemy!" the female asked agitatedly.

"Kirlia-chan says she's tellin' the truth, so I'm helpin' her down," he replied, speaking as if it were the simplest matter in the world.

"And what if she decides she doesn't like failing out of the exams alone, huh?" Sakura pushed.

"We got rope, we got ninja wire, we even got that chakra suppression tag thing. I'm pretty sure we can handle someone who fainted because of a big bug," Naruto replied drily.

"It was a spider!" Karin countered defensively. "A huge, ugly spider!"

"Fine," Sakura conceded reluctantly. "But I want her hands bound, and if she takes one step toward Sasuke-kun, I'll slap that tag on her myself and seal her back in this room forever."

Sakura knew she was being a bit more cruel than might be needed, but she wasn't about to take a risk on another grass kunoichi.

The male reached up and put his hands under her shoulders, as the female ran through a few seals and slapped the wall with a bit more force than was strictly necessary.

The stone around her tingling limbs shifted to mud, and she would have fallen to the floor if the male hadn't been ready to grab her.

He set her on the ground with unexpected care, and set about tying her hands together, palms apart, but in front of her, rather than behind as she expected.

This close, it was easy to identify him as the one she was looking for, and she struggled for something to say to him.

His teammate made an annoyed sound and stalked out of the room and back to their apparent camp, passing Kirlia on her way out, who slipped in with the dance-like step that had apparently become her norm.

"I'm sorry I upset her so much," Karin said eventually. She winced a bit at how awkward she thought she sounded.

"She's just worried bout the Teme," Naruto replied. "We got jumped by someone pretending to be a grass ninja, and he got hurt pretty bad."

"Teme?" Karin prompted. This was the second time he'd said that, and he'd even suggested that it was who she was looking for.

"Yeah, Sasuke. He was a bit of a jerk in the academy, so it's kinda his nickname... well, he's still a bit of a jerk anyway, but he's gettin' better." Naruto explained helping her to her feet and leading her out of her prison room, the little pokemon at his side.

"The Uchiha? Why would I want to meet him?" Karin asked in surprise, earning startled looks from both Naruto and Sakura.

Sakura had settled against one wall, between Sasuke and the small room she'd created for their prisoner, with Eevee sitting opposite her and Charmeleon lounging almost on top of his partner.

The pokemon were all relaxed, despite their kunoichi's more tense attitude.

"Why wouldn't you?" Naruto replied. He'd stopped trying to figure out the odd obsession girls had for the Uchiha a long time before.

And his attempts to break that obsession had so far been fruitless.

"You mean Sasuke-kun isn't who you want to talk to?" Sakura asked suspiciously.

"No, I came looking for Naruto..." Karin replied nervously. "I... well, I think he..."

She trailed off, then seemed to gather her thoughts a bit more firmly, and turned to the boy and bowed as deeply as she could.

"My name is Karin Fuuma-Uzumaki, and it's a pleasure to meet you!" Especially with how nice he'd been to her, compared to his teammate at least.

"That... actually, that is a pretty good reason to hunt someone down," Sakura admitted, idly wondering if she would do the same if she ran across one of her mother's distant kin.

Karin held herself in a steep bow, eyes closed tight, and ears perked for any sounds of joy, acceptance, or (Arceus forbid!) dismissal.

Almost immediately, she heard the boy dart over to where the nasty pink-haired girl stood, and she felt her hopes sink.

"What do I do, Sakura-chan?" Naruto whispered anxiously.

"Why the heck are you asking me!" Sakura replied in bewilderment.

Karin opened her eyes dejectedly, to find the little psychic pokemon still before her, which reached out to pat her still bowed head comfortingly.

The redhead smiled gratefully at the little pokemon and straightened to watch her obviously nervous relative.

"You got family, so tell me what to do!" The blond insisted. "I've never been in this kinda situation before!"

"And you've never imagined what you would say to your family if you ever met them?" Sakura asked pointedly.

Naruto's glower proved that she had a valid point, in fact, such imaginings were practically a pastime at one point in his rather short life, but this was a whole different pot of ramen.

"W-well yeah," he admitted. "I mean, I thought a lot about what I'd say if I met my mom or dad, or even a long lost sister or brother, but not a..." he trailed off, not quite sure what his relation to the redhead might actually be.

"Cousin?" Karin supplied hopefully. It wasn't likely a close relationship, since she was only technically a half-Uzumaki, but it was something, and acknowledgment alone would mean the world to her, especially with the recent tension in her homeland.

"That works," Sakura agreed. "But if you want my advise, stop being a Dobe and introduce yourself, stick with small talk, that sort of thing... And find out if she really is an Uzumaki, and not just someone trying to trick us." She ordered, pushing Naruto back towards the bound girl.

Naruto crept back to his redheaded apparent-relative, and with nervousness evident in both voice and posture, introduced himself properly.

"Um... I'm Naruto, Naruto Uzumaki... But you already knew that..." he said, scratching his cheek awkwardly.

"He like his friends, and ramen, while his dislikes are waiting for ramen to cook and mean people," Kirlia added helpfully, beaming up at the taller pair. "His hobbies are training and learning, and his dream is to be the best Hokage ever! Dattebayo!" She finished with a wink as she bit her tongue in response to the playful tease towards her partner's unusual verbal tick.

An' this is Kirlia-chan," Naruto finished, smiling fondly at his partner. "An' that's Sakura-chan and her Eevee, An' Sasuke with Charmeleon."

"Sakura-chan?" Karin repeated, a bit unpleasantly. "Is she your girlfriend or something?"

Karin didn't think so, but it was pretty obvious that her blond cousin was smitten, and just as obvious that the pinkette didn't return the feeling.

"He wishes," Sakura replied instead. "I keep telling him that Sasuke-kun is the only one for me, but he just keeps trying. It drives me crazy!"

Watching the sunny blond smile turn brittle, as well as the expression of familiar pain that flitted across his face, Karin felt her temper rise.

"Well, that's great then," Karin countered defensively. "You keep your Uchiha, I'm sure Naruto can do much better than a petty little skank like you,"

"What did you call me?" Sakura fired back, Eevee growling in agreement. "Don't forget who's in charge here. I can slap you back in that wall so fast your head will spin!"

"Why? I haven't taken one step towards your precious 'Sasuke-kun'," Karin replied angrily. "I never said anything about not hurting your feelings Bubblegum Princess. What goes around comes around, and long-lost or not, family sticks up for each other!"

Sakura was taken aback by the vehemence of the Grass-nin's declaration, and the redhead would have charged her, had Naruto not step between them.

"Hey! Cut it out, both of ya!" Naruto yelled, holding Karin back with one hand and sending a pointed look at at Sakura, before turning back to the relative that even Sakura was beginning to suspect was true.

"Karin, she's my friend... if that's all she wants, then I'm willing to accept that. Sakura-chan, please don't antagonize Karin, we've all been through a lot lately, so try to cut her some slack. Besides, she's got some reason to dislike you anyway, since you did threaten to bury her alive..."

The girls glared at each other a beat longer before Karin looked away.

"If you say so..." she conceded. "I apologize, Sakura-san." Karin was certain she could at least manage to be civil, if only for Naruto's sake.

"I... I understand," Sakura replied. "Naruto's right... about me being on edge I mean. I don't like Sasuke-kun being hurt... And Naruto has been pestering me for a date for years."

"A guy can dream, can't he?" Naruto replied enthusiastically. "Besides, the Teme's had girls chasing him around for even longer. Long as you don't treat me the way he treats you all, I figure I'm not doing too bad."

Sakura winced at the comparison between her treatment of Naruto and Sasuke's treatment of his admirers, but let the subject drop, returning to her seat against the wall. They both had been getting better, right?

"Now that that's settled, why don't you tell me a lil bit about yourself?" Naruto asked, settling himself to the floor in front of Karin.

Karin looked to the Pink-haired girl, wondering if Naruto's casual dismissal of the threat was a slight against herself, but quickly realized that he simply hadn't expected Sakura to apologize in the first place.

He probably hadn't expected one from herself either...

"You deserve better than her," Karin muttered, sinking to a seat herself. If this was what he expected from a girl, it's a wonder he was as nice as he'd been to her.

"She's not that bad," Naruto remarked. "She's just a little rough around the edges..." He scratched the back of his head, fully aware of the potential hypocrisy of him claiming someone else unrefined.

"Besides, Naruto has his own secret admirers..." Kirlia added coyly.

"I do?" he asked in surprise. "Anyone I know? Tell me, tell me!"

"A lady never shares secrets of the heart," Kirlia replied with a wink. "I did tell you that before."

Not even a hint?" Naruto pressed with more than a little whine in his voice.

"Not even a little one," Kirlia replied merrily. "You'll have to figure it out on your own."

"Bah! You're just teasin' me," Naruto replied with a pout. "I bet there's no 'secret admirers' at all..."

"Reverse psychology doesn't work on mind readers," Kirlia said smugly.

"...Cheater," Naruto accused grumpily.

"Well, if you don't like it, then learn to shield your thoughts better," Kirlia advised. "It's not a difficult skill for psychic types to learn, and once we're past the 'ramenramenramen' part of your mind, it's not hard to understand."

Naruto knew she had a point, which he would have to address at some point in the near future, now that he knew how to access his mindscape, but an attack on his favorite food had only one possibly response.

He blew a raspberry at Kirlia.

The child-like pokemon looked appalled at the childish attack... until she returned his challenge with equal vigor.

The immature display continued, with each putting more effort into their crude watergun attacks until bubbling laughter interrupted them.

The two looked to Karin, who laughed more openly at their expressions, especially since their tongues still hung out loosely, and Sakura sighed in exasperation, though even she seemed more amused than annoyed by their antics.

"Are things always this... lively... between you two?" Karin asked between giggles.

"...Apparently," Naruto admitted at length, looking to his partner fondly. Kirlia had turned away and was brushing off her dress pointedly. She was also blushing a bit after realizing what she'd done in front of their guest.

"She just evolved, so I guess this is her new normal," Naruto added, and he didn't sound unhappy about that at all.

Taking advantage of her distraction, Naruto lashed out and grabbed his pokemon by the back of her dress and pulled her into his lap.

Kirlia struggled half-heartedly, but her efforts were pretty obviously more for show, and she didn't even bother trying to hide the pleasure she felt at being close to her partner, settling back against him quickly.

"So, where were we?" Naruto asked, as he and Kirlia both turned their attention to Karin.

"Well, my name is Karin Fuuma-Uzumaki..." She began, a bit unsure of how to proceed, before just deciding to use Kirlia's introduction of Naruto as a guideline.

"I like to collect perfume, and learning healing jutsu, as well as working to advance medical techniques and understanding, which I'm learning from O...ne of my teachers." She declined to say that one of her primary medical tutors was Orochimaru-sama, knowing that Konoha ninja might have a poor view of the man.

"I'm not fond of bugs, annoying people, or gyoza, but my favorite food is okonomiyaki." She shivered a bit at the mention of bugs. If she never saw another one as big as that freaky spider, it would still be too soon.

"I don't have many hobbies, aside from my perfume collection, since I spend so much time studying medical theory, but my dream is to become a doctor as skilled as Tsunade-sama, and to bring my clans back to prominence."

According to Orochimaru-sama, she was already as skilled as the Sannin medic had been in her youth, thanks to her Uzumaki heritage and the healing power transference ability he'd taught her, though for some reason he referred to her unusual regeneration as 'Senju vitality'.

She'd tried telling him she wasn't a Senju a few times, but he seemed to wave it off, so Karin eventually just let it go. Eccentricity was a trait all geniuses were supposed to have, and having trouble with names was a minor price to pay in exchange for the wealth of knowledge the man possessed.

"Clans?" Naruto asked curiously. As far as he knew, it was highly unusual for a ninja to be claimed by more than one clan, at least in Konoha.

"I'm... not a full Uzumaki," Karin admitted, fidgeting a bit. "My dad was Yousai Uzumaki, son of Hiwaka Uzumaki, and my mom is Kioko Fuuma... from the Land of Rice Paddies."

She glanced up at Naruto, not sure what his reaction might be. She hadn't even been raised an Uzumaki. Aside from her dad and Gramma, she'd never even met one until now.

The blonde just reached out and patted her bound hands comfortingly. "Family's family, right? Just promise to introduce me to them someday and we'll call it good."

She smiled shyly at that idea, it might not be that easy with how much her relatives were arguing over whether or not to accept Orochimaru-sama's offered aid.

"I can try," she promised weakly. "If you're ever near there I mean..."

"That's good enough for me," Naruto replied, smiling winningly.

The two, or three counting Kirlia, sat comfortably for hours telling the stories of their lives while Sakura monitored their still sleeping teammate.

Predictably, Naruto minimized his struggles and loneliness, while emphasizing his adventures, and Sakura might have interrupted, if it weren't for the knowledge that it wasn't her place to do so.

Plus, he was getting pretty good at telling these stories, probably due to the number of times he'd had to repeat the events in Wave.

Sakura paid much closer attention to the girl's words, knowing it wasn't impossible that she was somehow involved with Orochimaru.

Karin claimed that her father and grandmother had moved to the Land of Rice Paddies a few years prior to the destruction of their ancestral home.

According to what her father had told her, his mother whom Karin referred to fondly as 'Gramma', had once been a member of Uzu's ruling council, until some significant argument caused a falling out of sorts.

Words were spoken which the prideful woman wouldn't, or couldn't, take back, and she lost her seat in disgrace.

Rather than remain ostracized in her homeland, she had chosen to leave, moving to join a distant relative who had moved away to pursue a simpler life in the rural Land of Rice Paddies.

As the inadvertent cause of the conflict, her son, a recently graduated genin of modest talent, joined her in voluntary exile, eventually finding a place of his own, thanks in large part to a local girl whom he soon fell for.

Karin never learned the subject of that argument, for though her father had been told, he solidly refused to think on the fate his loving mother had nearly consigned him to.

And as for the woman herself, a number of iron-clad seals prevented her from ever betraying her village, or sharing the name of the girl chosen to become the Kyuubi's new jailer instead of her son.

In fact, the only thing Karin's Gramma had ever said to her about their homeland was a bitter acknowledgment of it's destruction, and advising the girl that it was her duty to do right by her heritage.

It was the first time Karin had heard herself named as an Uzumaki, and though she would have realized it eventually, the connection between herself and the names in her academy textbook proved distressing for the young girl.

Her father had died a few years prior on a routine border patrol, slain by an unknown enemy that had apparently just been passing through the neutral country, and learning that she and her Gramma might be the last of their family left reopened that old wound, even though her Fuuma side was still rather numerous.

That event had marked the last great fight between Karin's mother and Grandmother, when the shopkeeping civilian confronted her former ninja in-law about piling such expectations on a child.

Her Gramma had argued back just as vehemently that Karin should never have been a Fuuma, and that it was a disgrace to her Uzumaki ancestors.

She seemed to forget that it was her own anger at Uzushiogakure that led to her son's decision to 'fully acclimate' to their new home, and thus take his wife's name.

The two's arguments had been nearly legendary, and it was believed that only the seals binding her chakra, coupled with her advanced age, kept them verbal rather than physical.

Maybe she had been too upset by a civilian calling a former ninja to task yet again, or maybe simple age caught up to her, or it could have been that she stepped too far over the line imposed by the silencing seals, but between one irate word and the next, Hiwaka Uzumaki collapsed.

Her mother had done all she could, but by the time Karin returned with a medic, it was obviously too late... and the fate of the Uzumaki line was fully in her hands.

The medic ruled the death a stroke, an accident of chance not uncommon in excitable people of her grandmother's age.

Against her mother's wishes, Karin continued on the path towards her ninja career, receiving what she considered confirmation of her choice when she happened across one of the wandering Legendaries on her first C-rank mission.

As soon as she returned from that escort mission, she changed her name officially to Karin Fuuma-Uzumaki, to honor both sides of her lineage, though she knew it hurt her mother's feelings.

Of course, her mother wasn't happy when she was chosen to attend the Exams as part of the neighboring Grass country's applicants, an arrangement set up by Orochimaru-sama to increase the number of his own people attending the exam.

She said little about her training, aside from reiterating her interest in medical ninjutsu, and her lofty goals in that specialty.

Information on missions was equally sparse, ostensibly because nothing she might offer could compare to Naruto's tale of Wave, though she did admit that her homeland had a D-rank similar to the hated Tora retrieval, in the form of four Squirtle that occasionally made mischief in the rice paddies.

When Naruto pressed her to tell him the story of her C-rank, she did so reluctantly, since it was only a routine grain shipment to the land under the village of Waterfall's protection.

In fact, the only unusual thing they encountered was a playful seeming colt running across the surface of one of the many rivers which flowed down from Iwa and across the terrace-like terrain.

As soon as the pokemon realized there were ninja about, it rushed up and eagerly introduced itself as Keldeo, a Legendary of Colt Water, and one of the 'Four Sacred Swords'.

Despite it's apparent youth, and earnest nature, it's dangerous looking horn was evidence of how it had earned the title.

The team decided to camp early that day, and spent it with the three plates Keldeo had all but forced upon them before running off once more with a considerable spring in it's step.

Naruto's eyes literally shone at hearing about another Legendary, and shared his own experience with the much larger, and much much more orange Moltres.

Even after the overall stories were done, the two continued chatting away, Naruto telling her about his time as 'Prank King of Konoha' and Karin sharing stories of her more amusing relatives, and about her life as part of a small clan in a mostly peaceful country, particularly since it was one of the few able to maintain a stance of true neutrality.

Only the lands of Rice Paddies, Vegetables, and Iron had the value to truly maintain a position outside the power struggles of the Great Five countries, and only because their destruction or displeasure would be so dangerous to the lands reliant on them.

It was for this reason alone that the valuable countries hadn't been annexed by any of their larger neighbors during the second or third wars, since one of the other sides would inevitably attempt to take them away, or failing that raze the countries to the ground, possibly triggering a decades-long famine across the elemental kingdoms.

Or a hellish counterattack by the well armed and armored samurai of the Land of Iron. There was a reason it was considered the land of choice for political negotiations afterall.

But the Lands of Rice Paddies and Vegetables were far too valuable to risk their destruction, largely due to their beneficial geographical positions, and the number of friendly water, grass and ground pokemon that inhabited them.

The amount of food produced by those two countries was simply staggering, supplying nearly sixty percent of the needs of the rest of the Elemental Kingdoms combined, a good thing, considering all the land dedicated to keeping 'Hidden villages' something close to hidden.

Indeed, their reliance on the earth's bounty made farming and gardening something of a tradition for their leaders, with the Daimyo and their families maintaining personal gardens, which had become something of a competition over the last century.

Because of this, it was rumored that the Daimyo of Rice Paddies would grant any favor within his power to whomever could bring him rare or unique flowers that might give him an edge over his rival's more diverse display.

AT the very least, it was enough to cinch Orochimaru's request for land to create a new village, in exchange for a literally one of a kind giant violet lotus, which he had created by crossbreeding a normal one with one of the massive carnivorous blooms from the Forest of Death.

He was determined to turn his remaining mokuton samples to some profit, even if all the human grafts had turned out to be failures.

And he would admit some curiosity as to whether or not the parent strain's appetite might manifest...

The foolish man had agreed instantly, and his only attempt at negotiation had been a belated request that the village not interfere with the crops.

Not that Karin knew how her respected teacher had secured the right to build his village, or the truth behind those 'vicious rumors' that had been spread about him.

Neither did she know how many of those 'proud looks' he gave her when she succeeded in her medical training could be more accurately named as speculative, as he wondered how long her 'Senju' vitality might manage to counter the innate corruption caused by his body transfer jutsu.

Or that he'd already decided to test that theory, after experimenting in an Uchiha body, and letting the girl reach her full potential.


Hours later, the relatively relaxed visit was interrupted when Kirlia announced yet more unexpected visitors.

This time, when the sentry clone crept towards the entrance to their hide, Kirlia kept it and it's creator linked, just in case.


"Dammit Dosu, there's no way that Uchiha bastard would be this far from the action!" A petulant voice drifted down into the cave.

"Are you implying that I've made a mistake, Zaku?" Another asked, voice rough and menace obvious in it's tone.

"I ain't implying shit! I'm saying it straight: You fucked up!" Zaku countered, matching Dosu's menace with hot anger. "I told ya we should have just staked out the tower itself and waited for the weakling, but you just had to go all 'magic ears' on us and lead us all over hell and half of Suna!"

"Zaku, shut up," their kunoichi put in. "Dosu's the only one of us with any tracking skill worth mentioning, and if you've forgotten, every ninja in this stupid forest will be headed for that tower, and the last thing we need is someone playing hero when we finally corner the target."

"To say nothing of the unnecessary battles that would find us that near the tower," Dosu agreed, though his monotonous voice held no hint of gratitude for the girl's point.

"Tch, like I'm afraid of anyone here," Zaku replied, though it was obvious he'd given the argument up as lost. "So where the hell is he, oh illustrious leader?" he added sarcastically.

"I'm not quite sure," Dosu admitted, leveling a one-eyed glare at his loud teammate. "Someone's incessant whining must have caught their attention, because they aren't talking anymore."

"Oh please, you aren't trying to tell me you tracked the Uchiha down by 'listening really hard'," Zaku scoffed.

"Of course not," Dosu conceded. "I listened for his loudmouth teammate."

"Can it really be harder than copying someone's answer by listening to the scrape of their pencil?" Kin asked the still incredulous Zaku.

"Especially when the moron hasn't shut up all morning..." Dosu growled. "I should tell you his life story, just to share the headache listening to it gave me."

"Save it for later," Kin replied slyly. "Then you can tell us how it ends too..."

"That sounds good to me," Zaku agreed. "Just find 'em already."

Dosu chuckled darkly as he resumed his prowl for places that would fit the nearly impossible clues he'd picked up on...

A bit of an echo... maybe a hollow trunk, or tunnel of some sort?

When the giant spider leapt from it's burrow, stabbing down with impressive fangs, Dosu wasn't surprised.

He had trained himself well, and even an owl's flight was as audible to him as a doorbell.

He was surprised when the spider collapsed into smoke and chakra around the spike-like fingers of his gauntlet he'd stabbed into the arachnid's face.

"Well well," he crooned, looking into the spider's den. "Looks like we found them... Care to knock for us Zaku?"

"Gladly," the taller boy smirked, pointing his unusual palms towards the entrance.

"Slicing Sound Waves!" He shouted, releasing twin beams of air and sound from the holes in his palm, which expanded to fill the tunnel.

Screams echoed from the hideout, along with ricocheting stone as the false wall Sakura had built shattered under the assault.

The sound trio's battle would have ended right there if it hadn't been for the turns Sakura had added to foil just such an attempt.

Before the trio could stalk in and claim their victory, they were forced back by a cloud of stinging sand, driven by a greater blast of wind than even Zaku had produced.

The imitation sandstorm was short-lived, largely because none of those trapped within wanted to risk suffocation if Naruto and Eevee's attack was sustained.

As the grains drifted to the earth, all the members of Team Seven strolled out, scuffed and scratched, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

"Are you sure these are the guys?" Sasuke asked, looking out over the trio without even bothering to hide his disdain.

"They're from sound, and they were obviously looking for us, so it has to be them," Sakura answered confidently.

"Hmph. Is he trying to insult us? I would think an Uchiha would rate more than these weaklings..." Sasuke mused derisively.

"Just who the hell are you callin' weaklings?" The always irritable Zaku countered. "We're plenty strong enough to take out some Konoha trash! Slicing Sound Waves!"

The sound genin once more blasted his unique attack, but Naruto was ready, and threw his own hands forward to fire off his own jutsu.

Naruto's twister slammed into Zaku's wave of invisible blades, and both lost cohesion, scattering destruction across the field between the two teams.

"Wow, you sure showed me," Sasuke remarked drily. "Tied with a dead last Dobe in a 'who blows more' competition."

"Well, the cutting thing was pretty cool though," Naruto admitted, honestly interested. "How'd ya make it do that?"

Naruto's twister possessed more brute strength, at least in part because of his much higher chakra reserves, but the sharp gouges carved into the turf around them were all Zaku's doing.

"Heh, like I'm gonna tell you anythin'," Zaku replied snidely. He hadn't bothered to lower his arms, being fully intent on ending the confrontation in only one way.

"You know... if just give us your earth scroll, we might be willing to let you run away without the beating you came here to find," Sasuke offered coldly. "It would be a shame to risk killing someone who's just trying to do their job, especially one as impossible as this."

"You're pretty confident for a team that's been hiding in the middle of nowhere," Dosu observed suspiciously. "Too confident I would say... especially given how obvious it is that you were expecting us... Who warned you? Was it one of the other Sound teams?

Orochimaru had claimed that their team was the only one to which he'd assigned the mission of assassinating the Uchiha, but even if that was true, few things remained a secret once spoken aloud within the village of Sound, and there was no shortage of ninja hoping to steal glory from another's hands.

"Ol' Slitherpuss told us himself," Naruto replied dismissively. "Right before Kirlia-chan chased him away."

"Slitherpuss?" Kin repeated, shocked by both the implication that their great leader might have entered the forest himself, and the audacity of some genin disrespecting him so impudently.

"You know, Orochimaru? That fang-faced bastard tried hurting Sasuke-kun," Sakura clarified, smiling wickedly. "But we showed that freak good!"

"Crossdressing creep didn't stand a chance," Sasuke agreed with a wide smirk.

"You will refer to Orochimaru-sama with respect!" Zaku roared, "If you don't I'll-"

"Kill us harder?" Sasuke interrupted rudely. "If you have a problem with how we talk about your boss, then tell him to stop running through the woods dressed like an ugly girl."

Zaku bellowed in anger and launched his attack jutsu again and again in rapid succession, but Naruto stopped each one with ease.

When the wind settled, the Sound genin was breathing hard and visibly furious, while Naruto was smirking and seemed daisy-fresh by comparison.

"The hell are you smiling for?" Zaku panted. "I can keep this up all day!" As if to prove his point, he launched another useless attack.

"I'm smilin' cause I can keep this up all week," Naruto replied cockily. "But I got places to be, so I can't play with you all day."

Before Naruto could make good on his implied threat, the Sound team's mummified leader spoke up.

"You claim to have encountered Orochimaru-sama himself, and that he told you of our mission... correct?" He asked, raspy voice devoid of inflection or emotion, in stark contrast to his more volatile teammates.

"Yeah..." Sakura replied hesitantly.

"And that somehow you, a group of genin, managed to defeat one of the Sannin in combat," He continued just as blandly.

"What's your point?" Sasuke demanded sharply.

"It's merely my experience that when a claim sounds unbelievable, that the best course is to actually not believe it," Dosu explained. "I commend you for learning who the Village of Sound's true leader is, though it would probably be more fitting to punish whichever of our misguided brethren leaked it to you. But regardless, if our honored leader had wished to pursue you himself, he would not have assigned the task to us."

"That explains why those three look so damn smug," Kin laughed. "Those losers thought they actually beat a Sannin!"

"But we got sold out by our own side!" Zaku realized, growing angry all over again. "I'll gut those bastards!"

"Relax, we'll have plenty of time to punish them... slowly," Dosu replied. "Our first priority is the completion of our mission."

"We're gonna have to kill all of them now, to make sure they don't spread tales," Kin remarked, not sounding the least bit displeased.

"You two should stop relying on your eyes so much, or at least learn to count," Dosu replied, looking meaningfully at Naruto. "It takes more than a couple of henge'd clones to fool someone like me."

"I'm in no mood for games brat, surrender the Uchiha and you can leave intact," Dosu offered, holding up his unarmored hand to forestall Kin's protest. ""Refuse, and you, him and both girls will die here."

"What are you saying?" Kin said anyway. "There's no way Orochimaru-sama would let you make a call like that!"

"Orochimaru-sama will have no reason to hide his leadership of Sound after we win the exams," Dosu reasoned. "And no one would believe a couple of bitter genin trying to cause trouble for the ones who beat them?"

"Big deal, you saw through my disguise, that's not gonna keep me from cleaning your clocks," Naruto declared as Sakura and Sasuke's henges vanished.

"Big words from a weak genin," Zaku taunted, confidence returned with the more favorable odds. "You won't see me cryin' if you decide to stick around and die."

"Why don't you call out your girlfriends? I wanna see what Konoha kunoichi are made of," Kin added.

"Sorry, Sakura-chan isn't coming out to play. She an' Karin are having 'girl talk' so they might be busy for a while." Naruto replied.

"I think they're talking about Sasuke's butt," the one who'd been disguised as Sakura added in a stage whisper.

"Why would you know that?" The former Sasuke asked, looking mildly ill.

"Hey, I'm just the clone, I should be asking you!" Former-Sakura replied crossly. "You think I like having memories of those nutty girls giggling about the Teme's ass?"

"What do you mean me? I thought you were the real one!" Former-Sasuke countered.

A moment passed, and both turned to the undisguised one, who just shrugged.

"I don't remember," he admitted. "We're all so alike I just stopped keeping track."

"Then we just kill them all and find the one that bleeds," Dosu growled, annoyed at the interplay, and the fact that he couldn't readily identify which were clones, being identical as far as his limited chakra sensor ability could tell.

"I agree, I can feel myself getting dumber just listening to this crap," Kin concurred, flipping a few senbon into her hand.

"Slicing Sound Waves!" Zaku shouted, demonstrating his agreement pointedly.

If he expected the 'surprise' attack to do any more good than his earlier attempts, he was severely mistaken as all three Naruto's fired off dual Gale Palm counters in response.

One was enough to break even, three was just overkill, and Zaku's attack was thrown back like a bird in a hurricane.

More or less expecting such an event, Dosu and Kin leapt away to safety as the storm washed over Zaku, a few of the unaimed air-blades he'd created opening superficial wounds before shattering into nothing as the furious blast knocked the boy himself backwards.

The three Naruto's shared a look and separated, bounding after an opponent with one of the pokemon in tow.


Former-Sasuke and Charmeleon charged Zaku, who hit the ground rolling and quickly regained his feet.

Simply from habit, the zealot of the Sound trio brought his palms forward, only to curse and abandon that idea when his opponent mimicked the move, his own hands twisted into his own attack's seals.

Obviously the kid hadn't been completely talking out his ass if he could maintain two apparently advanced clones and fire off so many jutsu at the same time, and while it was unlikely that the kid really could maintain the effort for a week, forcing a battle of attrition couldn't end favorably.

Proud as he was of his arm cannons, it would be foolish to ignore their natural disadvantage here, and Orochimaru-sama had little use for fools.

But rarely did anything Orochimaru do serve a single purpose.

Zaku fell into a taijutsu stance, feet close together and hands far apart, with his fingers spread like claws, as he awaited the Konoha-nin's attack, dribbling chakra into the ground through his feet as he did.

Naruto came in with a heavy punch leading, which Zaku prepared to catch, though Naruto realized the plan in time and launched the punch early, letting the weight of it pull him forward to the ground, and under the lancing spike of wind chakra Zaku launched.

Planting his hands on the ground, Naruto pushed himself into the air, over a second spike, and spinning into a downward kick.

Zaku blocked the kick with his forearm, intending to finish the fight with a third spike while the boy was suspended, but was forced to abandon the attempt in favor of dodging a series of stabbing claws from Charmeleon.

Still in the air from his leap backwards, Zaku let out a set of piercing whistles, and flipped backwards to land palms first, releasing a blast of energy into the ground, which combined with the already infused chakra centered around Naruto in an explosion of sand, dirt and debris.

Answering it's partner's coded order, Yamna zipped down from the treetops where it had been helping to watch for potential dangers, in an ever accelerating Quick Attack.

Blending the speed enhancing attack with it's own impressive capacity for flight, Yanma churned the airborn particles into a tornado, leaving the trapped ninja and pokemon disoriented.

With respectable speed, Naruto recovered enough to begin firing off Gale palms, hoping to disrupt the cyclone of stinging particles, but with Yanma maintaining it, and moving too fast for the blind attacks to hit, there was little effect.

Zaku took advantage of the borrowed time to retrieve a pair of thin metal vials from his pouch, dumping their contents into his palm-holes carefully.

He disliked using this attack, since it was a complete bitch to clean out, but he was a firm believer in the old adage of 'There is no kill like overkill'.

Plus, it would be his first time using it in a real combat situation, and he couldn't think of a more annoying jackass to use it on.

A second coded whistle and Yanma ceased it's efforts, flickering to no less than a dozen spots as it send Double Team duplicates to surround the storm while it moved to a more unexpected trajectory.

Zaku stood with his palms toward the Konoha pair, careful to hold his arms in such a way that the chill liquid within wouldn't be lost accidentally.

The twister faded enough to see his target, but Zaku held his attack, wanting to savor his opponent's expression when the attack did it's damage.

He was certain that this was the real genin, since even he knew that clones couldn't think well enough to have anticipated his melee adaption.

It wasn't long before the orange moron saw him, and tried to get his own wind jutsu in line.

Zaku never gave him the chance.

"Slicing Sound Waves!" He shouted, reluctantly using the name of his base technique, though he knew this version made the other look like a sneeze by comparison.

That was Dosu's suggestion, pointing out that the surprise was more useful against a confident opponent who believed they could beat it, rather than prompting a more cautious evasion by using something new.

Seeing the blond continue his attempted counter, Zaku had to admit the wisdom of the advise, as well as the more level-headed genin's right to lead the team.

Not that he'd ever admit it to the smug bastard.

The air in his cannons responded sluggishly, compared to what he was used to, but that was to be expected, due to the items he had dumped into them, but the delay was barely noticeable to any but himself.

The cloud of lubricant that exploded out with the multitude of tiny metal beads however, would have been much more obvious.

But by then it was too late, and even a jounin would have been hard-pressed to escape unharmed.

Naruto got off his own Gale Palm Twister, not noting the unusual additions to Zaku's attack, surrounded as he was by still drifting dust, but without the compression they had just escaped, mere wind was ineffective against the ammunition.

Charmeleon, having charged immediately upon regaining something resembling visibility, was the first to find the objects, a handful tearing through him simultaneously, and before the smoke of the still disguised shadowclone appeared, the oblivious Naruto was ripped apart as well.

"Orochimaru-sama is so gonna love that one," Zaku grinned. So what if the target turned out to be some kinda smoke clone, the damage was still well above what a genin should be capable of doing.

His revered leader had been quite firm as to the risks that he faced if his arms became clogged, but willing to make any sacrifice for his beloved leader, it was only a matter of time before Zaku bit the kunai and tried to advance beyond their original intent.

The hardest part had been finding a lubricant strong enough to ensure that the projectiles would exit properly, but safe enough that it wouldn't damage the hollow bones excessively.

The difficulty, and pain, involved in cleaning the cannons was a small price to pay for the glory of serving Orochimaru-sama even more effectively.

It was just a shame he couldn't use the attack too often, due to the bone damage the beads caused each time he fired them.


Former-Sakura and Eevee chose Kin as their opponent, and the girl hopped defensively away, flinging a number of senbon as she did, which proved predictably useless.

Drawing a needle in each hand, she gave up her retreat and returned Naruto's charge, hoping to throw him off balance with the sudden transition, she didn't miss Eevee's flight into the shrubbery nearby, but dismissed it for now.

But a lifetime of pranking people far stronger and faster than himself had honed Naruto's reaction time to considerable acuity, and he adjusted without missing a beat.

He stopped her leading strike by grabbing the girl's wrist, before seallessly shifting inch long claws onto his fingers.

Despite the distraction caused by the change literally right in front of her eyes, she continued her second attack, a low stab towards his kidneys, which Naruto blocked with his forearm, before pistoning his arm forward into her gut.

Kin recovered quickly, and spun away before it became a serious injury, though she gained a few more slices when she yanked her wrist from his grasp.

She shook the blood from her arm, glaring at the blond who had begun smiling cheekily when her rapid movement set the large and unusually festive bell binding the end of her long hair to ringing.

"What are you so happy about?" She asked angrily, drawing and setting fly with another set of her special senbon.

Naruto waved them down with a one handed Gale palm, shrugging the other shoulder at her lazily.

"No reason really, bells are just... Happy, you know?" He replied, still smiling.

"Oh, I know exactly what you mean," Kin replied under her breath, listening to the jingle of the large bell.

Thinking the girl unaware, Eevee chose that moment to join the fray, but somehow Kin was able to dodge, leaving Eevee open for a counter as she ended her rush past, jaws regrettably empty of Sound ninja.

Frequent training sessions with Ralts had given Eevee a veritable sixth sense when it came to evading senbon, and the bells attached to these only made that task easier.

Eevee zigged and zagged, until with a hop and a cloud of dirt and sod, she bored her way into the earth and away from the potentially stinging projectiles.

Kin returned her attention to Naruto in time to catch his attack between her own crossed senbon, somewhat surprised to see him holding a kunai in his clawed hands.

He smiled again, wide enough to almost force his eyes closed when he noticed the tiny bell hanging from one senbon, but wasn't worldly enough yet to know of any way it could be a threat.

She drew back and stabbed at him again, but the boy dodged, blocked and countered her attempts easily, not that it surprised Kin, who began to curse her own limited skill in close combat.

"So... I gotta ask," Naruto commented conversationally. "Is there some rule or somethin' that says pretty girls gotta use those senbon?"

"W-what the hell's that supposed to mean?" Kin demanded, pushing past the surprising comment easily with a flurry of feminine anger.

"It was just a question!" Naruto protested, retreating quickly before the energetic, if poorly aimed attacks.

"You won't deceive me with such an obvious trick!" Karin spat. "Only a fool would allow an enemy's flattery to fluster them!"

"What trick? What flattery?" Naruto yelped, slipping around behind Kin when she overreached a particularly vicious slash. "It was just a stupid question!"

"Flirtatious pig!" Kin continued, turning to follow the suddenly worried boy with hateful eyes. "Don't think Orochimaru-sama didn't warn me of the kind of men this village produces. Jiraiya of the Sannin. Sharingan Kakashi. Even your Kage is a perverted old lecher! I will not be belittled by a... a prepubescent deviant like you!"

Naruto was back on his heels as the apparently unstable girl charged him once more, fingers flying as yet more senbon were sent at him, which he deflected in his usual manner.

Kin hit the ground, sliding under the wind and trying to bury her foot in his gut, with only her relative lack of skill allowing Naruto to evade as rage brought her offensive to new peaks.

"Hey! You can say stuff like that about Kakashi-sensei if you want, an' I never met Jiraiya, but bad mouthin' the Hokage is just askin' for an ass kicking!" Naruto replied angrily, grabbing the girl's scarf and dragging her face to his.

He yelped again and pushed her away when the girl tried to bite his nose off, teeth clicking together with loud finality.

"Of course you would defend your precious Kage, since he excuses such behavior," Kin replied, voice full of derision, stalking forward once more. "I would bet he's just as perverse as that incorrigible student of his, even if he is too old to do anything with it himself."

"Look, I don't know what made you so mad, but I was just tryin' to ask a question," Naruto said, trying to salvage something relatively sensible out of the situation, as he held off her attacks. "I just wanted to know if I should get some senbon for Sakura-chan... I mean, you're the second pretty girl I've met who uses 'em, and I was curious. Didn't think you'd be so damn crazy..."

"A woman's appearance has no impact on the weapons she choose, unless they're seduction specialists," Kin finally deigned to answer, though her tone was barely civil. "I prefer senbon because I can carry much more of them than I could other weapons, and they suit my chosen specialty."

"I guess that makes sense," Naruto agreed sullenly. "An' I guess Haku-chan uses 'em so she can do that pressure point thing. Probably tough to hit the right spots with something as big as a kunai... Why are girls so hard to shop for?" he mumbled grumpily.

Kin's thought process skipped a beat at that, though she was well trained enough, and Naruto was paranoid enough by now, that it didn't cost her too greatly in the exchanging attacks.

"You were not just trying to get my advice for a present for your girlfriend," Kin stated, hoping for an affirmative.

"Well, why wouldn't I? You're a kunoichi too, so I bet you got a lot of good ideas!" Naruto replied loudly, though he followed it up with some grumble about everyone thinking they were together.

"I'm trying to kill you!" Kin exclaimed.

"Yeah, now." Naruto replied with another grin. "Haku-chan tried to do that too a couple times, but now we're best friends, and pen pals!"

"She probably doesn't have much choice, being in prison and all," Kin replied viciously. Orochimaru-sama had explained quite graphically the fate awaited enemy females in a village like Konoha.

Involuntary experimentation and breeding programs were the least of the evils this Haku must face daily.

"Just what the hell are you saying?" Naruto fired back, anger at the girl entering his tone for the first time.

"She tried to kill a Konoha shinobi, even that soft fool you call a Kage wouldn't let something like that slide," Kin replied accusingly.

"It wasn't Jiji's call," Naruto replied, mastering his anger with some effort. "She was doing her job, we did ours. Once we killed the bad guy she was working for, we let her go."

"How very noble of you," Kin replied sarcastically, not for a second believing the boy's story. They might have let her go alright, but not without making absolutely certain she could never be a threat again.

And how long, and with what quality of life could a woman hope for after being crippled badly enough for that?

"I can make the same deal for you," Naruto offered. "Jiji, the Hokage, he's like family to me. Tell him what you know about Ol' Slitherpuss and what he did to Sasuke, and you can be free of him. Pick your own life from now on... whaddaya say?"

Naruto stopped fighting, or what they were calling it at the time, releasing the clawed transformation and dropping his kunai to the ground as he stepped toward her, hand held out in offering.

Honestly shocked, Kin stared at the boy for a long moment... before bursting out into cruel laughter.

"This is it?" She gasped between her laughs. "This is your plan for defeating us? Offering to 'save' me from my leader, to 'rescue' me from the man who gave me the strength to stand here now?"

"Or am I supposed to surrender in exchange for the privilege of serving people like you in a Konoha whorehouse?" She snarled.

"We serve Orochimaru-sama by choice! He saved us from you and all the other so-called Great Villages!" She ranted her eyes a mirror reflecting the pride she felt at being one of her master's chosen. "He lifted us up from the dirt you've trampled beneath your sandals! Orochimaru-sama is our master, our leader, our savior, and serving him is our greatest honor!"

"None of the scraps you or your wretched Kage have to offer could possibly match the glory of being praised by Orochimaru-sama, the dignity of being allowed to polish his weapons, the very pleasure of knowing that what I do, I do for him." She stated with quiet intensity, the faith she held for her lauded leader undeniable.

"This conversation is over," she decided, after a moment of quiet contemplation. "I will no longer tolerate your disrespect for Orochimaru-sama."

"But-" Naruto began, but broke off almost before even that short word was complete, as the ringing of Kin's bells filled his ears.

He fell to his knees in the dirt, hands clasped tightly over his ears, as Kin stalked forward with death in her eyes.

"This is for insulting Orochimaru-sama," She swore, leaning down and stabbing a senbon into each of the boy's temples, hoping to scramble the boy's brain like an omelet, convinced that only the real boy would try to convert her so uselessly.

But she stumbled when the boy burst into smoke beneath her.

The instant Naruto's clone vanished, a hand shot out of the dirt beneath where he'd been, latching onto Kin's scarf and dragging her down.

The motion set the genjutsu bells to ringing, but her attacker's grip was sure, and the vertigo of little use in this case, and soon she was planted face down in the dirt, one hand fisted in her hair, a knee in her back, and the sharp point of the retrieved kunai pointed quite firmly into the flesh over her spine and heart.

"I told him that probably wouldn't work," Sakura said quietly, clumps of dirt spilling from her as she leaned over her prisoner, "but for what it's worth, you should have accepted his offer."

"Vee!" Eevee agreed, finally connecting with her bite attack and severing the thin strings leading towards the genjutsu bells.

Sakura smiled her thanks at the pokemon as she felt the disorienting effects fade away.

"Think you got me all wrapped up do you?" Kin asked, confident despite her predicament.

The origin of that bravado became apparent when thick ropes whipped around her arms and yanked the pinkette backwards and off the Sound-nin, who snatched Eevee by the scruff of her neck.

"You are so going to pay for that, Princess," Kin said, grabbing a fistful of hair and shaking both captives roughly.

Now on Sakura's back, and the source of the binding attack, the large bell that was Chingling was set ringing by the motion. (Wrap)


Naruto and Kirlia approached Dosu cautiously, already aware that the hunched genin was probably the most intelligent and perceptive of the Sound trio.

"You may as well drop the disguise," Dosu suggested monotonously. "It didn't fool me the first time, why would it now?"

"Fine," 'Kirlia' replied, reverting to yet another copy of Naruto. "But if you could see though all of the henges, why didn't ya tell your teammates?"

"If they can be fooled by such a weak deception, even after I pointed it out once, then they deserve to find out the hard way," Dosu claimed. "Think of it as a learning experience," he added darkly.

"Dangerous way to teach, sure glad you ain't an academy sensei," the clone decided.

Dosu chuckled, though it sounded more like he was choking on a fistful of gravel than a demonstration of amusement. "It would only be dangerous if you or your team posed a threat, and I doubt very much that your entire team would pose a serious threat against any one of us, at least once the real fighting begins."

"Pretty confident for a guy who hasn't fought a real person yet," Former-Kirlia remarked.

"Heck, he hasn't even thrown a damn punch yet," the other clone added.

"I prefer not to waste more time than necessary on decoys," Dosu replied. "Though I am willing to make exceptions in pursuit of information."

"Well, we ain't tellin' you nothin'!" one countered, while the other mimed zipping his lips by way of agreement.

"Oh, you've told me quite a bit already," Dosu replied "Even ignoring that overblown biography that led me here."

"For example: That you are here rather than the Uchiha, whom we know to be... pretentious, to state it plainly, implies that he is at least injured. That he hasn't objected within my considerable hearing implies that his condition is quite severe."

"That the only undisguised members of your welcome wagon were you," he said, gesturing to the original Naruto, "and Eevee suggests that either you are the only ones capable of fighting, or more likely, that the girl will be joining the fight, probably against Kin."

"And that you disguised yourself as something other than the infantile pokemon you had during the first phase, outright tells me that your little teleporter has evolved, and that she and your real self will probably be joining in on the fun later," he hypothesized further.

"At most, you have three pokemon and two ninja to field against us, but since you can't assume your little Grass-nin guest is on the up and up, you won't even have that many."

"Of course, I could be wrong, and you're planning to abandon the dog and run for your lives... But I doubt a Konoha-nin would be willing to do something so immoral," Dosu finished.

"I really hate fighting smart guys," the more talkative clone moaned frustratedly.

"It's like playing twenty questions with Shikamaru..." the other agreed bitterly.

"So let's see if this loser sucks as much as Shika at our kinda game!" The first decided.

The two charged Dosu, disregarding their earlier concerns and hoping he might be similar to their lazy friend in more than mind.

"Shikamaru: Smart, but lacking in close quarters ability," Dosu assumed, noting the clones' almost reckless rush at him. "Thank you for that information as well. It will certainly come in handy if we come across him in the finals... One more Konoha ninja dead for Orochimaru-sama's plans, all thanks to your big mouth."

Dosu had correctly pegged Naruto as one of those ninja for whom a threat against his friends would weigh more than a threat towards himself, and the clone's faces darkened in response.

Expecting at least part of the reason for his true opponent's choice to hide behind clones to be his own attempt attempt to gather information on the team's abilities, Dosu decided to react with appropriate secrecy.

One of the clones arrested his charge and launched another of those wind attacks, and Dosu shifted into the attack, rather than dodging closer to the still approaching one, placing his bared Melody Arm in position as a shield to deflect the brunt of the jutsu's force.

Music flowed around him in a mournful dirge as Dosu set his chakra dancing within the artificial limb, playing the weapon like one of the instruments it was based on.

The wind jutsu died down and the other clone rushed in, having circled around the still stationary Sound genin, hoping to take advantage of his defensive stance, but a subtle twist and the music still flowing through the air turned from melodious music to sickening shriek.

Dosu focused his efforts on the nearer clone, due to the greater difficulty of bending the sound waves over distances larger than a few meters accurately, twisting the music around and into the clone, pounding it with note after note, searching for the proper resonance to destroy the artificial creation.

Unexpectedly, it reacted in a manner not dissimilar to a real person, rather than a simple construct, which would have ignored the less than obvious attack until it shattered.

But a clever ninja might have his clone fake incapacitation as a lure, and Dosu had no intention of falling for such a ploy.

As the notes scaled through the resonance range required for destabilizing water clones, towards the slightly more stable element clones' destruction range, the false Naruto fell to it's knees, form wavering, until in a sudden motion it grabbed at it's stomach and vomited glowing chakra, dispelling itself from the force of it's convulsions.

Dosu ceased his attack, puzzled by the unusual reaction, which meshed well enough with the clone's strangely human behavior to all but guarantee that this wasn't one of the standard elemental clones he'd encountered before...

Worth mentioning to Orochimaru-sama after the task at hand was completed, but not much more.

Dosu turned away from the cloud of smoke that had been the first of his opponents, and looked to the last clone, certain that he'd revealed nothing of his own abilities, aside from his ability to kill without even a gesture to betray it.

Well worth the effort it took to make his sound manipulation seal-less.

The clone stepped back, pale and shaking, demonstrating fear almost entirely unknown in ordinary clones, not from the sight of Dosu killing one of it's comrades, but from the memories of pain shared by the expired shadowclone.

Due to the makeup of the human body, the sonic resonance that would destroy water clones could also cause significant damage to soft tissues, if maintained for long enough.

The shadowclone's near exact mimicry of their creator's body gave them the same weakness, only with a much lower tolerance threshold.

Because he knew his opponents to be clones, Dosu didn't spike the sound into the false Naruto's ears, expecting that neither vertigo nor brain damage to be viable forms of offense against them, which was true for most of the variant clone types, who were little more than programmed puppets.

It took a long moment for the clone to divorce itself from the horrible sensations... a moment too long when facing one of Orochimaru's more ruthless recruits.

Dosu dealt with it in much the same way he had the giant spider, noting that this one too puffed away into smoke.

The sound Ninja closed his eye and listened intently, trying to locate the real boy's inevitable reemergence.

He could hear Zaku well enough to know that the borderline psychotic had things well enough in hand, and he easily heard another of the probable clones spouting nonsense at Kin, trying to win her over to the 'Will of Fire' more likely than not.

And underneath that, literally, he could hear the scrabbling of more than four paws clawing their way through the earth.

But nothing else attracted his attention.

He considered making his way to Kin, either to assist her when the apparent trap was sprung, or simply to witness her probably explosive rebuttal.

Kin was among the most viciously loyal of Sounds' genin, and this wasn't the first time some misguided fool had attempted to poach a skilled ninja from a smaller village with flowery words.

Such events were almost commonplace in some villages, though Kumo had been most notorious among them, largely due to the 'involuntary transfer program' it's previous Kage had implemented, until the current Raikage ended the policy upon ascendance.

Probably worried a war would start before he could consolidate his reign.

But entertaining as it would be to watch Kin vent her wrath on the foolish boy, Dosu was professional enough to put the mission first.

He wasn't even surprised when he found yet another blond obstacle waiting for him at the lip of the cave-like pit.


Charmeleon exited the tunnel of crumbling earth he and Eevee had carved for Sakura, since the girl wasn't willing to risk building one herself, just in case the Sound ninja could sense chakra use like the mummy apparently could.

He shook the stifling sand from himself, glad to be out where his flame could burn at least a little more freely, to find the strange redhead leaning over his partner, her hands at his throat.

He reacted in a fiery flash, charging the girl with jaws wide and flames licking along his fangs.

"No!" He heard, as a stinging blow to the jaw knocked his maw shut long before he could set it around the apparent betrayer's own neck. "No. No. No. Audino!" (Doubleslap)

The repeated blows turned Charmeleon's head to and fro, before dropping him to the ground, where he turned a baleful glare up at the flop-eared pokemon.

"Audino-no-dino!" the pokemon scolded, hands on it's hips.

Char, charmeleon char char!" He fired back, literally, hopping back to his feet. He'd be damned to a watery grave before he stood by and let someone kill a pack member.

"Dino dino audi-din." She replied haughtily, setting Charmeleon aback, for it was indeed an insult to assume that one of the few true medic pokemon would kill someone, at least outside of an actual life-or-death battle, or condone such actions in their partner.

"Chaar," he replied sheepishly, as much of an apology as he was willing to give, considering their current circumstances.

"Audino!" She replied happily, dismissing the conflict and creating a bubble of pink energy, with which she tapped Charmeleon, causing it to burst into a shower of glittering light and healing the injuries she had inflicted. (Heal Pulse)

The disagreement handled, Audino returned to Sasuke's side with Karin, who had yet to look away from her fascinated study of the curse mark on his neck.

Karin was amazed at what she could 'see' within the Uchiha by focusing her potent chakra sensing ability upon the mark.

There was a mass of foreign chakra locked within his body, from which a number of snaking roots projected, seeking to bore their way into his chakra coils.

Invasive chakra wasn't anything unusual, entire sections of the ninja culture were built around it, everything from Genjutsu and Medical techniques to the famous Hyuuga taijutsu style, all relied on forcing chakra into an opponent.

But this was almost unique in her experience, in that the majority of the chakra, so dense as to be nearly solid to her senses, was doing a whole lot of nothing, aside from holding off the attempts to forcibly remove the intruding tendrils made by the boy's natural healing.

Her first instinct, the same as any healer would have, was to attack the mass directly, bombarding it with chakra until it dissipated, but she knew before even trying that it would be a useless gesture. It would be years before she had the control or chakra capacity to create a spike of chakra sharp and hard enough to even chip something that dense.

Not that she would have anyway, once she recognized it for what it was.

Sasuke Uchiha was truly lucky to have been blessed with one of Orochimaru-sama's enhancement seals.

Which was probably why those jealous Sound ninja had come looking for him.

Orochimaru-sama would never order an attack on someone he so obviously favored, especially with how dangerous the seals already were.

They probably thought they could gain his favor somehow by trying to replace him after making sure he doesn't survive the seal's application, which was utter foolishness.

Aside from the Sasuke dying part, which seemed somewhat likely at the moment.

But luckily, she was one of the few people who'd had ample opportunity to study the successful seals, since Orochimaru-sama rarely went anywhere without his guards, and a couple of them were willing to assist a medic-in-training who wanted to advance their leader's agenda, at least if she asked politely.

So, she had spent a fair amount of time looking at Kimimaro and Jirobo's seals, and while the two were considerably different from this variation, each seal being tweaked a bit to better mesh with it's bearer, there was one major difference that gave her an idea.

The two Sound elite had seals which were fully integrated into their chakra coils, which had grown to encompass them, while Sasuke's was still outside of his, aside from a few of the questing roots.

If she was right, his best bet for survival would be for his coils to accept Orochimaru-sama's gift, rather than fight it like a disease, which was a battle the boy couldn't hope to win.

Altering chakra coils directly was an advanced form of healing, far beyond her current ability... At least her true medical jutsu ability...

But his body already knew how to do what needed to be done, it just needed a push in the right direction, and a bit of a kick start to get it going.

And this wasn't just about doing Naruto a favor anymore, helping Sasuke was in keeping with Orochimaru-sama's will too.

Her course decided, Karin placed the side of her arm between the boy's teeth, and squeezed the boy's jaw shut with her other hand.

Euphoria flooded through her as she activated the technique she considered her own, as her Uzumaki chakra filled the boy, linking her senses to his in a way that transcended empathy.

Pushing past the distracting sensation, Karin set about directing the loaned vitality towards the complicated process that was needed.


"Not this shit again," Dosu growled at the blond. "How many of these stupid clones are we going to have to destroy?"

"How many do you think you can?" Naruto taunted. "Like I told the other guy, I can keep this up a lot longer than you can."

"I am not Zaku," Dosu countered calmly. "I'm not the type to waste chakra on attacks more powerful than necessary, and I am certain that however many you can create, I can destroy, and with far less effort than the real you will spend making them."

"And unless I miss my guess, the real one has to be nearby to create them. So please, force the fight, create your clones, and let's see how long it takes me to locate and eliminate the real Naruto Uzumaki."

Naruto, for this truly was the original, nodded his acknowledgment of the point. Fighting this guy in particular would be dangerous, especially since he didn't know how the heck the first clone he'd sent after the guy had died.

The Zaku kid was a bit of a puzzle too, at least that last time... his clones were poofed before they even knew what happened.

At least he'd been able to piece together the girl's genjutsu trick... stupid bells. Who'd have guessed?

"So, this the real one, or you tryin' to talk it to death?" Zaku commented, striding into the field with one palm already aimed at Naruto, who noticed the other clenched tight and held close to his body where it dripped some dark liquid every so often.

"Please tell me this is the real one..." He pleaded, eyes flashing dangerously.

"I don't know," Dosu admitted, though he didn't turn his eye from the observant blond, who himself eyed the angry genin warily.

"Whaddaya mean you don't know?" Zaku shot back angrily. "You're talkin' to the little shit ain't ya?"

"They are very convincing clones," Kin commented in, strolling up with a bound Eevee in one hand and a fistful of Sakura's long hair in the other, forcing the girl to stumble along behind her. "The one I was fighting gave me quite the recruitment speech."

"It'd have been funny, if it weren't so pathetic... but he left me such a nice present, I think I'll let it slide for now," She said, shoving her captive to the ground, where she landed facefirst, her arms still locked behind her by Chingling's rope-like appendages.

Naruto growled and took a step towards the group, but Kin braced one foot on the back of the prone girl's neck threateningly.

"Now now Clone-san," Kin said in mock courtesy, flipping one long senbon between the fingers of her hand idly. "You wouldn't want to do anything stupid, would you?"

"Kick her ass!" Sakura yelled in response.

Eevee's voiced her agreement more pointedly, as she tried to snap at Kin's thigh, though the girl was more than aware enough to avoid it, and she punched the bound pokemon viciously, before dropping it to the ground right in front of Sakura's eyes, where it moaned dazedly.

Naruto's fists clenched in anger, but he kept his distance, though Sakura tried futilely to struggle closer to her partner.

"Good boy," Kin praised patronizingly. "Now be an obedient little clone and tell us where the original you is, before I do to the Princess here what I did to that other clone..."

"And what if I say I am the real one?" Naruto asked.

"Then I'd say you're as brave and stupid as I thought you were," Kin replied. "Such a noble boy, wanting to save the pretty girls from the big bad meanies, even when they don't need or want to be rescued."

"Wait, girls? As in plural?" Zaku asked. "You mean he actually called you pretty? Damn, brat must need glasses! I say we kill him and save him the embarrassment."

"Screw you!" Kin fired back defensively, grabbing the senbon and pointing it at him threateningly. "I'd rather be a real kunoichi than some... painted bimbo!"

"There are pretty kunoichi too ya know, you're just jealous that you'll never be one of them," Zaku replied, smug that he'd gotten a rise out of Kin yet again.

"The point is," Kin growled, leaning down and pressing her heel into Sakura's spine in a show of anger not wholly inspired by the girl herself. "That we're not gonna believe you're the real one without some proof."

She turned a cruel grin towards Naruto. "And you better make it good, or Pinky and me are gonna have some quality time together..."

Sakura shivered as the needle traced across the skin of her face, around her eye and across her nose.

"You said some horrible things about Orochimaru-sama," Kin said, still addressing Naruto. "Terrible, awful lies, and I hate you for that..."

"But I've always hated pretty little princesses like this more," she said, looking at Sakura with an ugly little grin, as the needle continued it's light scratching. "The kind of girl all the boys fight over, right? Perfect hair, perfect skin, and such pretty green eyes... "

"It makes me want to stab them out!" Kin hissed, drawing a line of blood along Sakura's cheek as she unconsciously bore down harder than she intended.

"But that's okay..." Kin said kindly. "Konoha likes pretty girls, Orochimaru-sama told me what happens to kunoichi like you, the kinds of missions you're given... I'd be doing you a favor by killing you..."

"...eventually," Kin added, intentionally gouging another furrow in Sakura's fair skin and eliciting a subdued moan of pain.

"Stop hurting Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted, stepping forward again, though Zaku moved to intersperse himself between the two Konoha ninja.

"Sakura-chan is it?" Kin asked, bringing the needle up to admire the blood on it's tip with glittering eyes. "That just makes me want to do it more..." she purred.

"I want her to bleed and cry and scream, and I want you to hear it all! I want this whole damn forest to ring with the sounds of her pain until I'm certain the real you can hear it!" She yelled maliciously. "And I want you to know it's All. Your. Fault."

She tried to stab the needle down once again, at an angle that would have pierced both of Sakura's cheeks and possibly her tongue, to say nothing of what it would do to any teeth in it's way, but Sakura jerked recklessly, pulling herself out of the line of attack and pulling herself out from under Kin's foot.

Kin caught her balance, straddling Sakura with her legs wide and the needle buried in the dirt.

"You should have taken Dosu's offer," Kin said, glaring down at her rebellious captive with a look that promised even more pain. "Taken it and run like the scared rats you are!"

Sakura's counter offer was to slam her forehead into the leaning girl's gut with all the force she could muster, which wasn't as much as she would have liked, since Chingling had begun torquing her bindings painfully.

Sakura responded by throwing herself backwards, attacking the pokemon with her own body weight and bouncing on her back a few times for good measure.

Taking advantage of Sakura's actions, Naruto charged, digging a kunai from his pack with one hand while countering the expected Slicing Sound Waves with the other.

Most of Zaku's wind blades were scattered by the clashing attacks, but enough fell in Naruto's direction to reveal himself for himself.

Dosu grabbed Zaku's extended arm and yanked him away, placing himself and his Melody Arm between the stabbing kunai and Naruto's target, and the nearly hollow limb rang a clear note at the impact.

Before Dosu could twist the sound into an attack of his own, Naruto spun away, launching a kick at Dosu's gut and simultaneously firing the kunai at Kin.

Kin slapped the blade aside with her needle, and Dosu caught the kick with his biological hand, and would have ripped the boy's thigh open with his clawed one, if not for the sealless burst off wind that Naruto released with the attack, which shoved the mummy backward, though he kept his balance easily.

His path clear for a moment, Naruto rushed Kin, who stabbed her senbon at Sakura's forehead, intending for a quick kill, only to dispel the weak disguise left on the log she'd seallessly replaced herself with once Chingling was stunned enough for her to slip away with the jutsu.

Her surprise at the unexpected escape cost Kin, and Naruto planted his fist into the girl's gut, releasing a second blast of wind and launching her away, where she slammed into one of the surrounding trees.

Before he could press his advantage, Yanma zipped down from the treetops, where it had been keeping watch, but pulling up short and bringing it's glowing wings together with a cry of it's name.

A narrow crescent of displaced air careened towards Naruto, who countered in his usual fashion, only to yelp in surprise as the pokemon's denser attack ripped through his own with little resistance. (Sonic Boom)

The attack connected, and Naruto was blown backwards, though he rolled to his feet with little more than a funny shaped bruise to show for it, but as he stood a ripple of blue energy flew from the Chingling, which shimmered through his body, leaving an odd tingling in it's wake. (Disable)

Naruto grinned at the apparently weak attack, suspecting that his team's pokemon were much stronger than the Sound ninja's, and almost wishing he hadn't ordered Kirlia to hold back for a surprise attack.

And then Dosu was on him again.

Remembering the girl from Shoe's team during the first exam, and the strange music the arm had made when his clones attacked, Naruto dodged into the arc of Dosu's sweeping claw, holding the spike-like fingers at bay with one hand while he launched a wind enhanced jab at with the other.

Dosu grunted at the blow, but nothing else.

Naruto tried again, but his fist was caught, and still no wind was released, not even a little poof.

"Don't you just hate it when you lose something you really need?" Dosu asked rhetorically, sliding Naruto's attacking arm outward and reaching out to grab the boy's collar before he could try to escape.

"I don't need jutsu to kick your ass!" Naruto countered, hopping up in an attempt to plant both feet in Dosu's chest.

But the brains of the Sound team expected something that straight-forward, and shifted aside, releasing the pressure from his metal arm while shoving down with his real one.

Naruto slammed into the ground on his back, and Dosu's claw darted back in to surround his head in a cage of steel.

"Sing for me, my Banshee!" He called, an oddly fond note in his normally bland voice.

Tiny holes opened in the gauntlet's fingers, terminal points for the looping resonance tubes within the arm, erupted with a sound the likes of which Naruto had never heard before, and hoped to never hear again. (Screech)

While not the most rabid of Orochimaru's supporters, largely because of his pragmatic nature, Dosu was probably the member of his team who owed their leader the most.

A horrible accident involving shoddily made explosive tags destroyed Dosu's arm, and much of his body was scarred beyond belief from the incident.

Even the most generous of medics firmly believed that continuing his life as a ninja would be impossible.

Orochimaru disagreed.

Not out of sympathy, or pride for Dosu's determination, or anything silly like that.

Orochimaru was the genius of the Sannin. The man who would master every jutsu. The man who would achieve immortality and become greater than even the Sage of Six Paths. The man who would conquer the world, learn every secret there was to learn, and usher in a new age of technology and jutsu that would make even the ancient civilization of their ancestors pale in comparison.

Orochimaru simply would not let something like 'Impossible' go unchallenged.

It wasn't long before Dosu was outfitted with his new arm, or rather a very primitive incarnation of it, which he controlled with chakra conductive wires grafted directly into the scar-sealed pathways of his obliterated shoulder.

It seemed rather coincidental to the young Dosu, and one day in a pain induced stupor, he actually accused Orochimaru-sama of setting up the accident in the first place.

The Sannin laughed at him.

The leader of Sound thought it absurd that he might have any need for such crude trickery, especially with the number of people like Zaku who would happily cut their own arm off to be part of his glorious experiments.

If Orochimaru had been offended by the addled accusation, Dosu never learned of it, and as his skill with the arm grew, the village supplied improved variations, especially once he learned to forgo the wires in favor of chakra strings.

And now he had the Melody Arm, as perfect a prosthetic as anyone could hope for, along with it's various wind-instrument inspired note holes, and resonance chambers linked to the dome-like 'hump' on his shoulder where Banshee, his Whismur resided.

And where it could attack in insulated comfort and protection, through the tool that would propel it's partner to greatness.

Whismur's 'song' echoed down the pipes, grabbed by Dosu's versatile sound manipulation jutsu and funneled away so efficiently that the sensitive pokemon barely noticed it's own cries.

Naruto however, noticed immediately when his head was wrapped in an explosion of noise, instantly bursting his eardrums.

A few more seconds was all it would have taken to finish the boy, to burst every vessel in his brain and reduce it to a reddish-gray goop dribbling from his ears, but a bright flash and a sudden weight on his artificial shoulder heralded Kirlia's arrival.

And the flickering length of electricity the distraught pokemon whipped around his metal arm proved that she had come intent on playing for keeps.

The charge flowed through the arm and into both of it's occupant and possessor, jolting Banshee into paralyzed silence and causing an involuntary spasm in Dosu, releasing Naruto.

The jerking motion cost Kirlia her balance, and she tumbled onto her partner, falling onto him in another rude awakening, though it elicited barely more than a twitch and a moan.

More luckily, the fall put Kirlia out of line of the beam of multicolored light Yanma had launched at her when the teleport's light had caught it's attention. (Signal Beam)

Zaku darted in himself, shoving the unbalanced Dosu away and taking aim with his dark stained palm and roaring in victory, ignoring the log that Chingling had abandoned when she'd floated over to Kin worriedly.

A log which Sakura exchanged herself with once more, spinning into a sweep kick and taking out one of the reckless Sound-nin's legs, redirecting his shotgun-like blast into the nearby treetops, where it devastated a bunch of innocent leaves and branches.

As well as one large and cautiously observant ape, who had been attracted by the commotion.

"Vee, vee, vee, vee... Eevee!" Sakura's partner chanted, inspired by the pinkette's reemergence, each syllable sending sparks of blue across her fur and culminating with a burst of blue lightning similar to when her Helping Hand hit an ally. (Work Up)

The thin wire binding, and biting into, Eevee was no match for the new strength surging through her, and the instant Eevee broke it, she was on her feet.

Naruto's enhanced healing brought him around quickly, though he was dealing with the worst headache of his life and a bad case of 'can't hear shit' due to his shattered eardrums being lower on the healing priorities list than repairing the capillaries in his brain before he died of a brain hemorrhage.

As always, Kirlia protected him while he struggled to rise, catching and returning the veritable rain of senbon being launched by the rallied, and enraged, Kin.

But she couldn't be everywhere, and Dosu rushed from behind Naruto, clawed arm deflecting the needles Kirlia sent arcing his way, intending to execute Naruto, who had barely risen to his hands and knees.

Kirlia shouted a warning into his mind, and Naruto responded with the strongest mule kick he could muster.

Dosu hadn't expected the boy to notice him, not with bloody ears illustrating his deafness, and an obvious inability to focus his sight well.

He also didn't expect the boy to break the unwritten rule of combat between males, even unintentionally, and his eyes crossed as he fell to the ground, belatedly trying to protect his battered groin.

Naruto would probably feel bad for such an ignoble attack, but not until after his brain stopped trying to eat itself.

After Naruto finally regained his feet, things quickly degenerated into the kind of knock-down, drag-out brawling that advanced ninja pretended wasn't at the core of their profession, and that the recent graduates remembered well from their first year 'spars' in the academy.

Though with a lot less hair pulling than she and Ino had engaged in, Sakura noted thankfully.

The long moments Dosu spent recovering from the blow to his masculine pride, as well as the damage Zaku caused to his own arm with the ill advised second shot, particularly after losing a significant portion of lubricant while he held it at ready, evened the battle enough that the Konoha team were able to hold their own rather well, even gaining an advantage thanks to Kirlia's ability to return Kin's bell-tied senbon.

His wind attacks still sealed by Chingling, Naruto squared off against the lamed Zaku, trading fists and feet as the Sound ninja didn't want to expend more chakra, which he was using to reinforce the cracked bone in his arm, as well as restrict the blood that was already dripping more freely than the lubricant had.

Zaku's reluctance to use, or even move, his damaged arm was a disadvantage that Naruto was quick to capitalize on by popping up a number of clones and surrounding him.

Meanwhile, Kirlia and Eevee tried to keep the speedy Yanma from causing too much trouble, with the psychic type flicking senbon and orbs of explosive purple energy while the canine launched strange circles of compressed sound. (Psyshock and Round)

Telepathically requesting a rundown of Naruto's fight against the Sound kunoichi, Sakura rushed the girl, expecting her as the least injured to be the biggest wildcard at the moment.

As she ran, Sakura flipped through her seals and made a diving roll across the ground, sinking her arm into the earth and rising once more with a rough shield of unfired clay bound to her arm, with which she blocked what senbon she could.

With Kin focused on the rapidly approaching Sakura, Kirlia was able to focus more fully on offense, firing Psyshocks more frequently, though the bug avoided them almost universally, combining it's great speed with the predictive effects of Detect, periodically countering with more rainbow colored Signal Beams and rushing flyby attacks. (Aerial Ace)

With Kirlia and Yanma evenly matched, and much more suited to battle each other at range, Eevee peeled away with a few parting Round's and followed Sakura, staying in the girl's shadow, to benefit from the girl's shield.

Which didn't work out as well as the little pokemon had hoped, as Sakura was forced to suddenly dodge aside, in response to the revelation that Chingling too could use the explosive Psyshock attack.

If Eevee had been a foot taller, it would have exploded in her face, instead of on the ground behind her.

Not that Sakura bothered to check such minor details, and when she heard her pokemon exclaim in fright, the pinkette demonstrated a measure of the anger and strength hidden inside her as she rushed past Kin and attacked the floating pokemon.

The shield made a tolerably decent bludgeon, and though it did shatter on impact, it put Chingling out of the fight immediately.

"You bitch!" Kin shrieked, enraged by the sight of her own needles embedded in her pokemon's face, delivered courtesy of the shield that had caught them.

The Sound kunoichi grabbed Sakura by the shoulder and yanked her back.

Sakura spun with the motion, lifting the arm and using the momentum to break the hold and deliver an elbow to the girl's face in exchange for the fist Kin sunk into her own gut.

Kin staggered back, holding an eye that would soon blacken, and Sakura followed her, stumbling close and following the elbow with a solid punch to the same spot.

Pushing away the unexpectedly sharp and lingering pain with a savage growl, Sakura stepped in and hit Kin again, and again, pummeling the girl into the ground with blows to the torso and face, completely ignoring her attempts to protect herself or the weak counterattacks the disoriented Sound-nin sent back.

How dare this foreigner threaten her Sasuke-kun?

Well, she threatened Naruto and herself too, but Sasuke-kun was already hurt!

Sakura was pulled off the unconscious girl when Eevee grabbed her dress from behind and yanked, sending spikes of pain and nausea through her.

Sakura looked to the source of the pain to see three senbon, the ones Kin had been holding when she punched her, sticking out of her abdomen.

The pinkette swallowed thickly, and had to sublimate her urge to panic at the sight of them moving with the muscles, especially with the festive jingling the bell tied to one let out.

Believing that leaving the weapons in could only lead to worse things, Sakura gingerly removed them, hoping with all the hope in her that none of them had punctured her intestinal tract or anything else vitally important.

She took a minute to smack Kin in the forehead with the chakra sealing tag Naruto had surrendered to her during the Karin argument, and turned to rejoin Naruto.

Even if she was injured more severely than she could feel, two against two were better odds, and that jerk with the freaky arm tubes was injured way worse.

Sakura returned to the pit to find Naruto, Zaku, and the revitalized Dosu going at each other in a barely controlled beat down.

Despite being outnumbered, Naruto had no clones out, which puzzled her until she remembered that Naruto had been worried about some trick the mummified one had to break his clones in such a painful manner that it could interfere with the rest, as well as Naruto himself.

Not noticed by the embattled ninja, or at least not reacted to, Sakura ran through the signs for one of the few techniques she'd learned from Kurenai's scroll, while Eevee hunched down beside her, sparks paying over her fur again as she renewed the effects of her Work Up enhancement.

"Demonic Illusion: Umbral Incarnation," She thought, remembering the mummies' freaky hearing.

From the darkened recesses of the pit, a pitch black copy of the snake they'd fought the day before emerged, lunging out at the nearest Sound-nin with an angry hiss.

Dosu called to his recovered pokemon and launched a blast of sound at the fake beast, earning an instinctual protest from Zaku, who practically worshiped his leader's chosen animal.

The attack was more than sufficient to disrupt the genjutsu, but the distraction cost Zaku as well, and Naruto swung a two-handed chop at the back of his head.

Dosu was still staring at the pit with an odd expression, and Kirlia was mirroring him with a much more worried one.

A sudden explosion of chakra within the pit, and a blast of earth around a flash of red and beige, ended Naruto's attack prematurely, though Zaku was at least floored prior to the local Uzumaki rushing to catch his battered relative before she got hurt.

She plowed into Naruto hard, and they skidded across the turf for a fair distance, but the boy had endured worse, and his biggest worries were if his cousin was okay, and how he'd get his green backside back to a properly awesome orange... again.

"Naruto?" Karin asked looking around a bit in confusion, having lost her glasses in flight.

"Yeah... you okay? What happened?" Naruto asked quickly, thankful that his hearing had somehow returned a while back. "Did somethin' happen with Sasuke?"

"Oh, something happened alright... And she has three seconds to tell me what the hell it was before I tear her apart," Sasuke answered, stalking up out of the heavily damaged hideout looking more menacing than normal.

Yanma swept down, picking the Uchiha as his target, as his partner would wish, but Charmeleon made his presence, and anger at being doused with dirt, known with a roar of flame that sent the aerial bug fleeing in fear.

Audino fled towards her own partner, ignored by all present, even when it paused to pick up the girl's glasses and polish them on her fur.

Ignoring the useless attack Sasuke swept his ruby glare across the field, drinking in the events before him, before locking eyes with Karin once more. Flame-like marks swept across his skin, apparently originating from that strange mark on his neck, and blood dripped from his mouth.

"You bit me you jerk!" Karin shouted at him, while Naruto hurriedly wrapped the hideous wound on her arm. "Then you threw me through a wall! Do you have any idea how much that hurt?"

"You shoved your arm in my mouth, and the way you looked..." An expression of disgust crossed Sasuke's face that had very little to do with the taste off blood. "I should kill you..."

"Oh, don't you worry, we'll do it for ya... right after we kill you, mister hotshot Uchiha," Zaku called, disdain clear in his voice, ignoring Dosu's muttered request for silence.

Sasuke sent a look at the squawking Sound-nin, who was still rising from the ground, then turned to sweep his eyes over the field again, this time looking slightly curious.

"Dobe, stop playing with... that girl... and tell me what happened to Sakura," he demanded.

Naruto stood and moved in front of the freaky girl, which seemed weird, but if they left her in there with him while he was unconscious, he must like her, or at least trust her...

Maybe he overdid it when he pushed her away... through a wall...

Though it was rather satisfying.

Seriously, what kind of screwy girl would make an unconscious guy bite her? That's like vacuum cleaner hickey level pathetic.

The Dobe himself looked a bit beat up, not that it was unusual, and he'd endured worse with a grin. In spars even.

Disregarding the dried blood on the sides of his head anyway, he faintly remembered that that was particularly bad...

"S-Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, coming over from where she'd been crouched for her illusion, Eevee at her heels.

She was overjoyed that he was awake now, enough so that she was almost able to ignore both his disconcerting appearance and Karin's apparent indiscretion.

She would deal with those later.

She'd been able to control herself, why couldn't that redheaded floozie?

...Okay, so she'd taken a peek under his shirt, but that was purely for medical treatment of his injuries...

Completely professional.

He looked at her, a spark of anger rising in him much more easily than he would have expected, and the black flames flared to red in response.

The girl was a mess, covered in dirt, blood and bruises, her hair a mess, and her clothes were dyed two shades of red... a state it didn't take the Uchiha long to understand.

"Sakura, who did this to you?" Sasuke asked, the marks throbbing in time to his heartbeat.

"We did it!" Zaku shouted angrily. "You wanna make somethin' of it?" Few things could rile the boy more than being ignored, and few could ignore as thoroughly as Sasuke Uchiha.

"Zaku, shut your mouth!" Dosu ordered sharply. "Something isn't right here..."

There was a sense to the Uchiha's chakra that hadn't been there during the written exam, and like the marks flowing across his pale skin, it was a little too familiar to Dosu's comfort.

"Is that true?" Sasuke asked dangerously, not looking away from his pink-haired teammate.

"Well... kinda?" Sakura replied, somewhat embarrassed. 'But most of it was from her," She said, gesturing back to the unconscious girl and her needled pokemon.

"You... won?" Sasuke asked, blinking in surprise, and causing the marks receding a bit as they were starved of their fueling anger.

"Well, I am a proud Konoha kunoichi," Sakura replied crossing her arms over her diminutive bust and giving a prim sniff... and then grimacing as the motion twitched one of the damaged muscles in her abdomen.

'Getting there at any rate," Sasuke agreed, proud of the girl's progress so far, though he'd never admit it. "What about the Dobe? I only see one beat, did he try talking them down again?"

"It's called diplomacy, jerk!" Naruto fired back, twice as loud as would be needed by the distance between them. "Jiji says a good Kage can save more lives by talking than fighting, Dattebayo!"

Of course, that conversation was followed by a warning not to rely on it too much, and that it helped most at diffusing the larger battles than small ones, since neither side usually wanted a full on war...

Naruto wasn't gonna tell that to Sasuke though, because it would ruin his point and might damage his own theory of : 'Talk nice, save lives, make new friend!'

Of course, that Kin girl gave that theory a good sized bruise anyway.

"Didn't work, did it?" Sasuke asked smugly.

"Not even a little," Sakura agreed. "But he did make a new friend anyway..."

"Yeah, and you better apologize to her too!" Naruto added.

"Hngh," Sasuke grunted dismissively, not wanting to even look at the girl until he got his anger back under control.

"Now, what are we going to do with you?" He asked rhetorically, turning to look at Zaku with a superior smirk.

If the Dobe and Sakura could fight them off, an Uchiha would crush them utterly.

"You're gonna bleed on us you vampire lookin' fucker!" Zaku retaliated, following that declaration as he did all others by bringing his uninjured arm to bear and launching yet another attack... all very much against Dosu's orders.

None of the genin even saw Sasuke move, though they did see Charmeleon blow out a fiery sigh before dropping back into the dirty pit to avoid the attack.

Of course, Zaku missed it due to his face being smashed into the dirt as Sasuke twisted his arms back painfully, while painting a sandal shaped bruise on his right kidney.

"Oh sure, Teme does it the easy way!" Naruto griped, trying to hide how impressed he was at his teammate's speed, even if it did start those creepy marks pulsing again.

"Now... let's try a more realistic answer, shall we?" Sasuke said, yanking roughly on Zaku's arms. "What are we going to do with you?"

Yanma darted at Sasuke with a roar, which was matched and exceeded by the scream of pain Zaku released as Sasuke turned a glare on the pokemon and twisted the already damaged arm far enough to crack the bone even more.

The bug backwinged immediately, torn between trying to rescue it's partner, and complying with the Uchiha's obvious demand.

"Char!" Sasuke called loudly. "If that pokemon moves again, kill it."

Charmeleon climbed back out of the pit, then plopped himself down on the ground, crossing his arms and spitting a line of flame onto the ground between them.

"Then just beat it until it wishes it's dead, and I'll kill this worthless ninja," Sasuke growled, irritated by the obvious act of defiance.

Charmeleon thought about it, more to bother Sasuke than because he cared about the human enemy's potential death, but moved towards the bug anyway.

"I would ask that you release him, then let me gather my team and leave. In exchange I will give you our Earth scroll," Dosu offered, holding the item out in his metal claw.

'And what's to keep me from ripping this fool's arms off and beating you with them until I can just take it from you?" Sasuke sneered, as far as he could tell, the Sound genin was just offering what was already theirs by right.

"If you can do all that faster than I can destroy it, feel free," Dosu conceded, flicking a glance at Sakura. "But if you can't, then you'll be stuck looking for a new one, while protecting a kunoichi with a gut wound... am I right?"

"Tch," Sasuke muttered, looking to Sakura himself, who fidgeted under his gaze.

"With the scroll, we can get out of the forest fast," Sakura agreed, "but I feel fine, and Karin's a medic in training, so..."

She wasn't sure what to suggest, since she suspected that if the team was allowed to leave, they would find some way to make it to the finals, even as injured as they were, where they would try to kill Sasuke again...

But she really didn't like how eager he seemed to be about killing them, and she was willing to bet it had something to do with those marks.

The foreign chakra flowing through Sasuke's coils was specifically keyed to push the boy towards emotional extremes, which given Sasuke's natural emotional instability made for a very volatile ninja.

And it was almost inevitable that he would eventually become frustrated enough to accept the offer of forbidden training, especially with how invincible he felt right now.

An endorphin high is a powerful thing.

"Medic in training, eh? I hope she's a good one, gut wounds can be... nasty," Dosu taunted, though to be fair, he was telling the truth.

"He's right," Karin said, quickly lowering her gaze in the face of the glare Sasuke sent her. "You should see a fully trained medic, if at all possible. The potential complications are... really unpleasant."

Karin had yet to see it in person, but Orochimaru-sama had lived through a war and was very good at creating illusory clones for demonstration purposes.

Sasuke cursed silently, he really wanted to hear the loud fool's arms snap... but a bit of instant gratification could cost him the more important prize of a promotion, which would be unacceptable.

With an angry sigh, he jerked limbs, throwing them to the ground where they fell limp, almost bloodless from the pressure Sasuke had kept them under, nearly enough to dislocate both shoulders completely.

Sasuke lifted his foot off the whimpering boy, almost in tears from the pins and needles filling his precious arms, but the Uchiha immediately slammed a kick into his side, sending the unlucky Zaku skidding over to the tree beside Kin, where Yanma immediately flew to check him.

Sasuke sent Charmeleon a questioning look, which the pokemon returned with a challenging one, and a puff of smoke.

Sasuke never gave the bug permission to move, but Charmeleon wasn't about to attack it for such a senseless reason, even if he didn't get to join in the fight this time.

Sasuke blew away his concern with a snort.

Dosu said not a word about the rough treatment, as the pulsing marks on the Uchiha's face said enough about the bloodlust he was fighting.

And the truth about his encounter with Orochimaru.

The mummy had every intention of ascending the ranks within Sound, confident that the effort Orochimaru put into his arm meant such an aspiration would be welcomed, and so he had learned all he could about the 'Enhancement seals'.

What little he was able to dig up in the base where he was trained suggested that the vast majority of recipients had died painfully, and still more had been driven insane, a fate which Dosu believed this Uchiha was fighting through sheer force of will.

"By your word, and on your ancestor's honor," Dosu said solemnly, watching Sasuke carefully.

"You may take your worthless teammates and go free," Sasuke promised, after a momentary scowl. "Unless we meet in the next phase, or you attack us again."

The Uchiha hated having to make such a vow, but he wouldn't dishonor his dead relatives by breaking his word, a fact Dosu counted on.

Dosu nodded his acceptance of the terms and tossed the scroll to Sasuke, before stalking over to his fallen team.

"Thank you for your generosity," Dosu said, noting that despite the harsh delivery, Zaku was still largely intact and well on his way to regaining his senses, or what little he had possessed of them an hour before.

Kin, on the other hand, could use some medical attention... not that any of the Sound trio had any talent, beyond the basics, and it wouldn't be wise to ask for help, at least from these three.

Using his melody arm, Dosu blew a coded burst of whistles to Yanma, who chirped agreement and zipped off at top speed and accelerating.

They would need a place to recover, and it would be the pinnacle of foolishness to do so anywhere nearby.

He peeled the seal off Kin and slung her over his metal shoulder, palmed Chingling with that same hand, and dragged the groggy Zaku to his feet and shoved him forward with his free one, and then shambled into the underbrush, his mind moving a mile a minute.

Why would Orochimaru-sama have sent them on this mission if he'd already sought out the Uchiha himself?

Why would he bestow one of the coveted seals upon a boy he claimed to want dead?

And most distressingly: Had they been sent as little more than sacrificial lambs? Willing targets for the Uchiha to test his new limits upon?

Unlike Kin and Zaku, Dosu knew that their leader, like all legendary ninja, had the capacity for truly startling levels of ruthlessness.

But would he so callously send his own ninja to die facing a monster of his own creation?

The mummified ninja had a sinking feeling that he'd just been handed the answer to that particular question.


Sasuke had ordered Sakura and Karin back into the shelter, where the medic and her pokemon would do what they could to treat Sakura's injuries, confident that they could at least minimize any potential complications long enough to allow Sasuke the time he needed.

He, Naruto, Charmeleon, and Kirlia remained at the entrance, catching up on the events since his 'nap' began, while the psychic type monitored the fleeing Sound squad, though she also kept a subtle watch on Sasuke himself.

All of Team Seven knew they could reach the tower in seconds, but Sasuke needed time to collect himself before facing whatever, and whoever, might be waiting there.

The marks pulsed and retracted periodically as the Dobe talked, and Sasuke listened with half an ear, perusing the boy's rambling for the important details while he focused the majority of his efforts on pushing down the almost alien impulses within him.

The girls, even Sakura, seemed to spike the anger with disturbing ease.

Karin he could understand, they certainly hadn't gotten off on the right foot afterall, and she technically was an enemy...

He did regret biting the arm she had stuck in his mouth though, if only for the disturbing images it inspired with the damn seal's influence.

He may be many things, but savage enough to rip someone's throat out with his teeth? Not a chance.

He'd use a kunai.

But why did Sakura make him mad?

He couldn't figure out why his messed up perceptions were telling him that she was an enemy, especially since she'd been improving in leaps and bounds away from the annoyingly loud and inept stalker she'd been in the academy.

Sure there had been a few relapses here and there, but even those were mostly training related...

Damn Kakashi.

No, the only safe human to be around right now was the Dobe.

Sure, the dead last loser was improving as well, maybe even faster than Sakura, but he could still be relied on to be himself all the time, to ramble on incessantly without asking if he was really okay every couple sentences.

And if Sasuke lost control and lashed out, Naruto would be best able to take it, get back up and return the favor right back, probably without much hesitation.

The two boys had a fairly unique definition of what a spar actually entailed.

Sasuke knew that the seal was messing with his head somehow, just like whatever poison had been on those kunai had messed with Naruto's, so he wanted to be well aware of his limits before coming into contact with people he might not be able to control himself around, like Ino or that Hyuuga bastard.

Thank Arceus that his father had insisted he learn to control his emotions, even if he'd never really been as good at it as...

Sasuke forced that thought away from him quickly, but not before the simple sentience within the curse mark latched onto the nearly bottomless depths of his hatred for Itachi.

The infinitesimally small portion of Orochimaru's own soul that made the core of the seal was pleased to see how thoroughly this hatred had permeated the boy's life, and how perfectly such a thing would suit it's purposes.

Paradoxically, the seal became easier to push back after that, as the mark ended it's resistance with confidence that the young Uchiha would inevitably accept the power it offered, and knowing how to provoke the boy into doing so if needed.

Sasuke sighed in relief as the seal's evidence faded away, crawling across his skin and back into the strangely appropriate tomoe tattoo on his neck.

He returned his attention fully to the outer world, becoming more aware of Naruto's monologue about a number of different things he'd learned in the past month from Iruka, as well as his excitement about the new letter he'd received from Haku the week before.

The one sided conversation was soothing in a way, comfortable and familiar, a reminder of the many mornings Team Seven had spent in that training field each doing their own thing, with Naruto's voice a constant backdrop as he discussed his lessons with his pokemon in an effort to make certain the knowledge was firmly rooted.

Of course, Sasuke would never admit to listening in, but he did, and even the Uchiha genius learned a fair amount, given Iruka's more relaxed approach to the tutoring and the interesting examples the teacher had from his own experiences or secondhand from the more active ninja he'd befriended over the years.

He had a lot of those, but then Iruka was one of those few ninja whom it was almost impossible to dislike.

"Feelin' better?" Naruto asked, only the second question he'd asked since the Sound team and the girls had been sent away.

Sasuke had ignored the first, a simple 'Huh?" when he'd ordered Naruto to remain with him on lookout.

"Hn... yes," Sasuke answered reluctantly, deciding that his teammate deserved at least a modicum of respect, if only because it was obvious that he'd been worried.

"We'll all be better still when we're out of this place, yes?" Kirlia prompted, patting specks of dirt off her almost pristine white dress pointedly.

"True enough," Sasuke agreed, smirking at the feminine display, particularly from a pokemon of all things.

It was hard to believe that his team had come together so well to protect him in his vulnerable state, and that somehow he probably owed his life to that Karin girl too...

And that too was an idea almost too impossible for truth, that somehow the Dobe had found a relative at the first significant gathering of ninja he attended.

It was almost too much of a coincidence to accept, but there were plenty of small clues in the way she acted around Naruto to support Kirlia's assertion that she at least believed it to be true.

It was enough to make him wonder if...

But that was unlikely.

Though he wasn't the first Uchiha to have girls flocking to him, and there had been no shortage of opportunistic womanizers in the clan though the years...

Sasuke dismissed the possibility as irrelevant.

Even if there were other people with Uchiha blood somewhere in the wide world, they weren't really 'Uchiha'.

They hadn't been raised with the clan values of strength and justice.

They couldn't know the clan taijutsu, or the pride of their first Grand Fireball.

They couldn't be true Uchiha, not the way he and the traitor were.

There were only two Uchiha left in the world, and when they met again, one would die, and the other...

Did Itachi have plans to recreate the clan if Sasuke died? Had the confident former Anbu already started?

Now there was a scary thought...

"Foolish little brother, you forgot to bring a present for your niece..." Itachi would say in that empty tone, gesturing to a child barely out of diapers.

"W-what? Nevermind that, I'm here to kill you!" Sasuke would roar back, trying to maintain his anger in the face of utter surprise... and to ignore the kid, innocently sucking her thumb while holding onto Itachi's pant leg and peeking out from behind him.

"That's a horrible thing to say to a girl's father on her birthday, I'm sure our mother raised you better," Itachi would say, mild disapproval in his voice.

And then Sasuke would get poked in the head... again...

Seriously, all that forehead poking had to do something bad, if the urge he had every so often to poke Sakura in her huge one was any indication.

And Naruto wanted to kiss it, according to some of his louder proclamations... how weird could a guy get?

But more disturbing than the forehead thing was the idea of Itachi with kids.

What the heck would he do if such a scenario were to occur?

Sasuke did find it reassuring that 'Kill it with fire' wasn't a real option in his mind, murdering a child for it's father's sins wasn't justice, not by a long shot.

And despite his desire for revenge, he wouldn't kill an innocent child to get it.

The curse mark seemed to disagree with his decision, but Sasuke just considered that a confirmation that he made the right choice.

The mark pulsed angrily at this dismissal, and Sasuke hastily pulled his thoughts away from the hopefully unnecessary contemplation to find Naruto staring at him expectantly.

"What?" Sasuke asked crisply, ignoring the feeling that he'd somehow missed something in his distracted mental meandering.

"I said we should get the girls and get outta here," Naruto repeated. "Karin says she's done what she can, but she'll feel better if Sakura-chan can get checked out by a real medic soon, an' I gotta say, you look like you could use a once over yourself."

Sasuke put his hand over the mark, privately agreeing with the Dobe that someone should check it out, but...

"I'm not sure it's a good idea to show this around..." he said instead. "It might cause a panic if people start talking about Orochimaru being around, especially with the exams going on."

"Implied hole in security," Naruto mused, remembering what Iruka had said when he'd asked why Mizuki's punishment had been kept private. "I can see what you mean, but what should we do then?"

"There's bound to be proctors and security at the tower, to keep contestants from just assassinating the other genin," Sasuke reasoned. "We should be able to get one of them to help out and get a message to either Kakashi or the Hokage. They'll definitely know what to do."

"And if nothing else, we do have other ways to visit the Hokage..." Kirlia added wryly.

"I say we take the pretty way, if we can't get them to come to us," Naruto agreed, smiling fondly at his partner and mussing the hair between her bow-like horns, eliciting one of her few verbal responses.

"Liaaaaaa," she cooed, eyes drifting closed as she reveled in the contact.

She missed the constant closeness the carrier had allowed her smaller form.

Sasuke felt his lips twitch towards a small smile, though he erased it with a more natural scowl.

His frayed emotions must be much more off balance than he thought, if something that cheesy could get to him.

"Let's just get to the tower," he declared. "If we keep standing here like training dummies, someone's going to eventually take another swing at us."

He stalked into the cavern and the three watched him go with some concern.

"He'll be alright... Jiji will definitely know what to do," Naruto said hopefully, not as blind to his friend's inner turmoil as he'd let Sasuke believe.

"We'll make sure he is, it's what teammates do, right?" Kirlia agreed, though she was a bit worried about the weak second presence she'd felt at times, not dissimilar to how she could sense Kyuubi within Naruto.

"Chaa," the fire type hissed... "He strong, he fight, we fight. Legged snake die next time... Will be great battle... Worthy prey."

Naruto sent a wary look at the dangerous Charmeleon, who even knowing how strong Orochimaru was, still seemed eager for a rematch.

Then the pokemon turned on him, eyes snapping and tail-flame leaping.

"I not miss next battle protecting pack from friendly healer!" Charmeleon declared forcefully.

"Okay, Okay, I get it!" Naruto said, stepping back and waving his hands defensively.

His desires made clear, Charmeleon loped after his partner, trailed by the sheepish looking Naruto and his amused Kirlia.

"Wasn't even my idea..." the boy muttered.

Kirlia patted him comfortingly, and Char just smirked.

It had been Pink-hair's idea, but Fox-boy was easier to talk to, and more likely to convince Kirlia into accepting a battle to make up for leaving him out of the fight until it was all but over.

And Charmeleon certainly wouldn't mind pitting himself against Kirlia's new strength, if only to learn what she could really do.

Charmeleon's tail lashed in anticipatory excitement as the team and guests teleported to the distant tower rooftop.


They arrived to a panoramic view of a swaying ocean of green as they looked out across the canopy of the forest of giant trees.

The group hopped down the conveniently tapered tower with ease, even the pokemon managing on their own, despite the panic they caused Naruto and Sakura when Kirlia and Eevee leapt off unassisted.

At the bottom, Kirlia strengthened the blue coat of Confusion she used to soften her falls just long enough to let Naruto fall past, before dropping into his arms playfully.

It took a minute or two to refocus the two, and for Naruto to put his foot down firmly enough to drag Karin with them, but they entered the tower without incident, finding themselves in one of several large entry halls.

They found themselves in a sparsely furnished foyer, the only true decoration within being a large and time-worn tapestry hung over the padlocked exit door.

"What do you think that's all about?" Naruto asked after Sakura read through the odd poem aloud, incomplete though it was.

"It sounds like a riddle..." Karin mused hesitantly, not really feeling like she should be there.

"That's probably right," Sakura agreed, feeling a bit more accepting towards Karin after the two girls had talked about what Karin had done, and just as importantly not done, to bring Sasuke around.

The girl was practically a born medic with that strange bloodline sharing ability, and it explained a lot about how quick Naruto was to recover from even major injuries, assuming they shared the bloodline effect.

"If we put 'Heaven' in that blank, and 'Earth' in the next one, the poem makes a bit more sense," Sakura reasoned, "but that still leaves the last blank empty..."

Sasuke nodded his agreement with the theory. "Then the last word is probably inside the scrolls, the proctor told us to not open them until we reached the tower, and we're here now, right?"

Naruto retrieved the scrolls from his almost depressingly light pack, having had gotten used to having Ralts in it after five surprisingly swift flowing months.

Kirlia patted him on the leg and gazed up at her partner comfortingly, dispelling the minor mood with ease.

"Okay, one Heaven scroll for the angel," Naruto said, offering the item and a cheesy grin to Sakura, who took the scroll and bopped the blond on the head with it, mild punishment for the useless flirt.

Naruto didn't mind, the mere tap was just further evidence of the progress he was making towards his bubblegum beauty.

A year ago she'd have pounded him into the dirt for the same comment.

"Be serious you knucklehead," Sakura replied "We'll open them together... on three, okay?"

"You got it, Sakura-chan!" Naruto agreed happily.

"One... Two... Three!" the pair counted together, ripping their scrolls open and revealing identical fuinjutsu seals on each.

The ring of flowing script bulged, forcing the central kanji for 'Person' into greater prominence as the scrolls began belching smoke at an astonishing rate.

"It's a summoning technique!" Karin realized. "Drop the scrolls!"

The two complied instantly, tossing the items away and darting back to fall into a defensive formation in reaction to Karin's own actions.

She'd met a few of Orochimaru-sama's summons... they weren't very nice.

Sasuke brought one hand up to his mouth, flashing through the seals for his Phoenix Fire jutsu at half speed, carefully regulating the surge of chakra within him to keep the curse mark dormant.

Meanwhile, Sakura drew a trio of shuriken in each hand and Naruto took the point position.

Karin just held a kunai tight enough to strangle and wished for the hundredth rims since entering this forest that she had more offensive techniques at her disposal.

The seals exploded into a column of smoke, and Team Seven let loose as soon as they saw the silhouette of their final trial.

Sakura led the way with her shuriken, enhancing the weapons with a simple illusion of duplication, as Sasuke followed her with a number of fist-sized fireballs.

Charmeleon joined in with a ball of blue flames as large as himself, enhanced by Eevee's Helping Hand and his own desire to make up for lost opportunities.

Naruto tried to charge after the attacks, but Kirlia caught his jacket, pointedly looking back over her shoulder.

The summoned... whatever it was... had little enough time to react, and the only attacks which missed were those aimed to catch it mid-dodge.

As a result, a number of shuriken slapped into the humanoid, though only two were actual steel, quickly followed by four of the slightly guided fireballs.

All of which was quickly rendered a moot point when the sticky blue flames of Charmeleon's Dragon Rage wrapped the figure in a web of angry fire.

"R-remind me not to sneak up on you guys..." Karin said, shocked at the almost instantaneous devastation the team had doled out.

"...Same here," a mildly disturbed voice added from behind her.

Karin yelped an spun, stabbing out with the kunai blindly, though her target foiled the attack easily.

"Don't forget the rules now," Iruka advised warmly. "Fighting is prohibited within the tower, unless the proctor orders otherwise."

"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto exclaimed happily. "What're you doing here?"

"Trying not to get turned into charcoal by my last batch of graduates I think," the teacher scolded, though not very harshly, he was too glad to see them to be mad. "But I guess you do deserve credit for your quick reaction times..."

"Sorry about that," Naruto chuckled, scratching his head in embarrassment.

Sakura stammered an apology herself, blushing brightly, though it wasn't very visible due to her deep bow, and even Sasuke leaned forward in a nod that was more than he'd have done for most people.

Kirlia bowed as well, giving a telepathic greeting, while Eevee tucked her tail between her legs and whined piteously.

Charmeleon tapped his foot and glared at nothing with an expression that clearly showed his displeasure at losing out on yet another fight.

"Don't worry about it," Iruka replied, not really enjoying the supplications, he'd never really enjoyed all that stuff, preferring lessons learned to an excess of 'sorry's.

"It's actually kind of expected, from the real contenders anyway. It's why we don't just walk through the door: We want to see how you react to a sudden possible threat," He explained.

"Well, we did pretty awesome there," Naruto remarked, hoping for praise from the teacher.

"Yes you did, right up until you roasted one of your allies," Iruka replied sternly.

Team Seven, even Charmeleon flinched at the serious tone.

"It's always good to beat your enemies quickly, but you should always be certain that your opponent actually is who you think it is first," Iruka lectured. "That means that as unofficial sensor for the team, you should have identified me as a friendly to the whole team, not just Naruto," he said to Kirlia, who he easily determined to be Ralts' new form.

"Yes, Iruka-sensei," she replied, bowing more deeply in apology.

"Just keep the lesson in mind, the last thing anyone wants is to accidentally kill a comrade," Iruka allowed. "But, you're not the first group to make that mistake... not even this exam, and we're trained to expect violent responses after candidates leave a place like the Forest of Death."

The other assistant proctor had actually been dismissed after his encounter with one of the Suna teams, having been captured and almost killed by a genin who didn't seem to care that he wasn't an enemy.

Thankfully, the genin's teammates managed to calm the situation, but they got the world's shortest welcome speech before the chunin opened the door and fled.

"You mean we're not the first to arrive?" Sakura asked, a day and a half seemed like really good time for a test like this.

"I'm afraid not, but third place isn't bad, since all that matters in this round is actually finishing," Iruka answered. "The only real advantages you have for arriving early is time to rest in safety and quick medical treatment if needed."

"Which is a pretty big advantage is there's a preliminary round this time," Karin pointed out helpfully.

"Preliminary round?" Sasuke repeated suspiciously. Kakashi hadn't said anything about a preliminary anything...

"Yeah, the finals are a really big deal, so the host villages try to keep things pretty streamlined for the visiting dignitaries," Karin explained. "My teammates... before they died mean, told me that there might be an early elimination round this time, since teams are required to pass or fail as a whole."

"Is that true Iruka-sensei?" Naruto asked, squeezing his cousin's shoulder reassuringly.

It was apparent that her teammates' deaths bothered her.

"Unfortunately, yes," Iruka confirmed. "Anko didn't think it was likely, and she's the expert on this training ground, but with nine genin already confirmed as passing, we'll most likely require a set of preliminary eliminations if more than one or two more teams come in as well."

"And just what would this preliminary elimination entail?" Sasuke asked.

"Standard one-on-one combat between ninja, pokemon allies included of course. Beyond that, generally no rules are observed aside from the obvious: If the proctor says a match is over, it's over."

The team nodded their understanding, satisfied that even if they had to take part in such a thing that they would be arguably better off than anyone who arrived after them, while Iruka just hoped he hadn't broken a rule he didn't know about...

Not that the Grass girl couldn't tell them as much herself more likely than not...

Speaking of which...

"Now that I've answered your questions, I have one for you: Why exactly do you have this kunoichi with you? Taking prisoners isn't permitted during the exams you know." Iruka inquired.

"Oh yeah, lemme introduce ya," Naruto said, suddenly remembering the manners he'd had hammered into his head.

However, he looked between the two a bit trying to remember whether rank or gender got priority in this situation, before he just dismissed the overly complicated rules of etiquette entirely.

"Iruka-sensei, this is Karin, she's my cousin! Karin, this is Iruka-sensei, he's like, the best teacher ever!" He made the declarations happily and hurriedly, hoping his excitement would forestall a reminder lesson on proper introductions.

"A pleasure to meet you," Karin said politely, bowing to the man whom Naruto obviously respected a great deal.

"Likewise, Karin... Uzumaki?" He replied, bowing in kind, though his voice held more than a little suspicion.

"Fuuma-Uzumaki," Karin corrected. "I grew up in the Land of Rice Paddies, among the Fuuma clan, which my mother is part of. My father was a member of the Uzumaki clan."

"This is the coolest thing ever, right Iruka-sensei? Well, coolest since I met Ralts-chan, I mean..." Naruto remarked, correcting himself quickly when Kirlia poked him pointedly.

"I'm very happy for you Naruto," Iruka said, sounding almost the exact opposite. "But I must admit that I feel a bit skeptical about this whole situation."

"I understand completely," Karin replied, interrupting Naruto's predictable protest. "It is a bit of an odd coincidence, especially once this is our first exams."

"My own teacher would beat me purple in a spar if I fell for an obvious trick like 'long lost family'... so I expect you to be suspicious," Karin explained.

"Well, I'm not going to beat anyone who doesn't deserve it," claimed Iruka, "but I'm glad you understand my reluctance."

Left unspoken was the fact that he might think she did deserve a dose of pain if he found she lied to Naruto about something so important.

"She believes her claim," a familiar voice said directly into Iruka's mind.

"Ralts-chan?" Iruka thought in surprise. "Is she really telling the truth?"

"Kirlia now, and she is telling the truth as she sees it. I'm not sure if she really is blood kin, but does it matter? Naruto and I aren't even the same species and we are as close as kin," She replied, ending the private message with a mental shrug.

Iruka crossed his arms thoughtfully, rather than simplify matters, Kirlia had made his task for difficult, because now he couldn't just toss her out of the tower and be done with it... Not without hurting both genin needlessly.

"You know, you're not even supposed to be allowed in here without your team, right?" He commented at last, more to end the uncomfortable silence than anything else.

"Blame the Dobe for that one," Sasuke replied.

Karin actually elbowed the Uchiha in the side, then glared into his surprised expression.

Iruka had to swallow a laugh.

Apparently they'd found another girl who wasn't immediately smitten with the last Uchiha, and just like Hinata, Naruto was the key.

"Ah, don't mind the Teme, he has to say that cause he'd swallow his tongue tryin' to admit that we're friends," Naruto remarked, waving the habitual insult aside.

"Oh yeah? And what's your excuse for calling Sasuke-kun something like 'Teme' then?" Sakura countered.

"Cause he's a teme?" Naruto replied simply. "He's never tried to deny it either. Bet the smug bastard's proud even!"

"He is not!" Sakura argued, completely missing the Uchiha's thoughtful shrug, and Char's hissing laughter at the gesture.

Why should he care if people thought he was a jerk? It certainly didn't seem to make him less popular with his unwanted admirers, or most other people.

Which was a shame really, he'd hoped it would discourage the stupid stalkers when he publicly roasted the "I will heal you with my love" letters he'd received in the academy.

Instead they started looking for writing materials that wouldn't burn.

Girls were just crazy.

Carved stone tablet crazy.

Points for determination though...

"Alright, enough!" Iruka shouted, gaining instant silence. "I've got more important things to do today than wonder how you three haven't killed each other yet."

"I'm going to let you all in now. Check in with the medics on the second floor, the dining hall is on the third, and team rooms are on the floors above, pick one for yourselves."

"As for you," he said, pointing at Karin. "You come with me and we'll figure out what to do. Anko's the head proctor for phase two, so it's up to her to decide whether you can stay in here or not."

"Why would she let me do that?" Karin asked.

"Well... how to put it nicely... Anko and rules mix like water and oil..." Iruka explained. "So in general, they each tend to try and forget that the other exists."

That certainly didn't match with the rumors she'd heard about Orochimaru-sama's 'Good little Leaf ninja' former apprentice.

She'd just figured that the display at the start of the round had been some sort of intimidation ploy, but if that was how the woman really is... Why was she not still siding with Orochimaru-sama?

Iruka unlocked the door, belatedly remembering his actual job of explaining the tapestry's riddle, admitting that the three shinobi were already working through it's advise on their own.

Sakura asked Iruka to deliver a message to Kakashi that they needed to talk to him about something 'the Hokage would want to hear', Iruka really hoped it didn't have anything to do with Anko's earlier and enraged arrival.

Once inside, they split up, with Team Seven making their way to the medical ward, while Iruka escorted Karin and her Audino directly to the top floor.

Sakura got a quick checkup, with thankfully little longterm worry.

There had been a few internal punctures from the senbon, but between their small size and Karin's early treatment, the professionals had little to do but reinforce the healing and apply a few precautionary measures for safety's sake.

They also tried to pull Sasuke and Naruto aside for analysis, despite the boy's claims of good health.

Naruto eventually managed to chase them off with the claim that he'd wiped with a bad leaf and it was embarrassing and painful to sit.

Nevermind that everyone present heard his loud whisper quite clearly, and that he thought Sasuke seemed to have made the same mistake, but the medics did give the two boys a cream to apply and let them leave without further protest.

They also invited the team to come back if they needed, but warned them that they would have to do so before the end of the fourth day.

The last day of the test, contestants would only be permitted treatment in exchange for their forfeiture, at least until after the probable preliminaries.

Anko called it 'incentive to hurry the hell up', while the medics called it unnecessarily cruel, especially since the contestants weren't warned ahead of time.

Anko won that argument by virtue of temper, snakes and a plethora of sharp objects.

Or just the fact that she was the proctor and so set the rules herself, a fact which one of her 'minions' had to remind her of.

She then gave the medics a list of tedious and unnecessary tasks with which to occupy their downtime.

The medics were a bit desperate for patients as a result, but not enough to willingly stare at the blond prankster's ass.

Or the Uchiha's for that matter.

Their medical ordeal ended, the three grabbed some quick snacks from the empty dining hall and retired to claim their room.


When Karin, Audino, and Iruka reached the large, circular room that took up the tower's top floor, they were greeted by angry cursing and the obvious sounds of someone attacking a wooden target.

Inside, Anko was systematically demolishing a training dummy in the exact image of her formerly adored sensei.

Sensing her company, Anko flashed through a quick chain of attacks that left both arms and one leg broken clean off the wooden construct, and the rest of it crumpled at the base of the wall where it lay leering at her with it's painted face.

Any ninja could do similar damage to what he saw with enough chakra reinforcing their body, but seeing the sheen of sweat, and the blood seeping from her abused knuckles, Iruka decided it was simple strength and rage that fueled the Tokubetsu.

Anko turned toward the interlopers, her kicking leg meeting the ground with a sharp click as she drew a kunai.

"This better be good, maggot," she said threateningly, "or I just found myself a new sparring partner."

"It's confirmed then?" Iruka asked rhetorically.

Only one thing could drive Anko Mitarashi into a destructive rampage, and it always boded ill for Konoha when her mercurial moods shifted from playful to angry.

"Yes it's confirmed!" Anko shouted in frustration, spinning to hurl the knife into the staring skull of her former target, where it exploded in a thankfully restrained blast.

'He's here..." she said softly. "He's here and he's already marked his next victim..."

She reached for the mark on her own neck, painful evidence of the first, last, and only kiss her childhood crush had ever given her.

How she hated the idiotic little girl she had been.

"Have you told the Hokage yet?" Iruka asked, drawing her back from the downward spiral her thoughts had begun.

"Yeah, he told me to get some of the anger out before it made me do something stupid..." she replied with a self depreciating chuckle. "As if attacking one of the Sannin wasn't stupid enough for one day..."

"Well, at least he didn't hurt you badly..." Iruka replied optimistically.

"He didn't need to..." Anko muttered more to herself. He'd barely even bothered fighting her at all in fact, probably didn't think she was worth the effort.

"Well then, you'll just have to make sure he lives to regret it, right?" Iruka suggested, scooping up the trench coat Anko had removed prior to her extreme training session and holding it out for her to shrug into.

"Might as well contact the Hokage now, and you don't want to give the old man a heart attack or anything," he said sheepishly when she just stared at him.

Anko sighed in exasperation and took the coat away from him roughly, spinning it around and on in a smooth motion.

"You're such a damn... gentleman," she said, making the comment sound less than flattering. "It's no surprise you're still single, hell sometimes I wonder how a guy like you ever made it as a ninja."

'What's that supposed to mean?" Iruka shot back, indignant and a bit flustered.

"It means that the ladies like bad boys, except for the ones that like bad girls instead," Anko replied with a saucy wink. "You're practically a kitten compared to guys like Kakashi."

"Bad example, since I've never seen him with a woman outside of missions, and he's obsessed with those books of his," Iruka remarked.

He didn't know, or want to know, about Kakashi's dating life, but it was telling that he seemed as disinterested in his plethora of admirers as Sasuke was.

And only one of them had the excuse of being a prepubescent boy.

"Besides, at least my niceness is all real, unlike some people's personalities, little miss leotard," Iruka pointed out, eying the sweat-stained garment Anko wore beneath her mysterious mesh armor.

He referred of course to the skintone cloth covering the ostentatious kunoichi from groin to breasts, a secret that he only knew about because of comments Kurenai had made.

Apparently Anko liked being able to manipulate men with her over-the-top attitude and appearance, rarely offering anything but the tease of forbidden fruit.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Anko argued, yanking the trenchcoat closed as she crossed her arms and glared at the man.

Seeing Iruka's tolerant smirk, she turned away with a dismissive wave. "I still say nice guy's finish last," she taunted.

"Indeed we do," Iruka admitted with a nod. "But a true gentleman always ensures that a lady's needs are met before his own... All her needs..."

Anko almost gaped at the unexpected innuendo, but when she looked back, the teacher had an innocent smile plastered on his face.

Nice guys could play word games too.

Anko smirked and strolled up to him, putting one hand on his chest and lifting herself up to his face, hoping for the expected glance down towards her prominently displayed body, or for him to look away nervously.

"Looks like Sensei still has a bit of fire in him, hmm?" Anko purred seductively from mere inches away.

Iruka looked her in the eyes unwaveringly, a considerable display of discipline for any male.

"If you two are going to make out... or stuff... I'll just wait outside..." Karin commented, backing towards the door cautiously, though she froze when Anko's cold look landed on her.

"And who the hell is this?" Anko asked, pushing off Iruka, and strutting around him to look at the girl.

"Karin Fuuma-Uzumaki," Iruka answered still calm and collected. "Apparently she'd a relative of Naruto's from outside the Land of Fire."

"The blond brat? Well if that ain't somethin'..." Anko mused. "You think she's on the up and up?"

"I believe that she believes it, as does Naruto," Iruka explained. "Beyond that, I figured I'd let you and the Hokage make the call on what to do about it."

"Why us? I'd figure the brat was your problem," Anko asked, idly adjusting a dimmed light fixture on the wall, and signaling the Hokage though the pulse communication seal hidden behind it.

A few seconds later, a section of wall ignited in a fuinjutsu display that would have taken a sharingan to memorize in the time it was visible before being replaced with Sarutobi's face, distorted a bit by the curve of the wall and the crystal ball he was using as a focus for the communication jutsu.

"I trust you feel a bit better after your exercise?" Sarutobi asked genially.

"Indeed, Hokage-sama," Anko replied formally. "I apologize for making you wait."

As much as she messed around in public, she respected the Sandaime more than anyone alive, for without his support and tolerance, she would likely still be in prison for her blind support of her sensei... if she was still alive at all.

"Not to worry, the time was well spent," the old man replied, having used the interruption to issue lockdown orders on training ground forty-four, as well as alert and increase active Anbu patrols in the area.

"Before we move onto the thorough debriefing, Iruka-san has a matter that he believes deserving of your attention..." Anko said, gesturing for the teacher to approach.

"Ah, has another Konoha team made it to the finals then?" Sarutobi asked, always glad to have good news to counter the all too frequent bad.

"Yes, Hokage-sama. Team Seven arrived just a short time ago, they seemed well enough, though they did plan to visit the medical wing, and have asked me to forward a request to speak to Kakashi soon, about a matter of interest to yourself."

"Think it could be about you-know-who?" Anko asked sharply.

"Possible. Sasuke and Naruto would both be valuable targets," Iruka agreed.

"I see," Sarutobi sighed. "I will contact Kakashi immediately. Anko, with Jiraiya-kun not yet arrived, you are the expert if they bear the curse mark, I expect you to supply whatever assistance they or Kakashi need to deal with the repercussions."

"Of course, Hokage-sama," Anko replied, saluting proudly.

"Thank you," Sarutobi said with a sad smile. "We shall have to do what we can until Jiraiya-kun arrives, perhaps he will be able to find clues in this seal that will help him to decipher and remove your own... But let us leave that hope for a future time, was there another matter?"

"Yes," Iruka replied, gesturing Karin forward. "Naruto and his team came across this girl during the exam. She claims to be a relative from the Land of Rice paddies, though she is registered as a Grass applicant."

Karin stepped forward and bowed deeply to the Hokage. "A pleasure to meet you, sir," she said softly.

The ninja assumed her obvious nervousness as intimidation due to being in the presence of one of the strongest ninja in the Elemental Countries.

Kirlia would have known better.

Karin had heard many times of the 'Old Fool's' disregard for Orochimaru's research, as well as the wasteful destruction he'd rained down upon the facilities within Konoha.

What she didn't know about was the fifty-nine tiny corpses that had inspired Sarutobi to such an act.

To her mind, Orochimaru was a visionary, and this man threw his progressive work back by more than a decade.

"From the Land of Rice Paddies... You wouldn't happen to be Karin Fuuma, would you?" The Hokage asked.

"Fuuma-Uzumaki, sir," she corrected politely, since she didn't want to antagonize a man that even her teacher was cautious about.

"Odd... Our information says that you had disregarded any claim to the Uzumaki name when your father died..." Sarutobi mused, retrieving a folder from his voluminous cabinets.

"Your information?" Karin yelped, forgetting her caution in a burst of indignation. "You were spying on me?"

Sarutobi paused in his perusal to look at her over the folder.

"Naruto-kun is like a grandson to me, and Jiraiya of the Sannin is his godfather, albeit more of an absentee one than I'd prefer," he explained, as if a Hokage informally adopting an orphan was the simplest matter in the world.

"Because it meshes so well with his work for the village, Jiraiya-kun has spent considerable effort over the years looking for any Uzumaki that had survived the fall of Whirlpool, as well as any of his father's surviving relatives, with very limited results I fear."

'When I learned of his search, I bid him to continue, in hopes that we might be able to give Naruto something resembling the family he had to do without, for reasons I cannot divulge at this time."

"Oh... Oh, my apologies, Hokage-sama," Karin murmured, bowing deeply. "I did not understand, and am sorry for any offense I may have caused."

"No offense taken. I understand the dangers assumed for kunoichi who've somehow attracted the attention of a larger village than their own," Sarutobi replied understandingly.

"According to the reports I have on record, Jiraiya learned of your existence a number of years ago when news of your father's death found him. He visited soon after and was informed that your paternal bloodline was never formally acknowledged, and that you had no interest in doing so, or in pursuing contact with relatives from that side."

"I would never say that!" Karin protested. "I loved my Papa and Gramma!"

"Be that as it may, those are the reports I have received, confirmed by repeated visits Jiraiya-kun made over the following years. The most recent of which was approximately seven months ago," Sarutobi explained.

"But... I've never even met Jiraiya..." Karin moaned. "Why would he think that if he's never even talked to me?"

Sarutobi didn't know what to say to that, and a tense silence lengthened until Anko broke it with an obvious answer.

"Hey brat... Would you say your mom is pretty?" She asked with a sly smile.

"He wouldn't!" Iruka blurted, though the teacher immediately realized that Yes, the perverted Sannin would.

"Who better to ask than the child's own mother, especially since it's such a sensitive subject..." the Hokage agreed sourly. "A young widow as well... That lecherous old fool never could tell when a pretty civilian was lying to him... Remind me to reprimand him severely when he returns for the finals."

"Yes, Hokage-sama," Anko and Iruka replied simultaneously.

Anko's excited grin didn't bode well for the loyal Sannin's future, and Iruka's stern expression didn't improve matters.

"Now, while I appreciate your bringing this matter to my attention, was there something in particular you wanted me to do about it?" Sarutobi asked, turning his attention back to Iruka.

"Well, really I just wanted your opinion on her, sir. Naruto's well... you know, and I don't trust myself to be objective enough to make the right call here," Iruka replied, somewhat chagrined.

"You want to know if we can trust Karin around Naruto?" Sarutobi reasoned. "A fair concern, but misplaced in this instance I believe."

Karin's jaw dropped at the obvious vote of confidence.

"Her stated loyalty towards her family is honest, and I see within her a flame of passion that could one day become a blazing testament to the Will of Fire, regardless of which land or village she calls home."

"Of course... I have been wrong before, but I expect that it will be easy enough to keep anything unpleasant from happening in that tower, surrounded by Konoha's finest chunin and tokubetsu jounin," despite his continued pleasantness, Karin didn't miss the implied threat in his words, or the steel in his eyes.

It was almost disturbing, seeing both sides of the man so swiftly, but she understood a bit more about the power of a Kage now.

A Kage whom her cousin called 'Jiji'.

"I understand, Hokage-sama," Karin replied sincerely.

"So, you don't mind if she sticks around in the tower?" Iruka asked. "She doesn't actually have a team anymore, so... she's kinda flunked out already."

"If the proctor allows it, I have no objections," Sarutobi answered, looking to Anko with an amused smile.

"Like I'm gonna ruin the brat's good day," Anko scoffed. "You go tell Blondie that he owes me one, and no interfering with the contestants or preliminaries if we have 'em. You do anything I even think is you trying to give someone an advantage, and I'll toss you out so fast the Raikage will get jealous, and you better bet that'd be bad, since I'll be chucking you out through there, and with a running start."

Anko pointed to the rather tiny window set into the wall, and Karin remembered just how high up they were.

"Yes ma'am," Karin agreed quickly, not brave enough to ask if the woman would bother opening the thick-paned window first or not.

"Good, now get outta here, we have important business to discuss," Anko said, shooing the girl away with a number of high flying kunai.

"She's a good kid," Iruka said quietly, after the girl scurried away. "I'm happy for them..."

"Yeah yeah, now why are you still here? Get lost, Dolphin-boy!" She actually booted Iruka out physically, tossing him hard enough that he barely caught himself before taking the hard route down the spiraled stairwell.

"Was that really necessary?" Sarutobi asked drily.

"No, but there's just something about guys like him that pisses me off," Anko replied grumpily.

'And here I was under the impression that all the males in Konoha had that effect on you," Sarutobi replied.

"Only the weaklings and the perverts," Anko remarked cheerfully.

"And which do you think Iruka is?" Sarutobi asked curiously.

"Which do you think? He's too damn nice to be perverted, he's a wimp who couldn't cut it in the real world and decided that the academy was more his speed," Anko answered.

"An interesting opinion," Sarutobi chuckled. "And one that reveals your inexperience with children. Trust me when I say that the role of teacher is as important as any other within a village, and possibly more so."

Anko waved the comment away irritably, but her silence was telling to the experienced old shinobi.

"Orochimaru was many things, but a true teacher was not one of them," Sarutobi said seriously. "You were an assistant, an accomplice, possibly even a confidant, but can you honestly say there are any similarities between your relationship with him, and Iruka's with Naruto?"

"No... I guess not..." She muttered.

"That is because he empathizes with Naruto, and others, including yourself, though you're too stubborn to accept it," Sarutobi pointed out. "And that is something that Orochimaru was never able to do."

"Yes, Hokage-sama..." Anko replied dutifully, receiving a proud look from her leader, which fell at her next annoyed words. "But he still gets on my nerves with that Nice Guy act!"

"Well, let's just leave it at that then," the Hokage sighed again. "Shall we get back to the more important matter?"

"Of course Hokage-sama," Anko replied, launching into a thorough description of her encounter with Orochimaru.


AN:

As you can probably tell, Team Seven is done in the forest, however I intend the next chapter to visit the rest of the teams as they move through, albeit with a bit less intense a focus. (And for the love of all things fun to read, I hope it'll be a fast one, 17-19 scenes according to my revised chapter timeline... the first of which is written)

After that will be the Prelims, which as you may recall from way back in chapter 6, the matches have been randomized, and as a result none of the cannon battles will be taking place. So no rehashing of the Hinata vs. Neji battle in this one, or the Final round Naruto vs. Neji grudge match.

I do have plans on how to drag Neji out of his funk though, it'll just happen a bit later and in a much different manner.

Frankly, I think it'd be boring to redo those exact fights in yet another story.

I hope Karin was well depicted here, part of my writer's block was building a viable backstory for her and the Sound trio that I felt would put things where they needed to be. (And properly illustrate how much of a manipulative bastard Orochimaru can be.) The fear of spiders is just a bit of influence from my roommate who is deathly afraid of the things and would probably have a seizure just seeing the one that size, hehe.

Disable's effect has been decided on as blocking one element completely from the target, but can only effect one target at a time. In Naruto's case this is particularly bad, since he has no other elemental options, but that should change soon enough...


Review response to unsigned reviews:

Gui: I apologize, but Serperior had been decided for Orochimaru a fair while ago, largely because of how appropriate it seems. 'Serperior holds its head high pretentiously while fighting and tends to stay elegant at all times. It doesn't take most opponents seriously, unless said opponent is particularly powerful.' in it's behavior listing on Bulbapedia for one, and those eyes for another. (And after the anime, I find it hard to take Arbok or Ekans seriously)

To your other review: I'd need a bit more detail about the character to think of a place to use it, which may or may not be possible, but it sounds a lot like those Anubis things from the old Samurai Jack cartoon.

'unknown': Pokemon can and occasionally will act against their partner's wishes, and are able to cut the connection if they feel strongly enough against their partner's actions. Or if they feel their partner's actions are wrong but their reasons are sound, they can simply 'banish' themselves and refuse to return until said partner straightens out. (There is a degree of empathetic bond inherent in the rune of connection, primarily for strong emotions like terror and elation, neither of which are big Sasuke emotions.)

Terranorth: I considered Croagunk for just that reason, but dismissed it because I can't really see Jiraiya as much of a poison type. Then I found Seismitoad and figured it'd be perfect. Imagine if you will, Jiraiya doing his ridiculous intros while standing beside a living beatbox... I admit I find an entirely inappropriate amount of humor in that image. (Especially since a deep reverberating bass beat would totally give him away.)

'Guest': An interesting idea, but not possible since my outline actually has those two pokemon still alive, and they will pop up sooner or later. (one sooner, one later)

As always, if I missed a review response, I apologize, I do try to respond via PM whenever possible.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed,

-Mhyrloc