Disclaimer: Kishimoto owns Naruto. I do not. Heck, I don't even own this story! I'm just transcribing the insane ramblings of my muse.

Word of Honor

Chapter 21: The Last Preparations

Kabuto looked down into the arena, his Anbu disguise working perfectly for the time being. After all he'd been through with Orochimaru, a rookie Anbu had nothing on his skill, and was quick to dispatch. He almost wished that he'd put up more of a fight, rather than die so easily. But then, that wouldn't have worked well for the plan.

Having watched the previous fights, he had to say he was feeling mildly impressed with some of the Konoha genin. Uzumaki Naruto in particular had proven to be quite enjoyable seeing fight. He had been the underdog in the first fight, against the Hyuuga genius no less, yet he'd managed to pull off a 'lost' technique and win. He'd actually heard of it before, though only in passing once from Orochimaru. Truly, he was beyond what he'd expected him to be; regardless of being the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. From what he knew, Konoha had no method of training a jinchuuriki to utilize the power within themselves. Plus, his natural skill shouldn't have been as high as it was due to his age. It was something to look into.

He hadn't really batted an eyelash when Zaku had lost. Of course, since Zaku was an Oto shinobi, he figured he'd have to have someone grab him before they left to return to Otogakure. After all, small fry though he was, it was always useful to have a staunch loyalist who was willing to follow Orochimaru regardless of what happened. After all, one didn't just hold still while metal rods were stitched into their arms. It was in bad practice to give a potentially traitorous person a way to perform seal-less jutsu.

The other fights made him rather bored with the lack of latent ability they all showed, though Sasuke's current match was intriguing at this point. He'd seen some techniques like that –mainly from his 'studies'– and the fact that he'd pulled it off without some kind of bloodline was quite the accomplishment. After all, most people wouldn't expect a flail of fire to come slamming down on them regardless of any training.

However, due to his current technique, Sasuke had now become quite the nuisance for their plan. If Gaara was rendered unconscious before the invasion began, Suna would lose their 'trump card', and a part of their forces might get discouraged due to that and that would get them killed before they were able to complete their part of the plan. It wouldn't change their overall plans, but Suna would lose more of their shinobi force.

Behind his Anbu mask, he looked up towards the Kage box in anticipation. For a moment there was nothing. Then a small pulse of chakra seemed to resonate from the box, making Kabuto grin. Slowly, he placed his hands together and formed the seals for the genjutsu that would put everyone in the stadium to sleep.

"Show time." Kabuto mutter, grinning as the chakra began to fill the expanse of the stadium.

-xxxxx-

Swish, swish, click. Swish, swish, click. Swish, swish –

"Will you quit that already? It's getting annoying."

"Nope." Swish, click.

Tadao watched his two companions bicker from across the room. He had been listening to them bicker since he'd gotten back, and his already grated nerves were beginning to wear thin. He couldn't just snap at them though, as it would be out of character, and he didn't want to draw suspicion towards himself.

"Hey Tadao!" The girl yelled, pouting as she turned towards him. "Can you kill him for me?"

Tadao thanked the gods of luck for this. "I can't just kill him Ayame. Besides, Izo-sensei has told you time and again not to provoke him."

Ayame just giggled. Fiddling with the butterfly knife in her hand, she began to whirl it around again. Tadao always found her appearance –or rather, her clothing choice– to be somewhat odd. She wore a lime green bandana over her eyes and top of her hair; completely covering the top portion, but leaving enough pale blonde hair to fall into two bound braids that she let fall in front of her shoulders. She had a pale brown shirt that looked as though it was too small for her; coming up to expose most of her stomach. Her pants on the other hand seemed a size to large, falling loosely around her waist with only a barely tied belt keeping it from falling off her. For the most part, she walked around without any shoes on, and now was no exception. It was a very risqué outfit that served no real purpose than to draw attention to herself. It also detracted from the fact that she was very, very lethal with her set of skills.

"Tadao…"

Tadao turned to the other male in the room, his eye twitching in aggravation. Unlike Ayame, his pale blond hair spiked in the front, covering most of the upper portion of his face, while a red bandana with shark-like teeth sewn into the fabric covered the lower half. He wore a thick, fur-lined jacket that was obviously to large for him, as it fell over his hands. His pants were no different; thick, and fur lined. Tadao didn't want to know what he'd done that made him so consistently cold, but he'd decided long ago to avoid asking. He usually appeared intimidating, but his timid voice spoke otherwise.

"Ayame, please stop that." Tadao said as he turned back to Ayame. She pouted, but put her knife away.

Fidgeting, he looked towards the stadium. They knew the signal for the invasion, as it was their informants cover, but hadn't heard or seen anything as of yet. He didn't necessarily have to be there, seeing as there were at least two other teams hovering over them. Normally, this would have given him some measure of comfort. Today, he felt like he was boxed in.

He shook his head. He had to be here. If he wasn't, he couldn't be certain that the Ne Anbu would see the transaction and attempt to do what was 'best' for Konoha. Mostly meaning they'd try and kill them. He knew that he'd likely get out without too much difficulty, but the others…not so easy. Even with his 'abilities', he was going to have to watch his back to make sure that no one tried to follow them

He smiled behind his mask. That was the back up plan; lead Ne to their hideout and have them tell 'good old Danzo' about them. War hawk though he may be, that attitude would be what would help him now. For all his faults, he could definitely use one to his advantage of.

Swish, swish, click. Swish, swish, click.

Resigning him self to listening to Ayame continue to grate on everyone's already high strung nerves, he relaxed. It was just another day betraying the trust of everyone he knew. All he had to do now was watch and wait.

-xxxxx-

Anko felt her breath hitch as she clutched her flaming shoulder. The Sandaime had placed special seal to help prevent it from acting up, and to allow her to force her former sensei's seal back to keep it from corrupting her. But now, there was something new. Something that the Sandaime's seal didn't stop like it normally would. And so, for the past month, she'd had spiking pain.

'No, not the whole month.' Anko mentally corrected herself. 'The first couple of days, I was fine. It was shortly after the genin left the tower that this stupid seal started making my life hell.'

Groaning as another wave of pain wracked her body, spiking from her shoulder as she tried to push it back with sheer force of will. It abated for a brief second before crashing back upon her with more force than before. She let out a strangulated cry as she fell to the ground.

She hated pain, almost as much as she hated her sensei. It was a constant reminder of Orochimaru's 'training methods' and of what she'd seen other people be forced to go through when they'd been apart of his experiments. Not even her memory loss could prevent her from hearing their screams in her constant nightmares. And now, she'd had a continuous pain that was shooting through her for every waking moment.

She grimaced, trying to close her eyes and get some sleep. Due to the pain, she'd been unable to sleep for the past month except for the brief moments when the pain had simply made her numb and she'd passed out. Each time though, it had returned with greater force, and it returned to the same cycle it she'd been in while awake.

"Just a moment…just a moment." She whispered, clenching her eyes as another wave of pain pulsed from her shoulder.

This time though, a thought came to her. 'Release the seal.'

Her eyes shot open, gritting her teeth. "No. That's just what he wants."

'You have to release the seal.'

"No way in hell!" She spat out, furious at the very thought of using the seal. "If I use the seal, I lose."

'If you don't you'll die.'

That thought brought her up short. Or rather, the way it sounded as though it knew what would happen. This was not a passing thought she'd had throughout the month; this was something new altogether. "O-Orochimaru?"

'You don't understand, you need to release the seal.'

"I'd rather die than release the seal!" She shouted. She tried to push herself back up, but collapsed again when pain shot through her.

'Ah, how nostalgic. There's that's little viper I remember.'

Anko felt bile rise in the back of her throat at the familiar pet name. "Screw you teme."

'So full of bite, and never bothering to see the big picture.'

"What's there to see? You corrupting me?"

'No, you resisting something that has no hold over you.'

Anko would have shot back a resort, but in that brief moment, she hesitated. And in that moment of hesitation, the pain lessened. Her vision cleared up, and she suddenly felt better than she had in years. She forgot the fact that she'd had only fleeting moments of rest for a month as she stood, taking in the foreign, and yet comforting feeling.

She never noticed the faint explosion, signaling the invasion. She didn't notice the movement from outside, or the faint shouts until they were just outside her door. And when she did, she frowned for a moment before it widened into a snake-like smirk. "Now who's dumb enough to come here?"

Opening the door, she peaked her head out the door, at the end of the hall, she noticed a small group of Oto shinobi leap off the roof. One of the lagging members paused, noticing her poking her head out. Slowly, her vicious, predatory, and very snake-like smile grew wider her face as she leapt at him.

Unknown to her, beneath her collar the curse seal slowly leaked out small flame-like marks, slowly rising up her neck.

-xxxxx-

Explosives, poison, kunai, falling debris, Gaara had seen it all used in a lethal manner. Mainly against himself in various assassination attempts. However, there was one method that Suna hadn't tried, mainly because they couldn't. Water.

In Suna, due to the fact that it was a desert, water was scarce. To use such a valuable resource to kill a single person would be considered both suicidal, and reckless. Not only that, but to attempt to use it to weaken his defenses would be pointless anyways, since they were surrounded by sand that was his main weapon. As such, he had little experience dealing with those who would use water to slip past his defenses. He was smart though, and figured that water would be the only thing he'd have to potentially be wary of in the future.

This however, was something he hadn't expected altogether; smoke. It was the only thing that he couldn't be expected to anticipate, due once again to the structure of Suna. Made mostly of sand, not many things were flammable. Anything that was, was worked around to ensure that it wouldn't become an issue. As such, fire was a problem that occurred so rarely that most put potential fire hazards out of their minds. After all, what could they possibly burn? The sand? Granted, the Uchiha's fire had fused some of his sand into glass, but that was an easy fix.

Now though, Gaara had fallen to his knees, finding himself unable to breath, and his vision slowly becoming blurry. The smoke hadn't crashed upon him all that fast, but his recognition of the eminent threat had been too slow. Now, even his Suna no Yoroi (Armor of Sand) had proven useless against the smoke. After all, he needed air to function properly, and the thick smoke obscured that immensely.

Coughing and hacking, he tried to push himself to his feet. He could feel his breath becoming shorter and more rapidly. He couldn't understand what was happening to him; it was almost like he was panicking. But he didn't panic. He was Sabaku no Gaara. Others panicked from his mere presence. For him to be panicking, there had to be something he was forgetting.

"Shhhh Gaara-chan. Just go to sleep, I'll take care of it."

"Mother." He rasped out.

And there it was; the thing he'd almost forgotten about. As the smoke inhalation slowly burnt in his throat, he was slowly but surely falling closer to unconsciousness. And as soon as that happened, the Ichibi would be released. He normally wouldn't seem to care about releasing the Ichibi, as it was a weapon that he could set loose upon his enemies, but he wanted to make sure that it was only released by his own power. Now though, the Ichibi was right there, and it was all the Uchiha's fault.

By this point, his eyes had become too watery to see much of anything, and he closed his eyes in an attempt to keep the smoke from filtering in. It helped a little bit, though it also made things worse as he saw the Ichibi grinning at him. He returned its grin with a scowl of his own.

"You haven't fed me the Uchiha's blood Gaara-chan. Sleep, and I'll take care of it."

"N-no." He said, the smoke once again making him sputter as he fell to the ground. He couldn't tell how close he was to unconsciousness anymore, his closed eyes not making it any easier to tell.

A small explosive sound echoed around himself and the Ichibi. The Ichibi's head snapped up, growling at the sudden, foreign sound. Although he didn't understand, he felt a small wave of relief as the smoke that had once been crushing was suddenly lifted. He tried to open his eyes to see what was happening, but could only see blurry images as he looked through his teary eyes.

Which was why he had some difficulty believing that he saw his sister standing over him with her battle fan between himself, and the Uchiha.

-xxxxx-

Sasuke was very, very confused. He was pretty certain that he'd been about to win his match, what with the smoke completely boxing Gaara in, when the Suna girl –Temari, if he remembered right– started screaming at him. He'd ignored her, as he was trying to focus on the fight, but soon found himself distracted again by something new. Feathers falling around the stadium.

Which somehow had lead to the wind technique Temari had used in the preliminaries blowing away his smoke, people collapsing, and the proctor and Suna jonin between himself and his opponent glaring each other down.

"Gaara, the plan…" The Suna jonin said, looking down at Gaara.
Gaara looked up at him with half lidded eyes before they widened further and vomited. The jonin looked surprised by this, but didn't appear nearly as surprised as Temari at the red flecks within the vomit. "He's bleeding from the inside! He breathed in too much smoke." Temari looked up at her sensei with concerned eyes. "I don't think he'll be able to change right now."

The Suna jonin scowled, looking between Gaara and Sasuke. "Will he be able to do it if he recovers in time?"

Temari's eyes widened, and slowly shook her head. "Not here. He's too vulnerable now. If I take him away, I can buy us some time for him to recover, but it can't be here."

The jonin didn't take his eyes off Genma, slowly shifting his weight in front of his team. "Go then. Retreat and regroup with Kankuro. When he's ready, bring him back."

Temari nodded, picking up Gaara before sprinting away. Sasuke looked between the two jonin before looking back up at the victors stand. Three other genin were there, motioning for him to follow them. Looking at Genma, he spoke slowly. "Will you need my help?"

Genma frowned, shaking his head. "No, I've got this. You're at chunin level as it is, so make yourself useful. Go!"

Sasuke nodded, bolting towards the other genin. Leaping up the walls, he motioned for them to follow him. Not bothering to turn back, he chased after Gaara and Temari, knowing that they would follow him.

A moment later the other three were besides him. 'Shikamaru, Shino, and Naruto. Awesome, all people I know. This'll make things so much easier.' He thought as they leapt over the roofs.

"Hey Sasuke, what did the proctor tell you to do?" Naruto asked, eyes darting around as he saw Suna and Oto shinobi attacking Konoha shinobi. He was very thankful that Shino had been with him to keep the genjutsu from making him pass out, or else he'd have missed what was currently going on.

"He said to make myself useful, so I'm chasing Gaara down." Sasuke said, glancing at Shikamaru out of the corner of his eye. It was subtle, but Shikamaru seemed nervous about something or another. The strange part was that he'd only noticed after he mentioned Gaara. "Hey Shikamaru, you okay?"

Shikamaru nodded slowly. "Yeah, just trying to think over what the plan is." He chewed on his lip as he caught glimpses of other battles raging about. "This seems planned out, and I think we're missing something."

Shino nodded, his eyes unseen behind his glasses. "I'm certain there is, however, we must focus on the task at hand."

"Alright then," Sasuke said as he focused ahead. "We take out Gaara and his sister, then we – "
"Wait!"

Sasuke, Shikamaru, and Shino all nearly lost their footing as they tried to stop in midair. Glaring at Naruto, Sasuke resisted the urge to grind his teeth together. "What Naruto?"

Naruto's eyes were wide, darting between the three other genin and somewhere else in the city. "Has anyone warned the Academy about what's going on?"

Shikamaru's eyes narrowed. "No, but I bet they heard the Kage's booth get attacked."

"Uh-oh." Naruto said, looking possibly more panicked than before. "The Academy students will be sitting ducks! We gotta help them!"

And suddenly, they understood what he was saying. Sasuke was the first to speak. "You don't think?"

"It's possible. After all, taking out the youth would make the next generation far weaker." Shino said, responding with a calculated response. He was actually somewhat surprised that he, Sasuke, or Shikamaru hadn't thought of it first.

"But there are chunin to protect them!" Sasuke said.

"And how many Oto shinobi can they take?" Shikamaru countered. His face was scrunched in thought as he placed his hands together. "Not only that, but if they focus on the Oto shinobi too much, the students could get attacked. It's a lose-lose scenario for them right now." Shikamaru turned to Naruto. "Do you have anything else you want to input?"

Naruto blinked, realizing that he was being brought back into the conversation. "Uh, yeah. We still need to chase Gaara and his sister." Noticing the odd looks, he explained. "Well, they're supposed to be the Kazekage's kids right? So if we get them – "

"We might be able to stop Suna's assault." Shino finished, catching Naruto's sporadic though process.

The three genin looked at Naruto in surprise. It shouldn't have shocked them as he wasn't really that predictable, but this was once again a step in a new direction for them. Normally, this would make Sasuke somewhat frustrated as he should have thought of it first. However, with his training and both Shino and Shikamaru not thinking of it either, he felt secure in what he was going to say next.

"Alright Naruto, what's the plan?"

Naruto tapped his chin in thought, thinking over what they were going to do. A couple seconds later, he snapped his fingers. "Alright, here's what we'll do. Sasuke, you and Shikamaru will head to the Academy to help the instructors. Shino and I will keep following Gaara and his sister."

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at that. "Any reason why?"

Naruto nodded. "You have that shadow hold thingy that can hold people in place, and Sasuke has lots of long ranged attacks. Which means Sasuke will be able to stay with the instructors, while firing off fireballs at enemies that you hold down. Me and Shino on the other hand have to get close to our opponents to fight effectively, but we have attacks that can stop people without killing them, so we'll be able to get them without anyone else getting hurt by a stray attack."

"Plus, if the Academy students are in distress, I can track you with my kikaichuu." Shino added, holding a finger up with a little bug twitching on the edge of his nail.
Naruto blinked, his eyes wide as he took that bit in. "You can do that?"

"Of course. I've got on one Gaara's sister as well." Shino replied, inwardly smiling at Naruto's shock.

Shikamaru and Sasuke looked at one another, silently agreeing with Naruto's statement; especially since Shino was obviously backing him up. Turning back, Sasuke nodded. "Alright then. Shikamaru and I will head over to the Academy. You two catch Gaara, and try and keep whatever his part in their plan is from happening. Now, you guys need to remember something," Sasuke closed his eyes, remembering some of Ebisu's teachings. "This is for more than us. This is for the whole of Konoha, and we need to put our all into this counterattack." Opening his eyes, he grinned. "So you better win Naruto."

Naruto grinned. "Like I'd just let you have the time to shine? Just you watch Sasuke! We'll get Gaara, and then we'll come and save you guys from getting your butts kicked!"

"Troublesome." Shikamaru muttered. He couldn't keep the smile from his face though, and nodded to both Naruto and Shino. "Be careful, Gaara's more dangerous than he looks."

Naruto just laughed, sounding oddly ominous as he spoke. "Yeah? Well, I'm way more dangerous than I look."

Shikamaru and Shino nodded, remembering his defeat of Neji. Sasuke on the other hand, was more out of the loop. "Just be careful, okay? If Shikamaru says he's tough, don't underestimate him…and don't hold back either. He's no pushover."

Naruto nodded. "Got it." Turning to Shino, he grinned. "Come on Shino, let's go!"

The two of them took of, chasing after the sand siblings. Sasuke nodded to Shikamaru. "Let's go."

"Alright, I'm coming." Shikamaru muttered, leaping after Sasuke as they raced across the rooftops. Each group had their respective missions, and would both be necessary for their futures survival.

If only they understood just how much this would change.

-xxxxx-

Sakura was panicking. People had fallen asleep all around her while others were dying, and now she was ducking under her seat in fear of the Oto shinobi's attack.

She felt so alone, and so weak. She hadn't been able to find any of her former classmates to sit with, so she'd sat alone surrounded by strangers. They were all civilians, so she actually knew some of the people from when her parents had taken her out with them. They had helped make her feel safe.

Now though, they only reminded her that she was just barely stronger than they were. Because she had felt it coming, she had been able to avoid succumbing to the influence of the foreign genjutsu. Seeing that the foreign shinobi were only attacking those who'd remained awake though make her realize that staying awake wasn't that great of an idea.

She bit back a scream as another shinobi leapt over her. It was harder than it looked to remain calm when there was a small scale war raging around her. She shuddered as she heard the death cries of many shinobi, none of which she had heard before. That mean she had no idea who was alive, and who was dead. It was probably better that way.

"Well, look at this." An oily voice from above her said slowly, making her tense up. "A little genin is awake and trying to stay out of sight. How sickeningly sweet."

She could hear the kunai being drawn from its pouch, slowly, as to grate on her nerves. Whatever psychological torment he was thinking of, it was obviously working. Sakura felt herself slowly turn into a quivering mass of fear; shaking from the few other sounds she could hear.

"Say goodbye." The shinobi said, obviously raising his kunai for the kill.

"Goodbye."

Sakura's eyes widened at the familiar voice, a crash next to her drawing her from her fetal state. With a smile, her savior looked down upon her, the lower half of his face covered, and a scar running through the middle of his left eye.

"Yo." Kakashi said, trying to keep the illusion of melancholy. In truth, he was startled that Sakura had broken the genjutsu, though he did remember that she was more than proficient enough to do so in the Academy. With her awake, he now needed to ensure that she was safe, along with all the civilians in the arena. "What are you doing here?"

Sakura couldn't speak, looking at Kakashi through water filled eyes. In her mind, Sasuke was startlingly forced away for a moment as she stared at her sensei. She'd never once thought that someone could look at her with such a compassionate look. Granted, the closest she'd seen was when Sasuke had been nice to her on the park bench after they'd been put onto their teams. And, though she'd never thought about it, she'd never seen the scar over Kakashi's eye where the Sharingan was implanted. She knew he'd uncovered it when he fought Zabuza, but had honestly never seen what had lay beneath the headband. Now though, it was like looking at a different person.

"Sakura, are you okay?" Kakashi asked concernedly. She was spacing out more than usual, and he was beginning to worry.

"Yes Kakashi-sensei."

"Good. I need you to move to a safer location. This place is getting hit pretty hard, and I can't protect you and everyone else at the same time."

Sakura flinched. For the first time in a long time, she truly understood the depths of her weakness. With Naruto and Sasuke around, she felt she still had some merit. As a cheerleader, but still. Now though, with only herself, her sensei, and a horde of enemies, she was forced to fully open her eyes. She was pathetically weak in comparison.

"H-hai Kakashi-sensei."

-xxxxx-

Meanwhile, in another part of the stadium, Kiba cursed under his breath as he shuttled Hinata to another corner of the stands. "Damn it, we are so screwed."

Hinata would have said something, but was too busy trying to breath. She clenched her eyes shut, trying not to cough up anymore blood. When the Hokage's box was suddenly destroyed, Hinata had panicked. And apparently that had turned out to be a very, very bad thing. The old wounds that Neji had inflicted on her in the preliminaries had reopened slightly, and she was incapable of fighting or doing much of anything. She would have been caught up in the genjutsu, but the pain of reality quickly snapped her out of it. She was just glad that Kiba didn't fall to the genjutsu either, or else she'd be stuck by herself in the middle of an invasion having a panic attack.

Hinata stumbled as she ran forwards, feeling the pain in her chest shoot through her as she retched again. Nothing came out, but she felt a burning sensation in the back of her throat. She sucked in a thick breath, trying to force it back without further injuring herself. It felt like her chest was being ripped in half, but somehow she moved herself forwards.

Kiba's nose scrunched at the faint smell that lingered on Hinata's lips. He'd never fully gotten over how the smell of vomit smelled, especially with his chakra enhanced nose. While normally an Inuzuka wouldn't channel their chakra into their nose often, Kiba did periodically and knew what a lot of miscellaneous smells smelt like. Of course, since they were in battle, he definitely needed his smell to keep himself and Hinata from getting caught off guard by some random Oto shinobi. It would have been easier if Hinata had been cleared to use chakra so she could use her Byakugan to see completely around them, and not guess with shots in the dark like he had to.

"Come on, we're almost safe." Kiba muttered, moving Hinata further away from the fighting in their area. They had been lucky enough to have several chunin around them who had immediately leapt into action and begun to counter Oto and Suna's attack.

"I-I can't." Hinata muttered, stumbling and nearly falling down the steps, held up only by Kiba's supporting arm.

"Yes you can, now come on!" Kiba said through clenched teeth, several new smells getting stronger as he spoke.

"Ha, so there were some low life's in the crowd."
Kiba cursed as he glanced behind himself. Three Oto shinobi stood, smirking up at them. He knew that if his smell were as accurate as some of the other Inuzuka's, they wouldn't have gotten as close as they had before he'd realized they were there. As gently as he could, he tried to slip his arm from around Hinata to better get into a fighting stance.

At that exact moment though, Hinata was struck by a fit of coughing. Without his support, she fell to her hands and knees as she spit out blood that had collected in her throat. Kiba twisted to his fallen teammate, remembering too late that he was facing off against three shinobi. As soon as he did, they were rushing him; too fast to counter, and aimed mainly towards attacking Hinata, who was down. Kiba growled, preparing to throw himself at them to protect his teammate.

Before he could move though, a blur of grey and white flew past him. For one brief moment, the Oto shinobi's eyes widened. Then, they were thrown backwards by some force that knocked them back into the arena.

Kiba stared, gob smacked at what he'd just seen. Taking a moment, he looked over his newest ally, hesitantly stepping in front of Hinata just in case. It was only then that he saw the flame-like symbol of the Hyuuga clan.

"Stand down Inuzuka-san."

Kiba felt himself relax at the calm, collected voice. While obviously not meant to calm him, just knowing who it was gave him a renewed sense of hope. "Hai, Hiashi-sama."

"What happened?"

"Hinata panicked when the Hokage's box blew up, and…and I think her old wounds reopened." Kiba said, quickly picking Hinata up. By this point, Hinata had passed out from the pain, and would be more difficult for Kiba to move on his own. With Hiashi to help, there was hope for them.

"I see." Hiashi looked down at his daughter, his Byakugan gazing at her chakra circulatory system. Seeing the wounds that had been inflicted, and just how damaged they actually were made him flinch. "We'll have to get her to the nearest hospital as quickly as possible."

Kiba nodded, trying to reposition her as quickly as possible. Before he could move too much though, Hiashi had already taken her from his hands. "What? But aren't you – "

"I must do what is good for the clan." Hiashi whispered, looking at her with a partly veiled gentleness that he hadn't shown in years. Snapping his head back to Kiba, he quickly reassumed his 'normal' posture. "Return to your clan, and give whatever assistance you can to them."

Kiba's eyes widened. "Oh crap, I totally spaced the dishes! Kaa-san's gonna kill me!"

Hiashi raised an eyebrow as he watched Kiba bolt away. Clutching Hinata tightly to his chest, his frown seemed to deepen. "Yes, what is good for the clan." He muttered as he brushed her hair from her face. "For my family."

AN: And…cut!

This. Chapter. Was. A. PAIN! Mainly due to the fact that I wanted to show how Naruto's kinda grown up, while showing that same growth in Sasuke. It was way harder than it needed to be, believe it.

I also had an argument with my muse during the writing of this chapter. My muse wanted to set up something for future chapters, but it requires some pretty heavy stuff. When I tried arguing…I got writers block. Freaking muse wins every argument.

Anyways, I'm sure you've noticed that I'm really attacking Sakura's self-esteem. Just too quickly reiterate; not bashing, plot development. What I've got planned…heh, I don't think I've seen anyone else do it, so it'll either be awesome, or blow up in my face. It's a chance I'm willing to take though!

My favorite part was the Gaara scene. Because honestly, how has no one thought of smoke? It's like water, only a gas, and would be undoubtedly harder to catch Gaara with, but still plausible! And thus, the 'not Chidori' way of defeating Gaara using Sasuke. (Seriously, even the time travel fics, where they're supposed to keep that stuff away from Sasuke, he gets the Chidori. It's gotten pretty repetitive). Plus…he's almost passed out from inhaling too much carbon dioxide. You know what that means!

By the way, how in the world did the Academy get moving so fast? Seriously, are they right next to the stadium, or does news travel that fast? I don't think so. Plus, it's a time for Shika and Sasuke to have a short hero moment while I throw another loop in there for you guys. Joy.

And a little glimpse at my outlook on Hiashi. To me, he's just a dad in a screwed up system, and Hinata is his first kid. Can you blame him for not really knowing how to do the right thing? Seriously; he apologized to Neji after his match, when he really 'didn't have too'. Oh and guess what? That particular scene was pretty important. Remember it.

Next time on Word of Honor; This Is War. And thus, my Chunin Exams preparations begin their journey to a close…viva la fight setup!