"Shino," Hinata said quietly, offering a jar of her medicine to him as he was carried by on the stretcher. "Are you okay?"
He reached out quietly to accept it.
"There is no lasting injury, I think," Shino said as he sat up with a grimace. "Your...friend is quite impressive. I assume you were supporting him?"
"H..hai," Hinata said. "I'm sorry."
"There is no apology necessary," Shino said. "It is expected. However..." he grimaced. "Care is needed on your part now. Choji and Lee should not present much threat to you, even should you lose. I do not however, like the look of either the other three participants. They might do serious damage to you and not have any sort of regret."
Hinata blinked and frowned briefly, looking towards where the next match was being arranged.
Slowly, the names rolled through the remaining six participants to come down to the next match.
"Hinata Hyuga against Misumi Tsurugi."
Shino grimaced but nodded.
"Be on your guard," he repeated before lying back down and letting himself get taken back to the infirmary.
Hinata watched him go and looked upward toward first Kiba and then Naruto.
"Yeah, go Hinata-chan!" he called out loudly and enthusiastically.
Nearby Naruto, however, Neji stood and glared down at her, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he expected her to fail this challenge and embarrass the clan. At the same time, his very glare reminded her of her father's forbidding such a disgrace from occurring.
Swallowing nervously, she stepped out into the arena to stand across from Misumi who looked down at her through his cloth face mask.
"I've drawn the defective Hyuga heir," he said with a laugh. "Don't you think you should back out of this now, little girl?"
Hinata flinched a little and fidgeted.
"Just kick his ass, Hinata," Kiba shouted from above.
"Yeah, like he said!" Naruto called out. "I know you can do this, Hinata-chan!"
Neji merely glared, and that chilled her worse than the man that she was set to fight.
Turning around, she faced her opponent with a hesitant nod.
"I am ready," she said.
"It's your funeral," the man responded with a laugh.
"You'd think he'd learn from watching his teammate trashed by the last shy little girl," Shikamaru noted with a yawn.
"I tend to find men underestimate women fairly regularly, even when they should know better," Kurenai noted sharply, eliciting a brief cough from Asuma.
Hinata brought her hands together in a quick series of hand signs to trigger her byakugan.
She almost didn't have time to complete the seals as Misumi reached out toward her, his arms stretching farther than they should have been able to. As her hands pulled apart from the seals, a stretchy arm wrapped around her wrists and held them together.
The other arm reached to try to lay a firmer grip on the Hyuga girl who reacted by flipping up and over the man's head.
Or at least trying to.
As she pulled up into the air, Misumi pulled down with the stretched out arm that bound her wrists together and slammed her into the ground.
"The idiot," Neji said in firm disapproval, shaking his head. "To be so completely beaten so quickly. She is not a true Hyuga."
Naruto cursed and turned around to face Neji then.
"Shut up!" Naruto snapped. "I'll bet she can tan your hide if she needs to."
"Hmm," Neji said with a humorless smirk. "I doubt that would ever come to pass."
"Ano..." Ryoko said. "Hyuga-sama, i..is she not yo..your cousin?"
"What of it?" Neji asked coldly.
Hinata slammed into the ground hard and gasped, but didn't let herself take time to grab a breath. The other arm would be coming in soon and if he managed to grapple her completely and tie down her mobility then she was finished.
And she wasn't going to let herself be taken out without a fight. Not after what she'd seen from everybody else so far.
With her byakugan, she could see that Misumi's bones and joints were almost totally soft and dislocated and being controlled by pure chakra.
Of course he would want the first attack.
Against such a technique, any Jyuken blow would be devastating.
Hinata rolled to her feet and pulled back firmly, sending chakra to her feet to root herself there as she did so.
"Damn it!" Misumi shouted as he stumbled forward off balance.
And, almost immediately, Hinata released the chakra holding herself locked down and dived forward past the second arm and between the rubbery man's feet as he slammed into the ground and glanced back at her angrily.
She leaped up to her feet and backflipped away as Misumi's feet tried wrap around and nail her down.
"Are you trying to tie me up in a knot or something?" the stretchy genin asked irritably. "I'm sorry but that's not going to work."
Hinata watched with chagrin, and not a little disgust, as the man slithered and folded around himself to undo everything that she had done with the past couple of moves, taking his feet and then pulling her forward with his stretchy arms.
Gritting her teeth, she leaped forward into the pull, aiming a flying kick towards his head. Misumi snickered and pulled his head to the side, allowing the kick to move past him harmlessly without shifting his stance.
And then it whipped back into place, smacking into Hinata's own head she flew past. The Hyuga heir careened off toward the side only to be jerked back toward Misumi where his second arm waited the twist up around her.
Hinata shook her head clear, noting that the man's head butt hadn't been as firm as it should have been for a human skull and thus hadn't done as much damage as it could have.
"What sort of style is that?" Kiba asked as the stretchy man proceeded to make Hinata into a living paddle ball.
"It's not a style," Shikamaru said. "It's the result of a medical procedure developed for spying."
"Soft Physique Method," Choji noted. "It's like my family's multi-size techniques."
"If Hinata can't use her hands," Asuma said. "How is she going to fight back effectively?"
"I've taught her better than that," Kurenai said. "Just watch."
Hinata kicked her feet downward, trying to reach the ground before she could be pulled all the way forward. Her feet contacted the ground and the chakra entering them stuck her solidly, but well within the grappling reach of his other arm.
Hinata thrust her arms up and down violently as the second snakish arm wrapped about her legs and started to pull, bringing Misumi's body closer.
"You think you're going to break my grip that way, brat?" he demanded. "My limbs are far too flexible for that to work."
He laughed as all Hinata managed to do was set up a wave in his arm and not at all strain his hold over her. Laughing at the cartoonish nature of the waves produced in his arm by her struggles, he stepped forward to give his arms more room to wrap her up.
And then one of the folds of his arm doubled up on itself and a hard looked entered the little girl's byakugan eyes as she pulled her bound hands together and pointed the fingers out straight to meet the bending flesh.
The Hyuga's chakra slipped through the tenketsu point and tore a destructive pathway through Misumi's chakra network, tearing into the muscles and nerves surrounding it until his arm fell numbly to the ground and Hinata's arms were freed up.
"Hmm," Kakashi said. "He turned her strength into a weakness, so she turned about and did the exact same thing. Kurenai's turning out to be a good jonin-instructor."
Misumi's eyes widened and he rushed to finish wrapping her up in his other arm, but the hands were separated now, and not easily wrapped up. Even as the stretchy genin bound one arm to Hinata's body, the second jabbed into another tenketsu point. and she was freed up.
Whipping up a leg to lash out at her resulted in the little girl simply reaching out and tagging the stretching limb in four different spots.
In desperation, he whipped forward on his remaining operating leg to try bash his skull into her again.
She did hold back, enough not to deal any permanent harm to his brain, but she reached out to push two fingers into the skull between the eyes as it came in towards her.
And Misumi fell back shook several times before toppling to the floor around Hinata in a pile of stretched out coils.
"Didn't that happen on a cartoon somewhere?" Choji asked.
"Yeah, but the girl in that one just jammed her finger on the head butt," Kiba said.
"Winner, Hinata Hyuga," Hayate declared to Hinata's relief.
Taking a deep breath, she let her byakugan settle away and started to work up the steps. Upon reaching the top, she was caught up in a whirling hug from Naruto that brought a rapid blush to her face.
"Yeah! You did it!" Naruto declared.
"Wai!" Ryoko cheered.
Naruto set Hinata down and frowned as she sat there wobbling dizzily.
"Hinata-chan, are you all right?" he asked. "Did you..."
And Hinata fell over unconscious in a faint.
"Hinata-chan!" Naruto called out in shock and worry as Kiba and Kurenai started running over.
Neji stepped forward ahead of them and scooped Hinata up and away.
"I'll take her to the infirmary," he said simply.
"There's no need for that," Kakashi said calmly. "She is simply...overwrought, it was merely a faint. There is no injury."
"It is my task to protect the Main House of Hyuga, Hatake-san," Neji said. "This is my duty."
"No, it's your decision," Kakashi said.
"Ano..." Ryoko said, frowning and feeling a sick sense of deja vu as Hinata was carried away.
Hinata woke up, probably not more than five minutes later, with Neji standing over in a private corner.
"That was a pathetic, graceless show you put on in your match," Neji said coolly. "Truly a failure is one even in victory. But I have something else to tell you."
Hinata flinched with each word.
"I'll be speaking to your father," he said. "About Naruto."
The Hyuga heir's eyes widened.
"He might not be beneath you," Neji said. "But you have the misfortune to be born an average girl into an high clan, and he is beneath the Hyuga. I am sure Hiashi-sama will agree."
He started to walk out of the room.
"Yo..you're wrong!" Hinata protested. "Naruto-kun is kind and brave and gentle and..."
"And what does any of that have to do with the Hyuga clan?" Neji asked sharply over his shoulder coldly.
Sakura remained restrained with both normal and chakra-limiting chains in her hospital bed even while she sat curled up in her bed with Anko sitting across from her and tapping her foot anxiously.
A Yamanaka clan member sat nearby and two Anbu guards were at the door outside, and two more inside. They didn't have an accurate gauge of how powerful Sakura was if she was allowed to be set off, until then, they were making sure she couldn't escape to cause herself or anyone else trouble.
Anko glanced at the injury to the girl's leg and felt that it would be sometime before she was up to full mobility. Though with the changes to her DNA and Orochimaru's obsession with immortality, that would be difficult.
"Anko-sensei," Sakura said quietly.
"Hmm?" the snake-summoner asked.
"Is something wrong?" the pink-haired girl asked, eyeing the tapping foot.
Anko smiled grimmly, of course, she'd be keyed up to such signs of agitation.
"I'm missing the Chunin Exam preliminaries," Anko said. "It'll be a while before I can even see the videos and it's never as good as live."
"Oh," Sakura said, unconsciously licking her lips.
The door opened as a nurse came in with food and Sakura looked up at the sound. The door was held open as the Anbu guards checked everything, and Sakura had a clear view down the hall as the elevator opened and a bed was rolled in a mild urgency.
It was enough for her to know that the person on the bed was in serious condition, but slow enough for her to identify the person on the bed.
"Ino?" she gasped, sitting bolt upright in the bed.
Instantly, the various senior ninja were moving to control Sakura. Anko, however, looked to see what had set the girl off and caught a tail end of Ino Yamanaka being carted off toward an operating room.
"What happened to Ino?" the pink-haired girl demanded, narrowing her eyes as she was held back.
"Sakura!" Anko snapped. "Calm down, now."
Sakura stopped resisting but held herself tense and ready to move. Anko wondered if she was looking at the second spirit again...or the snake. She glanced slightly up toward the Yamanaka who shook his head quietly.
"Is she talking about my little cousin?" he added after signaling that the snake was still under control.
"Yeah," Anko said, looking toward Sakura. "I'll go check on her status, you calm down."
Sakura grimaced and shook her shoulder with a snarl before her eyebrows softened and the primary, gentler spirit came into clear control, nodding.
Anko glanced toward the Anbu and signalled for them to back off and then turned to the stricken nurse, looking down at the food that had been scattered over the floor.
"Get her another lunch," she ordered sharply before leaving.
Anko moved into the hallways toward the operating room listening for sounds of activity. She was shaking her head as she did so. There were quite a few decent medical ninja, but there were no great ones since Tsunade-sama and Shizune had left.
Pausing at the observation window of each operating room, she waited until she found the one Ino was in and looked around for a charge nurse.
"Can you give me a status on the girl in that room?" she asked, pointing toward where Ino was being worked on.
The nurse looked over and then down at his files before finding the name.
"Mitarashi-sama. Ino Yamanaka?" he said in a tone of confirmation. "Cracked ribs, skull fracture, her left hand is shattered. Prognosis from the tournament infirmary says that she'll be fit for light training in a month. There was some trauma to her right eye near the skull fracture and they working to minimize it right now."
"Did the tournament send a video of her match?" Anko asked.
"May I ask what the interest is, Mitarashi-sama?" the nurse asked.
"Sakura Haruno is a friend of hers," Anko said.
The nurse looked distinctly nervous at that mention. He must have been one of the ones that had been on duty when Sakura had woken up.
"I'm trying to keep her calm while we get a seal expert in," Anko said.
She was really hoping the restraints on Sakura would be at least less necessary when her parents were given the go ahead to visit.
"So, do you have that video?" Anko asked.
"That won't calm her down...if she's a friend," the man said.
"I'm going to watch it, not her," Anko said irritably holding out her hand.
Hesitantly the man handed over a tape and Anko snapped it up before looking around for a room to watch it in, spotting an office room further down the hall.
"Thanks," she said with a smile.
She returned the tape a few minutes later with a grim expression.
"Any word?" she asked.
"On her, no," the man said. "Hasn't been long."
Grimacing, Anko handed him back the tape and left, glancing down the hall to where more Anbu were guarding Sasuke Uchiha and nodded at them.
They'd at least been successful in keeping Sakura from knowing that he was in the hospital a few doors down.
Walking back into Sakura's room she nodded at the pink-haired girl.
"She had a bad match up," Anko said. "Almost won her fight, but made a mistake at the end and got hurt for it. It sounds like she's going to be fine, though. Be out of action a couple of weeks."
Kodachi should have probably been in a hospital, but her injuries were hardly the most severe that she'd had in the past. Her face gave clear indication of that.
Mokya sat off to the side and Kodachi could still feel the shame peeling off of her. A part of the Black Rose she normally kept asleep was making hard for her to not feel that the girl deserved it.
Which was bringing a shame to Kodachi's saner side herself.
Across from Mokya, she was reporting to a jonin with a facial scar on one side of his face. He'd said his name was Raido.
"So you know him," Raido was saying.
"Yes," Mokya said, somewhat more subdued than normal. "He's a mercenary chi-sorcerer"
"What would he be doing here?" Raido asked.
"He is a spy," Mokya said. "During the School Wars, he helped Happosai keep the various schools and clans busy with petty affairs. Until my Aunt tricked him into betraying Happosai."
She took a deep breath.
"Ten years ago," she said. "He got his revenge on my Aunt and my parents were caught along with her."
She frowned as she cast her mind back and remembered her aunt's last words as they found her battered at the feet of Kinnosuke, surrounded in rough circles of her own spilled blood.
"Bad timing," she'd said with a sigh.
And then the screams had started as a bubbling brown mist of living chi similar to Kodachi-sama's sparks washed over her aunt and parents.
If Kodachi-sama and Herb-sama had not been nearby...
She shivered.
"Mercenary, so he could be working for anyone?" Raido said in irritation.
"The rumors are true," Kinnosuke said as he ate his meal. "There is a Saotome here, a girl, about twelve years old. Black hair and glasses."
The person sitting across from him said nothing but simply ate their own meal. Though he occasionally looked up and about nervously. Clearly uncertain about dealing with the man across from him.
"Did you want me to tell my other client?" Kinnosuke asked.
"Have you already told her anything?" he asked in a weasely sort of voice.
"I doubt she even knows I'm here," the mercenary said.
"Then don't," the skinny, person eating with Kinnosuke said. "But I'm sure the Musk would be wishing to know that Kodachi is here."
"I can see if they'll hold off for whatever Orochimaru is doing," the mercenary said. "As always we'll hide our moves in the shadow of the ninja."
"Both the new Dynasty and the loyalists will come?" the contact asked.
"Definitely," Kinnosuke said. "The problem is keeping Joketsuzoku out of it. And others. Only so much confusion is useful. I'm curious as to what your interest is, but that's your business."
The Hokage frowned deeper as the second to last match escalated higher and higher. Neither Gaara nor Lee were willing to back down. More the point, he didn't think they were capable of backing down.
Unfortunately, there was no way to stop as long as either participant was capable and willing. So all he could do was watch until it ended in the predictable bloody mess.
Gaara might have even stepped it up past that into outright murder if Gai hadn't stepped in at the last minute.
He shook his head and puffed on his pipe. It seemed to be that whenever there was a large number of exceptional participants, that there was also a larger than normal amount of brutality.
The last match was one-sided and fortunately ended without any serious injury, but Sarutobi wished that another leaf could have won it regardless.
And all that left was drawing numbers for the first rounds of the finals.
"These shall be the matches for the first round of the finals," Ibiki said once the numbers had been drawn.
"Ah!" Naruto shouted. "Why do I get the only bozo in the group?"
"Bozo," Dosu said threateningly. "We shall see about that."
"Bye?" Kiba declared. "You mean I have to wait?"
Shikamaru didn't say anything, but his mouth twitched as he looked over at the blonde Sand girl who glared back at him appraisingly.
"Wai!" Ryoko declared happily. "I get to spar Uchiha-san!"
Neji and Hinata looked at each other silently across several faces. The elder Hyuga kept a cold fury on his face as he took in the nervous expression on his cousin's face.
Gaara was glaring across at the badger like man he'd stopped from killing that blonde Leaf girl. There was an uncomfortable look to the boy's face while the Valley "shinobi" seemed just bored, or perhaps he was just stupid.
It was hard to tell.
Baki grimaced irritably as the match-ups were declared. From what he could tell, there was nothing in that to reliably attract enough attention to act as a distraction for the invasion.
They'd have to wait for the second round of fights, perhaps even a second day.
Asuma watched as Shikamaru and Choji came to a stop as they came within sight of Ino's room and looked past them to see a pink-haired figure standing in the doorway.
"That'll be Sakura," he said cautiously.
"What's she doing there?" Choji wondered nervously as Shikamaru stepped forward with a grim look on his face, reaching his hands together.
"It's all right," another voice said nearby.
Asuma turned to see Anko there watching carefully. To many it wouldn't look like she was close enough to do anything, but he knew Anko. She wasn't a full jonin, but she was no slouch.
"She's been sealed," Anko explained. "At least what Orochimaru put into her has."
Asuma nodded and walked past his subordinates to move up into the doorway, catching Ino's voice as he came closer.
"We'll get you some sunglasses," Ino was saying. "It'll be fine."
Sakura leaned against the door frame without doing much more than nodding until Asuma got closer and she twisted about suddenly to give the jonin a look at her face for the first time.
He kept his face composed and friendly, but it was still something of a shock to see the slitted snake eyes with purple marks and the white scaling along the ridges of her brows closest to the bridge of her nose. Even though her skin hadn't taken on that deadly white color, it was still easy to see Orochimaru's mark stamped on her.
Across the girl's forehead was a bandage that her long pink hair had hidden from behind. The signs of a recently placed seal, probably the one that Anko had spoken of.
"Asuma-sensei!" Ino called out, waving at him and a clearly nervous expression on her face as she glanced toward Sakura.
Ino was bandaged up pretty heavily as he'd expected. There was a cast about her crushed left hand and wrappings around her head and chest. A medical patch had been placed over one eye.
"Hey, Ino," Asuma said with a smile, looking past Sakura and patting her on the back in a comradely manner. "You're Sakura, right? Why are you standing out here. Shikamaru, Choji, come on in. We don't want to take too long, Ino will need to rest soon enough."
Sakura blinked in surprise, her budding hostility set off balance as the companionable slap on the back pushed her into the room.
"Itai!" Sakura muttered as she stepped wrong onto her injured leg before reaching a chair and sitting down.
"Hey..." Anko said from where she stood down the hall. "I don't think you should..."
"Anko, come on in with us," Asuma called out. "And you two I thought I said come in."
Shikamaru and Choji exchanged a look and followed as Anko pushed herself in.
"Hey, Asuma," she said angrily. "Don't be so laid back with pushing around my student."
Inside, she was imagining a sigh of relief. If Sakura's seal was going to break on a glance, that would have been the time for it. The shaking of her head as she lectured Asuma was certainly not feigned however.
"Sakura-chan," Ino said in a bit of surprise and embarrassment. "Don't be such a bear, Asuma-sensei."
Asuma shrugged and moved toward the window, leaning against it as Anko walked in and moved closer to Sakura.
"She's fine," Asuma said. "Isn't that right?"
"I could hurt you!" Sakura protested with the odd character of mixed emotions that seemed to happen when both the free parts of her were agreeing at least on words.
"Don't worry about that," Anko said. "Asuma is a full jonin. He could likely shut you down without seriously hurting you, no matter what."
"You haven't seen me, Anko-sensei," Sakura said in a voice that was clearly her aggressive shadow spirit.
"Sakura-chan," Asuma said. "Don't be stealing time from Ino."
"Right part forward, Sakura," Anko said as if lecturing.
After a moment, the aggression started to fade back and Sakura's face took on a confused and embarrassed expression.
"Sumimasen," Sakura said, glancing up nervously as Shikamaru and Choji entered the room and sat down looking across Ino at her.
"So, that was some fight, Ino," Asuma said, turning toward his student. "You did good."
"I didn't do well enough," she muttered.
"You made an error in judgment," her jonin noted. "But, you had to take the chance regardless. I do not think you had another chance. Your taijutsu is not so strong. It's actually pretty weak."
"Tsh," Ino said bitterly. "I know that."
"But I think it's time to start addressing that," Asuma said. "If I can't count on you keeping your cool and dropping out of a bad situation, I think it's time we started training you to deal with bad situations."
"As soon as I..." Ino started to say.
"As soon as the doctors say you're ready," Asuma insisted. "And these two will be joining you."
Shikamaru broke off his watching Sakura to wince at that.
"Does that mean we're working harder?" Choji asked then, curiously.
"I know that was going to be troublesome," he said bitterly.
"You'll be training for the match coming soon anyway," Asuma noted.
"You should be happy we're going to get training," Ino snapped. "We're shinobi of the Leaf, we have to..."
She winced then and reached around her chest.
"You should stay calm, Ino," Sakura said quietly. "You don't want to stress your ribs."
"Hai, hai," she responded, but did so coolly. Then she frowned and continued speaking. "We need to get stronger."
Asuma and Anko exchanged a look and nodded.
"Anyway," Anko said. "I've only gotten to see the video of one match, what were the results?"
"There were some real surprises," Asuma said. "All of Kakashi's team won their matches. And two of Kurenai's."
"Oh, so the Hyuga girl didn't make then?" Anko said, shaking her head.
"Actually," Asuma said. "That Naruto beat Shino Aburame."
"Naruto?" Ino gasped, wincing as she did so. "Beat Shino?"
"Yeah, it was a big surprise," Choji noted, eating out of a chip bag.
"Unfortunately," Asuma noted. "Gai and I only had one victorious student each. Lee's in the operating room now."
"Ehh, Choji, you lost too?" Ino asked sharply.
"Okay," a nurse said as they came in the room. "That should be enough for..."
Her eyes fell on Sakura-chan and she stepped back nervously.
Sakura grimaced, her eyes taking on a hard cast as she stood up sharply.
"Sounds like visiting hours are over," she said before walking out of the room, her limp less noticeable.
The nurse virtually leaped out of the way as Sakura came to the door. Anko walked out herself, close behind her new student.
Ino wanted to say something then, but not in front of everybody else. And merely watched her old friend and rival limp out of the room.
Anko cursed as she was slowed in following Sakura, and the pink haired girl got out of her sight.
Sakura was still feeling unusually aggressive as she returned the nervous looks from the medics and nurses that had, until now been helping her in her medical training. She gave them hard edged glares, but she didn't feel that rising urge to kill that had been driving her through the forest.
Finally, she came to a hallway and leaned against the wall, letting her injured leg rest slightly. The aggression didn't really fade, but sort of drifted to the back of her head as other emotions came forward.
She thought back to the conversation with her parents, the Hokage and Anko looking on and explaining things.
"Do you know how much you've embarrassed us?" her father had demanded harshly when he'd finally said anything. "I can't believe this from you. Stealing scrolls and infiltrating the Chunin Exam with enemies of the Village! We raised you better than that."
"Dear, please," her mother had said before looking back at Sakura. "We're just glad you're okay, dear."
Her mother had moved to hug her and then stopped on meeting Sakura's eyes. Taking a deeper breath, she finished hugging Sakura then, but it still felt hesitant and uncertain to Sakura.
"I'm not okay," she'd said quietly, drawing a flinch from her mother. "And you know it. You're shaking like a leaf and barely holding me."
"Sakura-chan," her mother said, stepping back. "We're...I'm just..."
Sakura's gentleness had already been fading away, but then the aggressive part of her pushed forward and she gave her parents a hard glare.
"Your daughter will be in the care of Anko Mitarashi here," the Hokage said, stepping in before anything else could be said. "And we think it is best that Sakura take up residence with her for the time being."
Anko had reacted then with surprise.
"My place?" she responded. "I don't have eno..."
"You're being allocated a larger place," the Hokage noted with a laugh. "It is only for near future. I assume Sakura will prove herself capable of deciding her own living quarters soon enough. I assume that will be fine with you?"
"That will be," her father accepted as her mother wrung her hands.
Sakura wanted to ask her parents something else, something less hostile, but the words were swallowed in the back of her mind. Instead she merely turned her head away and sat back on her bed.
Anko laid a hand on Sakura's shoulder as she found the girl and sighed.
"Let's go back to your room," she said. "You have one more night observation. Tomorrow you're in my...new place. We'll both have to get used to it."
Sakura nodded and sighed as she straightened and started to walk with Anko, her limp more pronounced.
"That Ino's a good friend," Anko noted.
"She's a rival, not a friend," Sakura said.
"You can be both," the hot-blooded woman said, patting Sakura on the back.
"Of all the foolish things," a white-haired old man declared before downing a small shot glass.
"It can't be helped," the woman sitting across from him said smiling broadly as she devoured her food with gusto. "It is who I am."
The old man wore green robes with a red vest and a horned forehead proctor wrapped about his forehead under his hair. Two red lines worked down from his eyes to his jawline. He had to have been in his fifties despite an economy of motion and vibrancy of life that belonged to a much young man.
The woman was in her early thirties and dressed in pink fighting robes. Her short brown hair was decorated with an intricate red ribbon. She had a smooth look to her face and skin that, combined with her short stature, made her seem younger than she was. A white and blue dress and blouse outfit was folded off to the side of her seat at the table.
Both of the two were covered with an impressive number of minor bruises and cuts. In places, there was slightly burned flesh as well. And their outfits on both sides could have used a day or two of constant laundry.
"Who does things like that anymore these days," the old man asked, shaking his head.
"As if I could allow such an august personage as Jiraiya of the legendary Sannin to cross my path without testing my strength," the woman said. "Besides you agreed."
"I was thinking you were talking about another sort of test of ability," Jiraiya said with a brief flush.
"I am Kurumi Tendo of the Redeemed School of Martial Arts," the woman declared. "The Wandering Master of the Chikara virtue. I challenge you to a match of strength, skill and stamina."
She sat back down and went back to eating.
"That sounded like a come on to you?" she asked.
"Well..." Jiraiya said with a playful smirk.
"Hmm, pervert," the other woman said. "Where are you going from here."
"Why, I wander the wind," he said cheerfully. "Researching my books and seeing the world. Where are you going, are you looking for more fights?"
"Of course, of course," Kurumi said, she paused in her eating and raised a small cup of sake. "And next time I find you, I'll win."
"Hmph," he said. "I'd have to say you have a way to go for that."
"Of course," she said. "Otherwise it wouldn't be fun!"
Both raised a cup and clinked them together with a cry of Kampai.
Jiraiya looked east and thought that he'd be in Konoha within a few hours to report to the old man.
Meanwhile, Kurumi looked west and wondered why Musk had been seen this far east of the valley.