"We are being followed."

The muted browns and greens of the forest blur around us as we sprint forward at top speed. The wind screams in my ears. I scowl.

"We can make it to the finish line before they catch up."

I squint through the haze of wildlife into the distance for the hundredth time in the last five minutes, searching for the end of the task. The northern end of the forest, they said. It can't be much farther, can it? We've already covered so much ground.

"… We do not know where the finish line is."

"Shut up Samui, we can do this."

It's been a few hours since we grabbed our Honor scroll and started running, and about ten minutes since I first noticed the shinobi pursuing us. Going on my brief bird's eye view of the forest and stopping for minimal breaks, we've covered a respectable distance. I had even begun to hope that we'd gotten out of the danger zone that I'd created with the unintended backlash of the Great Breakthrough.

Samui figured it out the same time as I did, glancing up and to the left of us at one of the pursuers with a narrowed gaze, but up until now she had kept quiet while I desperately searched for a sign that we were at least close to the end. Just waiting to see if the big dumb Konoha genin could pick up on it by himself, I bet.

Fortune is not shining on me today, though. There's still no signs of the finish line, which might be because I don't know what the finish line even is, and the enemy genin are gaining on us. God, but we're so close. We got the other scroll, we agreed not to kill each other, and I proved that I'm not useless in combat like Samui thought I was.

Is it too much to ask that we finish this stupid task on a good note? Like not being maimed. Or killed.

"They're going to catch us in the next five minutes, if that," Samui says.

"I love your optimism, Samui," I growl, bouncing off a tree branch and twisting in midair to fit through two tangled ones up ahead. I guess there's no helping it. We're going to have to figure something out, depending on how many genin are following us. Joy.

"I would be more optimistic of our chance of escape if you knew the Body Flicker," My partner replies, the disdain practically dripping from her mouth. Man do I hate being looked down on.

I open my mouth to issue a witty and/or scathing retort, but find myself dodging to the side instead as a shinobi lands in front of me. I ram into a different tree, grabbing hold of a branch and hanging. I watch as Samui is forced to veer off as well when another shinobi blocks her path, followed by another shinobi, and another, and another.

I crane my head around, counting out the genin one by one and trying not to cry.

Six. Six genin. We are so unbelievably fucked.

"Well, well, well," The genin that cut me off drawls. He's sporting close cropped brown hair and dark blue eyes, and he's decked out in red shinobi gear with the Iwa headband to match. He grins at me, and it definitely isn't a nice grin. "Looks like we lucked out. Five days to spare and we already found one of the Konoha brats."

I look around again, counting headbands this time. Six Iwa nin. Even better.

"Which scrolls do you need?" Samui suddenly asks from her spot on a tree branch, surrounded by enemy genin. When Blue Eyes doesn't answer, opting to bore holes in my head with said eyes, she continues. "We have several extras that we can give to you without resorting to-"

"Quiet. I'll get to you and your tits in a second, Kumo girl," Blue Eyes says, waving her off. "First there are some things that need to be settled between us and your partner over here."

"What things?" I ask, starting up a loop for another Great Breakthrough. If I time it just right I should be able to hit at least four of them, which might be enough of an opening for us to get the hell out of here. As long as I can stall him with an explanation. Please let me stall him with an explanation.

"The headband you're wearing, and your face." His grin becomes downright vicious. "The Yondaime Hokage killed all of our parents, you see, and you look kind of like him. So I think we're going to do a little venting on you, if that's cool."

Then without another word he lunges at me.

I immediately let go of the branch, falling down towards the ground a painful distance below, focusing on the loop in my throat. I won't be able to hit four of them now, but if I'm smart about it I might still be able to nail three. Two at least.

A different shinobi slams into me, knocking me into a tree and disrupting the loop. My eyes fly wide open in panic and I hurriedly eject it from my mouth with a serpent seal. Not a second after it flies out of my mouth it explodes, hitting me right in the face and sending me spiraling away from the tree I just got thrown against.

I howl. "I hate Iwa nin!"

I land on the ground in a tangle of limbs and pain. I grit my teeth, bracing myself against the earth and pushing off, spinning away right before Blue Eyes drops down on the spot with a brutal leg drop. I pull my tanto free, bringing it up to block as the other genin descends on me with some sort of staff in his hands.

I hop back after a brief clash, mind racing. I need to find a way to get off a Great Breakthrough and take these two out, and fast. Samui isn't going to last long against those other four shinobi.

Blue Eyes allows me to make some distance and then begins to form hand seals. I tense up, ready to dodge for all I'm worth, but instead of spikes or pillars or anything like that the ground beneath his begins to rumble. Two hands reach out of the ground on either side of him, followed by two more hands, and finally two more Blue Eyes pulls themselves out of the dirt.

Mud clones. Really, really durable, and really, really stupid. I can work with that.

All three Blue Eyes rush forward as one, with the other genin close behind. I hold my tanto out in front of me and breathe deep, Hatake's voice echoing in my head.

The purpose of this kenjutsu style is almost identical to your taijutsu style. Dodge, deflect, and keep away. Anything to keep your opponents from touching you. And in turn, pull, attract, and draw towards. Anything to throw your opponent off balance and bring you within striking distance. There are no dances for this fighting style. It is not elegant. It's purpose is plain and simple:

To avoid as much damage as possible while dealing dirty damage.

Blue Eyes himself is the first to reach me, as his clones are slower than him by their elemental nature and the other guy is plain slower. He wails on me with a kunai in each hand, doing his best to smack my sword right out of my hands. Each of his strikes glances off my blade, and I allow him to push me back step by step as I deflect the blows.

The other genin arrives next, staff in hand, and I find myself spinning and ejecting wind chakra from near every tenketsu in my efforts to keep both weapons away. Then the earth clones enter the fray, and it becomes straight chaotic.

I feel shallow cuts being opening up on my arms and torso from the three Blue Eyes and their kunai, along with bruises forming where the other genin whacks me with his staff.

I'm beginning to see doubles from all the spinning when I spot an opportunity, and lunge for it.

One of the earth clones tries to grab me up in a bear hug and I juke around it before it has time to register what happened. Blue Eyes and the other mud clone converge on me in a pincer attack and after a split second of doubt I dodge away from Blue Eyes, taking the kunai from the mud clone in my right thigh. Seething pain erupts from the wound, and I almost stumble.

The genin with the staff staggers back, shouting in alarm as I sprint towards him. He raises his staff and I swing as hard as I can at it, knocking it clean out of his hands with a burst of wind. Then I twist, spin, and slash my tanto across his throat.

He drops like a sack of bricks, and outrage appears in Blue Eyes' blue eyes. The Iwa genin snarls, flashing through seals again and slamming his foot into the ground, prompting two more earth clones to claw their way out of the ground. I take a step back on my good leg, yanking his kunai out of the other and wondering if that gambit was even worth it. Blue Eyes charges forward with his gang of clones not far behind, hurling all sorts of Konoha-themed obscenities at me.

Yeah, I probably should have gone for this guy instead.

As soon as we clash again it becomes painfully clear that I'm not going to be able to dodge for long with my injured leg. I can still fight on it, thank god, but it's losing blood fast and getting more and more agonizing to put weight on by the second. I duck under a lethargic slash from one of the earth clones and juke aside from another's axe kick. If only the original were as slow as these guys.

Said original throws a haymaker at me which I'm forced to dodge rather than block, as a moment later I bring my tanto to bear on a mud clone wielding a kunai two-handed. I blow the kunai back with a pressure burst, spin, and bury my sword into its head. The original wastes no time getting back into my face, along with two of the other clones, and I retreat back.

The clone I stabbed in the head jerks sideways, and my tanto is torn from my grip.

I cry out in frustration, dodging around the last clone's flanking attack and kicking it in the chest hard enough to shatter the ribs of a normal human being. The clone doesn't even move. I dive and roll away from its counter, furiously running through the possible outcomes of this fight while my leg gushes blood, the clone I should have killed advances on me with my sword stuck in its head, and time ticks on for Samui and the other four genin up in the trees.

I come to the conclusion that if I don't take out my original opponent right now before he has time to make more clones, we're dead.

With that in mind I smack a punch from Blue Eyes aside and prepare to start another loop. It's going to be difficult to keep stable while I'm dancing around, and I can guarantee that I'm going to cut my throat up at least once, but if I'm very, very careful, I might be able to take advantage of the reduced speed of his clones long enough to get a Great Breakthrough off. Either way, I don't have much choice in the matter. I draw my chakra up to my throat.

Another Iwa genin comes flying out of the treetops, and what little hope I had dies in my throat along with the loop. He lands in a heavy crouch beside Blue Eyes, and now that I get a good look at him I realize he's injured. He stays in his crouch for a second, panting, and shoves a lock of black hair dampened by blood out of his eyes.

"Kenchi?" Blue Eyes asks, taking his attention off of me to crouch down next to his teammate. His clones, however, suffer no such concern. I weave through their attacks, starting my loop back up with a vengeance. Take your time, Blue Eyes. I'll take care of these clones for you.

"We need to go," Kenchi gasps, getting to his feet with Blue Eyes' help.

"Are you insane?" Blue Eyes jabs a finger at me. "We can't leave without destroying this little prick first. He killed Hibiki for fuck sake!"

"Forget him," Kenchi snaps, shaking the supporting hand from his shoulder. "We need to go, Riku, before-" Whatever he's about to say is cut short as a shadow falls over him. I sidestep a clone tackle, look up, and almost lose control of my loop.

Samui rockets through the air like a Bijuu out of hell, tanto held high above her head and trailing blood. Kenchi shoves Riku aside, running away in an entirely different direction from me and his teammate. Too little, too late, it turns out. Samui crashes down on his back, sending him to the ground, and runs her blade through his neck. He jerks once and lays still.

Riku stumbles back, shock and the slightest bit of fear playing across his face, before it's all consumed by rage. "You fucking cunt!" He roars, forming the hand seals and stamping his foot and bringing four more clones into existence. "You're dead! Dead!"

I clench my teeth, dancing between the four clones set on me and willing the half formed loop of chakra to form faster as Riku descends on my partner. Come on, come on. Samui can't kill those clones with her sword. I need to take that guy out now.

Then Samui moves forward to meet him, and I realize that maybe our situation isn't so dire after all.

It's the first time I've seen my partner fight- the first time I get to see firsthand what she can do with that sword of hers. And as she clashes with the Iwa genin and his clones I quickly come to another realization. Samui is strong. Really, really strong. She moves from one clone to another, sending mud flying with every swing of her sword. The clones don't fall, despite the cuts to their throats and the lost limbs, but they don't come close to touching her.

Where my attacks are sporadic and often thought up on the spot, she flows through her blows like she's fought this fight a hundred times already. Every motion is smooth and assured, the tanto moving like it's an extension of her body. She clashes with the real Riku and immediately puts him on the back foot, expression steady and movements assured.

A grin pulls at my lips as the loop screeches inside my throat. Maybe we're not so screwed after all.

I duck beneath a kick, jump back from a hail of shuriken, and find all four of my opponents laid out in front of me. I clap my hands together, and the loop flies up into my mouth. Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!

The jutsu howls out of my mouth, ripping all four clones from the earth and sending them airborne. One by one they splatter against the massive trees of the forest, becoming little more than smears of mud against the bark. The force of the jutsu sends me skidding back, and I drink in the air around me greedily when it dissipates.

Four down, five to go. Now where did my sword go?

Samui breaks off from her attack on the original Riku as the clone whose hand she severed comes barreling at her, its hand whole once more and holding a kunai. She starts up another dance, cutting necks and dismembering limbs as she whips herself into another kenjutsu frenzy. Riku jumps back from the fight, the fear warring with the anger on his face as my partner picks apart his clones.

Then one of the clones moves into the path of her blade, allowing it to cut through into its chest until it stops halfway through. Samui pulls on the tanto, but it sticks fast in the clone's earthen chest. A clone races towards her and she jumps back, leaving her weapon, but the chakra construct doesn't stop. It slams into the side of the hilt, and for a single moment is stopped cold.

The groan of shifting metal fills the air, and the tanto snaps in two.

Riku laughs. "That's what happens when you fight with garbage." He begins to form hand seals again. "Let's see how long you can hold out without your sword, you-"

"Hey."

The Iwa nin goes rigid, breaking off his chain of hand seals and reaching for his weapons pouch. I take a step forward and shove my sword into his back.

A strangled grunt pierces the sudden silence, and all four of the remaining earth clones freeze. Riku looks down at the tip of the blade poking out of his chest in shock, the kunai he just pulled out slipping out of his nerveless fingers. I place a hand against his back and give him a gentle push. He slides off my blade with a faint noise of pain and falls to the ground in a boneless heap.

The clones collapse back into mud as one, and I sigh in relief. "That… could have gone a lot better." I flick my tanto, sending the mud from the clones and the blood from the shinobi splattering against the ground, and slide it back into my sheath. I crouch down, feeling my stab wound pulsate in displeasure, and rummage through the enemy genin's pockets. Another Honor scroll.

I settle down into a sitting position with my good leg tucked under me and set to wrapping up my stabbed one. When I'm sure the bandage isn't going to fall off or get bled through, I shove the roll back in my pocket and brace myself to stand. I glance over at Riku, eyes staring up at the trees sightlessly, and hesitate.

I reach forward and slide his eyelids shut.

"So, you took down all four of those other guys, huh?" I ask, staggering to my feet. I turn away from the Iwa genin's corpse. "I think that makes us even. Six to six…" I trail off, blinking at my partner.

She's kneeling by one of the dispelled earth clones, cradling the hilt half of her broken sword. The cool expression that I've begun to associate with her is gone. She looks… lost? Or if not lost, stunned. I inch towards her.

"Samui? You alright?"

She closes her eyes, clutching the hilt. "No."

I pause, feeling awkward all of the sudden. "Was that, uh, an heirloom?"

"No. It was a standard issue." She sighs softly and places the broken blade on the ground.

"Oh. That's not too bad, then."

"It's not the sentimental value of it," she says. I'm not sure I believe her. "I…"

"Yeah?" I prod when she falls silent, conflicted.

She shrugs. "I guess it doesn't matter if I tell you at this point. I can't fight without my tanto."

"Wait, really?" I ask. "Not at all?"

"I can still fight with the other arts," she says, rolling her eyes. "But not well enough to compete. Kenjutsu has always been my specialty."

"So you're screwed for the other tasks," I say. She nods.

"And this one, if we run into anyone else."

The weight of the tanto on my back suddenly becomes staggering.

Tell her she's out of luck. Do it, Uzumaki. Tell her you'll do the rest of the fighting from here. No, stop reaching for that sheath. Drop your hand. What are you even doing.

"Here," I grunt. Samui looks up at me and the sheath held in my outstretched hand. Surprise dances across her cool blue eyes.

"What?"

"Take it. It's the same make as yours, right?" I ask, shaking it.

She glances from me to the sword and back again. "What about you?"

"My fighting style doesn't revolve around Kenjutsu," I say. "You can give it back when the exams are done." She reaches out, but hesitates halfway there. I beat back a groan. Just put me out of my misery already.

"Why would you do this?" She asks, voice quiet.

"Because we're teammates," I say, and despite my internal lament I smile. "And I don't know how it is in Kumo, but where I come from that means something."

She looks away, breaking eye contact, focusing on her broken sword. A long silence stretches between us, during which I try and fail to get a bead on what she's thinking. I'm considering putting the sheath back on and dropping the whole thing when her shoulders fall, a tension that I hadn't noticed was there melting out of the Kumo kunoichi.

She looks back at me, and there's a little smile on her lips. She reaches out and takes the sheath. "Thank you."

"No problem." That's… a really nice smile.

She pulls the tanto from its sheath, and blinks in surprise. She drops the sheath and stands up, swinging and jabbing the sort sword a few times. She goes through a quick kata, and when she's finished she's looking at the sword like it's a jumbo bowl of Ichiraku's.

She locks eyes with me. "Where did you get this?"

This time I'm the one to look away. When did the Land of Iron get so hot? "I, uh, snagged it off an ANBU and killed him with it."

Her lips part. "Cool."

"So, what are your teammates like?" I ask, taking a bite out of my fish.

It's been two days since we got ambushed by those Iwa teams. After we looted them all for their scrolls, leaving us with three complete pairs and a bunch of extra Loyalties, we took off north and made sure that we weren't followed again. We didn't cover much ground that day, since we were focusing on stealth over speed, but it paid off in the end. We haven't seen another team since then. And even though I was horrendously off the mark when we were fleeing from those Iwa nin, I'm pretty confident in saying that we're getting close to the finish line now.

That night I had been surprised to find Samui already preparing to go to sleep when I came back from taking a leak. She didn't even bring up the first watch, and when I roused her a few hours later and went to sleep myself, she woke me up with a prod to the shoulder instead of a tanto to the chest. It was nice.

These last couple days have been nice, aside from the giant animals which do in fact live here, and the deadline. The two of us have started to act less like enemy shinobi waiting to stab one another in the back, and more like partners.

"My teammates?" Said partner asks, pausing in the twirling of her own fish over the little campfire.

"Yeah, you know. How long have you been on a team with them, what's their favorite flavor of ramen, that sort of thing." I snicker. "I'm not asking you for a brief on them as shinobi or anything."

"Ah." She nods, turning back to her fish. "They're really odd. Omoi is like a conspiracy theorist, only less reasonable. You can't do anything around him without him twisting it into some grand tragedy. You can't even be around him, period." Her eye twitches. "He once told me that I was going to get him killed someday because I had large breasts."

"That's awesome." I grin, taking another bite out of my not-rations meal and puzzling over the familiar ring to the name. Where have I heard that before? "How did he justify that?"

"I'd rather not say," she says. "My other teammate, Karui, isn't as paranoid as him, but she's just as unstable. She's got a very short temper that Omoi can't seem to avoid setting off, so she's always beating on him when they're together. I've been with those two for a year and a half now." The fleeting memory of a red-headed beating on a boy with a toothpick in his mouth reaffirms itself in my mind, and I snap my fingers.

"I know those two! That Omoi guy kind of stood up for us in this weird roundabout way back in the spire."

"So you were the Konoha team they were talking about," she says, and I hum in agreement, taking another bite. She finally takes her fish off the fire and raises a dainty blonde eyebrow at me. "What about your teammates?"

"They're not as crazy as yours. Or maybe they are, but I love 'em anyway, you know?" I chuckle, scratching the back of my head. "Sasuke is the silent, mysterious member of the team. Likes to grunt and brood about stuff a lot. He's cool once you get to know him, though.

"Sakura is quiet too, but she's just shy. She's super smart and has a level head, which is nice because Sasuke and I are stupid reckless." I swallow the last of my fish and toss the stick aside, looking up at the sunset-tinted sky fondly. "I've been with them for around three months now."

"They weren't lying about that, either," Samui murmurs. "And yet your sensei still nominated you?"

I shrug. "We make a good team, and we're not half bad as individual fighters either. Plus, our sensei is a little… eccentric. Or psychotic. I think he just sees this as another opportunity to see us suffer more than anything."

"Yours too?" She asks. "Our sensei can't even talk like a normal human being. He has to turn everything he says into a rap."

I tear my eyes from the sky, giving her a confused look. "What's a rap?"

"It's a type of music. That's what he tells us, anyway. All I know is that he always rhymes his sentences even if what he's saying doesn't make any sense. He does it with with everyone, too, not just us. Whenever we get back from a mission he tries to rope Raikage-sama into a 'rap battle' while we debrief. It's mortifying."

"That's awesome!" I laugh, picturing Hatake challenging the old man to a rap battle. "I wish our sensei had a quirk like that. All he does is read porn in public sometimes."

"Don't even go there. Our sensei-" She pauses, stiffening. "Did you hear that?"

I shake my head, brow furrowed, and listen. For a long moment I can only hear the muted sounds of the forest around us, and I open my mouth to tell her so when it hits me. The distant sound of metal on metal. Another fight.

I narrow my eyes after another few seconds of silence. "Is it getting closer?"

Samui digs the stick holding her fish into the ground and stands up. She stretches, jutting her chest out, and throws me an amused smirk when she notices my expression. "Let's take a look."

We take to the treetops, climbing branches until we're up high enough to see most of the tree line while not giving ourselves away. The sun continues its steady descent above us, throwing shadows across our vision, but we manage to spot the mobile battle anyway. It's hard to miss.

They're all little more than specks on the horizon right now, but there's a clear divide between the warring factions. Two genin are running in our direction, trading kunai and shuriken but avoiding direct combat. And just behind them, a mob of nearly two dozen shinobi are pursuing them with extreme prejudice.

I whistle, watching as one of the genin being pursued spins around and hurls a ball of fire at the mob. It doesn't look like it hits any of them. "Wow. Those two are screwed. That's a ton of guys chasing them."

Samui's eyes narrow. "I think that's the Kumo contingent," she says.

"What makes you say that?" I ask, shoving down the sudden nervousness in my gut. We're teammates now. She's done trying to kill me. Teammates.

"Part of our plan was to join together whenever we found ally pairs, so that we could crush individual teams and gather scrolls for each other. Similar to what those Iwa nin that ambushed us were doing, but on a larger scale." She waves a hand at the fight. "That scale."

"That's pretty smart." I watch the group hammer on the fleeing team. "Brutal, though."

"As if that means anything in an exam for shinobi," Samui says, and I tilt my head in acknowledgement.

"Point. So are we going to stick around here and hope they don't notice us, or leave them to it?"

"The latter," she says, and my nerves ease. "I don't think they'll notice us if we're on ground level. We'll let them pass and move on in the morning."

"Sounds good." I push off the trunk I've been leaning against while Samui drops down to a branch below, throwing one last glance up at the fight before I do the same.

A flash of pink catches my eye, and my heart stops. Oh no. No, no, no.

"Naruto?" Samui calls up, but I don't quite register it. I hop up and latch onto a higher branch, swinging myself up.

"That can't be," I mutter. "There's no way."

"What is it?" Samui asks, appearing beside me. "We can't stay here. They're going to be on us in a minute, if that." I wave her off, squinting.

I zero in on one of the two genin running away. Pink hair and a dark green battle dress beneath her cloak. And for the shinobi running alongside her, a similar cloak and a dark blue shirt underneath it, along with a head of spiked black hair. My fists clench. Son of a bitch.

"Those are my teammates," I say between grit teeth. Samui sighs.

"I'm sorry, Naruto-"

"I have to help them."

She looks at me in alarm. "You can't be serious."

One of the Kumo nin lobs a raiton jutsu at Sakura, which Sasuke just manages to dispel with another Great Fireball. I scowl. "I'm dead serious. They're not going to make it if I don't help."

"They aren't going to make it if you do help," she retorts. "There are far too many of them for you to defeat."

"I don't have to defeat them." Sakura lets loose a flurry of kunai tagged with exploding notes, only for them to be drenched in a quick suiton jutsu from one of the pursuers. "I just have to distract them long enough for my teammates to get away."

"And me?" Samui asks. "Am I supposed to risk my life for a couple genin I've never met before?"

I sigh. "No. I'll go by myself, and later on you can join up with them and say you got rid of your partner like you planned." I crouch, preparing to jump and begin another Great Breakthrough to hopefully scatter the Kumo nin, when Samui grabs my hand.

"What?" I snap, shaking off her hand. "Is that not good enough for you? I don't have time for this, they're going to be here any second!"

"Do you really think you can stall them long enough for your teammates to get away?"

"Yes." I have to.

Samui purses her lips. "Okay." She reaches up and slides my tanto out of its sheath, and exhales slowly. "I'm under a genjutsu, correct?"

Amidst the sea of tension, a part of me relaxes. "Thanks, Samui."

"You'll be welcome when we're through this task," she says, voice dry. "And don't think I'll be doing any lasting damage to my own allies. I'll give them a distraction, and that's all." And with that said she leaps up to the top of the tree line.

"Hang on, guys," I whisper, starting up a new loop and ignoring the unpleasant tingle in my gut. "We're coming."

At this point Sakura and Sasuke are clearly visible amidst the trees and enemy shinobi. One of Sasuke's arms is held up against his chest, soaked in blood, and Sakura's movements are tinged with the jerkiness inherent to raiton muscle damage. Every couple seconds one of them spins around to hurl some sort of attack at the mob behind them, which never seems to connect but at least keeps the foreign genin from catching them outright.

Taunts from their pursuers fill the air, and Sasuke spins around mid-jump and spews a round of tiny fireballs at them. Their formation breaks apart to dodge, but the fireballs suddenly all veer off into different directions, striking at least five shinobi and knocking them right out of the air.

A howl of protest goes up from the crowd, and Sasuke stumbles as he turns back around and lands on another branch. Sakura is there in the next instant, shoving herself underneath his good arm and kicking the both of them off again. The pace is slower now, though, and the foreign genin race forward to capitalize on it.

I land on a branch between them and clap my hands together.

The Great Breakthrough knocks almost a dozen of them off their feet, sending them careening backwards into the forest. Several manage to avoid the worst of it, but their focus is now on me. I rock back on my feet as the jutsu dies down, panting and craning my head to make sure none of them broke off to continue the chase.

"Naruto!?"

I turn on my heel and see Sakura and Sasuke stopped not even a hundred yards away, and my heart jumps up into my throat.

"Go!" I shout, jabbing my finger north. "We've got this!"

"What about you?" Sakura cries. As if on cue one of the shinobi that avoided my jutsu breaks out of their confusion and lunges at me, sword poised to stab me through the heart.

Samui bursts out of a dense tangle of branches to my right and slams a kick into kick into the side of his head, sending him plummeting to the ground below. I jab at my teammates harder. "Don't worry about me! I'll be fine!" Sakura hesitates, but I see Sasuke pull on her and turn them around. They take off towards the finish line once more, and my heart starts beating again.

I turn back around to meet the enemy, just in time to get a full body tackle to the ribs.

I gasp, my breath leaving me all at once, and find myself in freefall. I thrash against the unyielding arms wrapped around my torso, squeezing so hard that I wouldn't even be able to breathe if I hadn't gotten the wind knocked out of me. A loud thud echoes in my ears and pain erupts in my back as I'm rammed into something hard and unforgiving, following by a crack and more freefall.

I snarl through the rushing wind and sink my teeth into my attacker's shoulder. He grunts in pain, letting one arm go to grab me by the hair and yank me away. It's enough. Right when he tears me off I swing my freed arm around and sink my fist into his solar plexus, detonating an extra strong pressure burst of wind.

His hand falls from my head and his other arm goes limp around me. I twist around, planting my feet against his chest and kicking off. The forest swims around me as I reach out for some sort of purchase, and I shove as much wind as I can beneath me to slow my fall down.

I catch upon a branch, and despite my slowed momentum it still bends and groans and almost breaks beneath me. It holds, though, and I let myself hang on it with one hand while I regain my bearings.

A dull thud prompts me to look down, and I see the genin that had tackled me crumpled on the forest floor. The forest floor which really isn't that far down from here.

"Cut it a little closer, why don't you," I grunt, heaving myself up onto the branch. I look up, listening for the sounds of fighting through the pounding of my heart, and am treated to the screech of metal on metal and someone shouting the name of a jutsu. "Alright, let's try this again. The smart way this time."

Luckily for me the trees are packed tight together in this area of the forest, so it's easy to cut off my chakra and ascend civilian style. I make sure to stick to the thick patches of leaves as I go, which saves me twice when stragglers from the group pass me by, no doubt looking for me and their teammate. I'm around halfway back up when the sounds of conflict cease altogether. I come very, very close to just putting on the wind and saying to hell with stealth, but manage to keep myself in check. I don't have to worry about them killing Samui. I can take this slow.

I make it back to the top, hidden amidst the leaves, and realize that I shouldn't have taken this slow at all.

A good fifty yards away from me Samui kneels on one of the larger branches, surrounded by a dozen genin. Their backs are turned to me for the most part, as all their attention is on my partner. Despite the fact that I can't see their headbands, though, it's easy to tell which ones are Kumo nin and which ones aren't. It looks like there are at least three Iwa nin tagging along with this group. Awesome.

A Kumo nin stands in front of Samui, partially obscuring her from view, who I recognize as the prick that was taunting us back at the spire. He doesn't look smug right now, though. He looks furious.

"-the hell are you doing, Samui!?" He shouts. "Did you forget what we're supposed to be doing here? Or are you just insane?" Samui doesn't say a word, head bowed, and one of the Iwa nin makes a sharp motion from the branch she's standing on.

"Kill her," she says coldly. I tense up and start another loop, even though I have no idea how I'm going to get it off without hitting my partner in the process. But the Kumo nin, Isamu, raises a hand up at her and I let it subside.

"This isn't like her," he says. "I don't know what's up with her right now, but she isn't in her right mind."

"She killed two of my comrades," The Iwa kunoichi hisses.

"She attacked us, too."

"Not to kill."

"Look," Isamu says in irritation. "We're not fucking killing her. Her sensei would pop my head like a grape and the Raikage would make it look like an accident." The other Kumo genin nod along. "So drop it. She's not going anywhere with that leg- we'll keep her with us until she either comes to her senses or we finish this stupid task. Got it?"

The two foreign nin glare at each other, both unwilling to concede. Then another two Kumo nin appear from below and breaks the standoff.

"The kid from Konoha killed Goro," One says, and genin from Iwa curse.

"Did you take care of him?" Isamu asks, and the other one shakes her head.

"We couldn't find him."

"Slippery motherfucker," he growls. He turns on my partner. "Hear that, Samui? That little prick you were fighting for ran away. Is he still worth attacking your own comrades for?" Samui finally looks up at that, doubt warring with the mask of neutrality she's wearing. Her eyes flicker up at Isamu, the shinobi around her, and the forest beyond.

Then they freeze, locked on me. I raise a finger to my lips, and she closes her eyes, letting her head bow again.

Isamu snorts in disgust. "Whatever. Maybe your teammates will know what to do with you." With that said he reaches down and hauls her up and over his shoulder, causing her to gasp in pain and revealing the spear run clean through her right leg. "Let's go. We can take care of Konoha in the next task."

The Iwa kunoichi looks like she's about to object, but one of the other Iwa nin places a hand on her shoulder and shakes his head. She scowls, shakes it off, but falls in line with the rest of the group nonetheless.

The group takes off, and I follow just close enough to keep them in my sight, wondering just what in the world I'm going to do.