So yeah, I was MIA for two weeks, but to make up for it I have a longer than normal action-packed chapter for you!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Aoi looked around the forest suspiciously. He could have sworn he'd felt the presence of the girl's chakra.

"Spread out and search for them!" he ordered his teams, "I know they're near."

Immediately the two squads of ninja split up and began searching the immediate area. Even Aoi himself went looking around the heavily forested area.

Kimiko looked down on the scene below them. She knew something had to be done, but what? If one of them got hurt again, they'd probably never make it back to Konoha, so avoiding conflict looked like the better choice, but with the Rain-ninja so close, it would nearly be impossible to get away safely.

She felt Itachi lightly tap her shoulder and turned to face him.

"These ninja are after you, so it's your call," he signed, "We can try to get away now while they still don't know where we are, or we could use that to our advantage and end this now. What do you want to do?"

There was a moment of silence, then, "Let's do this," she breathed.

Itachi heard two ninja rustling through the foliage beneath him.

Silently he dropped down out of the tree, and before either ninja knew what had happened, they were on the ground dead; each with a kunai in his chest.

Just as quickly as he had come, Itachi had disappeared back into the shadows of the forest. They had decided that Itachi would take out as many ninja as he could while Kimiko went after Aoi. Though he didn't like the idea of them splitting up for no matter how short the amount of time was, he knew that it was better that there were fewer enemies to deal with once their presence was made known.

Kimiko had finally found Aoi alone, and was about to attack him, when he turned to face her with the Blade of the Thunder Spirit already drawn. His eyes were wide with bloodlust.

"Did you really think you could sneak up on me?" he asked, "I've memorized your chakra signature, no matter how hard you try to hide, I'll find you again."

"I'm not hiding anymore," said Kimiko in a low voice, "I'm here to end this."

Aoi let out a long shrill whistle then laughed, "Please! Even if Rinji and his bats are gone, I'll still win! You're Crystal Jutsu is still weak against my Blade of the Thunder Spirit. Oh, and by the way, that whistle? It was to alert my teams of your arrival. They're probably ambushing that Uchiha boy as we speak.

Suddenly, Kimiko felt a surge of panic rush through her that was quickly replaced by a surge of anger.

A crystal blade materialized in her hand and she lunged at Aoi.

Itachi had just found two more Rain-ninja when a shrill whistle was heart throughout the forest coming from the direction Kimiko went in.

As soon as his mind started wandering, he focused again. Now was not the time to be worried about someone who was perfectly capable of handling herself. He needed to be alert id they wanted to get through this.

He heard yelling coming from where he had left the bodies lying on the forest floor. Now that the ninja were all together, he might as well show himself.

Aoi jumped away from Kimiko and drew the umbrella from his back. He opened it and spun it in the air.

As hundreds of poisoned senbon rained down on her, unable to escape Kimiko raised her hands to shield her face. Aoi smirked, "That was too easy." As the dust settled, his smirk turned into a scowl.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," taunted Kimiko. As she looked up at Aoi, he could see a shiny layer of crystal covering her body from head to toe.

Aoi scowled, "So what?" he snapped, "All that means is that I can't use senbon to rid myself of you."

He raced towards Kimiko brandishing the Blade of the Thunder Spirit. She effectively evaded the actual sword, but the high voltage electricity around it nicked her and sent her flying back into a tree trunk. As she hit the tree, she landed on her newly healed arm, and a jolt of pain ran from the shoulder down. Kimiko groaned in pain.

Itachi dropped down into the middle of the six remaining Rain-ninja. They looked around startled.

One let out a startled yelp, "Uchiha, Itachi! Where did he come from?" Another saw his glazed over eyes and laughed, "Look at him! He's blind! What can he do to us?"

After the others noticed his eyes too, they smirked and began to feel more confident. Slowly, they advanced on him.

Itachi could practically feel their overconfidence radiating off of them. He smirked. People really were making it too easy for him to overpower them. The one good thing about him being blind is that, so far, no one had expected him to be able to fight back, and that meant that he had the advantage.

As soon as they got close enough to him, he drew two kunai and lashed out at them.

Kimiko pushed herself to her feet. She had to find some way to get around that sword. She couldn't allow herself to lose this time and that sword was all that was stopping her. She needed more time to think!

When Aoi got to the tree Kimiko had flown into, she was gone. He grinned crazily and cut clean through the tree's trunk. "Where are you Kimiko?" he yelled tauntingly as he cut through another trunk. "I'll find you," he sneered, "You can't hide from me!" He yelled the last part as he cut through yet another trunk.

"You aren't behaving like a very good ninja!" he jeered, "Real ninja don't hide from their opponents!" He went to swing at another tree, but this time he was met with a crystal sword.

"Who ever said I was hiding?" growled Kimiko as she fought to maintain her crystal sword.

"We've already been through this," scolded Aoi, "You can't hope to win that way. My sword will just disintegrate you're crystal."

But instead of disintegrating, Kimiko's sword grew denser. "If I keep adding more crystal particles faster than the electricity can disintegrated them, I might have a chance," thought Kimiko as she concentrated on her jutsu.

"What are you doing? This shouldn't be happening!" shouted Aoi as he applied more force to his sword.

Kimiko met his added strength and applied more. Their deadlock kept going at this rate until Kimiko wondered if she could take anymore. Keeping the crystal sword together was using up a lot of her chakra. She could barely even keep up with Aoi's strength at this point, and the Blade of the Thunder Spirit was letting off a powerful and painful discharge. It was a wonder that Aoi hadn't collapsed from it, especially since he was the one holding the sword.

Just when it seemed like the impasse would go on forever, there was a loud cracking sound. In an explosion of light and crystal dust, both swords broke, and Aoi and Kimiko were sent flying backwards.

As much as Kimiko wanted to stay down and rest, she knew she couldn't. She had a job to finish.

She rose to her feet and ran towards Aoi. He snarled at her, "You'll regret doing that! I'll kill you!"

He swung a punch at her and she blocked it with her good arm and jumped backwards.

"Without your sword, you are nothing!" she growled back as she performed a set of hand signs, "Crystal Style: Crystal Prison!" she yelled. Crystal sprung up from the ground and began to encompass Aoi. Without his Blade of the Thunder Spirit, he was unable to cut the crystal away from him, and he was enveloped in it.

Slowly Kimiko sank down to her knees as the crystal shattered, and with it so did Aoi. She was exhausted and now her newly healed arm was throbbing again.

She felt a firm hand rest on her shoulder and immediately knew it was Itachi. She turned to look at him and saw that he had a few shallow cuts, but was otherwise ok.

She sighed in relief, "It's over."

Don't worry. I still have a whole story arc and some fillers left before the story's over. Fret not.

I hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading! Please review!