Kiba glared across at Hibiki, trying to get all of his anger and betrayal across in that single look to which the Sound spy merely smirked. It had amused him every day that the people around him actually believed he was befriending them, unknowingly giving him information and even training to better his goals. The best part had been fooling his sensei, for such a high-level jounin to fall for his charade for so long was bordering on plain sad.

"Why would you do this Hibiki?" The average-seeming boy glanced around with an air of superiority and arrogance.

"Why the hell wouldn't I?" He levelled a more serious gaze on his former 'friend'. "You could never understand with your family and normal life. Lord Orochimaru saved me, he saved all of us. He gave us meaning and purpose where before we had none. He gave our very lives existence with one simple request, out total obedience. We became tools sure but at least we were something for once as opposed to orphans left on the side of roads for dead." Kiba snarled, the sob-story not really getting to him through his veil of anger.

"It doesn't matter what kind of life you had. Nothing is worth selling your soul to that snake bastard!" Hibiki's fist shook for a moment as he suppressed a moment of rage before returning his gaze to something more neutral.

"Like I said, you would never understand the pain of losing your entire family, of being thrown aside by everybody you used to call friend!" Kiba settled into his offensive taijutsu stance, smirking as his usual confident air replaced his anger as his fight reflexes kicked in.

"You're right, I don't understand because I do have a family, one I'll be going back to after I hand you your ass!" Hibiki growled, his hands opening and closing in fists as he readied his chakra network for his complex ability. Kiba recognised this after so long of training with the boy and decided he couldn't let him prepare or stall any longer. Kiba launched himself at Hibiki much in the same way he had Sasuke in the preliminaries, the only difference being he was now much faster.

After seeing what Lee could do Kiba had decided to experiment with weights and while he was only in the early stages of the training the results were promising. His strength and speed were vastly improved past his usual family's training standards, shocking both his mother and his sister. It was enough that they actually began experimenting with adding the weights to the normal aspect of their family taijutsu. Of course they didn't go to the extreme of always wearing the weights, something like that could prove more detrimental than helpful.

He smirked at the results first hand when he managed to shock Hibiki and drive a fist squarely into the boy's gut, making the traitor double-over from the blow. Kiba tried to follow up with his claw-like nails but only passed through Hibiki as he vibrated out of harm's way. Kiba had seen how Naruto dealt with that problem but Hibiki had made adjustments to that style. When Kiba would try to keep his body occupying the same space as Hibiki's blurred form the boy would dodge or jump out of the way before retaliating with a swift and vicious counter.

It was a brutally efficient and dangerous style, one that Kiba actually found himself hard-pressed to overcome. Nearly all of his strikes were rendered completely useless and those that did hit made him come away with burns to his fists. He backed off a bit, giving him time to think, not an activity Kiba usually took a part of in the middle of the fight. He had sparred a few times with Hibiki over the months but only now it was becoming apparent just how much he had been holding back.

"We got fairly close over these past few months, wouldn't you say Kiba?" The Inuzuka narrowed his eyes, recognising that the boy was stalling for time, both for his teammate's sake and to catch his breath. His vibration technique was now second nature but it was still relatively chakra-consuming when used in short succession like he had been forced to. A growl was all the answer he received making the brown-haired boy smirk from the emotional rise he was getting.

"I'll take that as a yes. As such, I've decided I'll end this quickly." Kiba growled again as he saw Hibiki split into two clones, both as real as each other and twice as dangerous. "I never could take that annoying blonde's advice and learn the shadow clones, but I did decide to upgrade my own moves a bit." Kiba watched in hidden amazement as the two Hibikis split apart again so here were now four in a line in front of Kiba.

"What do you think?" His vice had taken on a somewhat buzzing quality due to the intense vibrations his body was being put through. Kiba wondered how this was even physically possible, then in a world where people could walk on water and form clones out of thin air he decided to just go with it and focus on not dying.

"Man Beast Clone!" Kiba through Akamaru out of his jacket in time for the small dog to puff out into a ball of smoke, only to reappear as a perfect duplicate of himself. "Come on boy, that's two each." His doppelganger yipped in agreement, a strange sight coming from what was supposed to be a feral-looking teenage boy. Hibiki just chuckled in his static-filled voice and all four of them dropped down into a solid taijutsu stance as markings reminiscent of lightning began to move across his face.


Lee dodged underneath another heavy swing from the surprisingly fast Jirobo as the man roared out in annoyance yet again at his swift opponent. As hard as the man tried he couldn't land one of his devastating blows on the spandex-wearing taijutsu protégé. One hit would be all it took but he couldn't even manage that much; luckily for the ginger giant his opponent so far had merely dodged all his attacks.

"While I admit your fighting is most youthful and energetic indeed, I must disagree with your methods of kidnapping a woman such as the fair Tayuya. I am honour-stricken to do everything in my power to save such a damsel in distress so I wish you a good fight." Satisfied with his opening monologue Lee grinned wildly as he flipped back from the muscular man and landed with the grace honed from years of intense training.

"Hold still you twig so I can crush you and that stupid bowl haircut." Lee's eye twitched a little at the comment but his form remained flawless.

"I must have you know that my hair is based off of the handsome devil of the Leaf Village Guy-sensei and I will not have you insult him!" Jirobo seemed a little confused by that, hesitating in taking a step which was all the opening Lee required. He zipped out of existence just faster than the Sound nin's eyes could follow and appeared in front of him.

"Leaf Hurricane!" Jirobo felt a strong spinning kick impact with his stomach and as he moved to defend against the next attack he felt the boy try to sweep his legs out from under him. Unfortunately for Lee it was like kicking a boulder; an exercise he had done many times but that still didn't mean he could move it. Jirobo retaliated by grabbing Lee, or he would have if Lee hadn't used the opportunity to slip out from his guard through his legs.

He delivered two swift and strong kicks to the back of Jirobo's knees; the areas were weaker than the rest of his legs so Lee finally felt some give. Before he could capitalize his opponent turned and once again tried to grab him only for the nimble Leaf nin to back flip away. Jirobo seemed more and more irritated as the seconds shifted by and n his impatience he drove his hands into the ground and literally dragged up a chunk of earth roughly the same size as himself.

He threw the mighty boulder straight at Lee who, much to his opponent's surprise, made no move to dodge the potentially fatal attack. Instead the boy raised his leg up in the air with unbelievable flexibility before bringing it down on top of the boulder as soon as it came into range. The power behind the kick, supplemented by the heavy weights around Lee's ankles, served to drive the earth back into the ground where it came from creating a small screen of unsettled dust from the impact.

When it all finally settled the two fighting ninja were right back to where they started, Jirobo standing across from Lee in his confident opening position. The behemoth of a man roared out in annoyance as arrows spread out from his shoulder, covering his face in intricate patterns that Lee observed for a moment with a grin.

"Very well, if you believe we can move onto the next stage of out fight we shall!" Jirobo looked confused as Lee bend over to remove his ankle weights, both at once. Having been noticeably absent from the Chuunin Exam finals he was thoroughly surprised at the size of the craters left behind when Lee dropped the enormous loads. Jirobo's eyes widened slightly before returning to their original scowling position.

"Is that all you got kid? Weights? That's not going to be enough to beat m-" He had to cut off his own sentence as he felt a kick like a steel bar smack across his face, sending the irate giant across the field. Lee just stood where he had been, bobbing slightly with a grin on his face.

"Most youthful indeed!"


Neji spun around, his Byakugan working overtime as every finger strike found its target in the form of the multitudes of spiders swarming down on him. The enormous queen above him glared at him with her eight dead eyes, scowling if such a thing were possible for arachnids. He looked up at Kidomarou, now adorned with the black swirling patterns of his curse mark's stage one. Neji cursed at what he thought would have been a much easier fight, and would have been without that bastardised fuinjutsu.

He panted for breath as he finished of the last of the spiders, the webs they used to descend still hanging like thin, silvery willow branches. He refused to show weakness in front of his opponent by resting his hands on his knees but even so the exhaustion of this fight was beginning to wear on him. He caught a second wind as he looked up to see the next wave of the spider summons swarming down on him from above.

"Byakugan!"


Kiba and Akamaru were back to back, dodging, weaving and blocking only when absolutely necessary. There were burn marks along his arms that screamed out for attendance and treatment but he gritted his elongated teeth and fought through the pain. Every time he aimed a kick or a punch he would try and get Hibiki right between where his two bodies were flickering between. Every time the boy would miraculously dodge without even having to move that much.

It was four against two and Kiba felt the pressure on him as Akamaru finally ran out of juice and poofed back into his real form behind him. The young Inuzuka disguised a spinning axe kick and dropped down to the ground, throwing down a smoke bomb he had managed to scavenge from his pocket at some point during the fight.

"Drilling Fang!" When the acrid purple smoke finally cleared the Hibikis could clearly see the human-sized tunnel dug directly into the ground. A few seconds later Kiba emerged from the ground a dozen feet away, spraying earth and mud around as his drilling body burst from the soil. He shook it off in the manner best befitting a clan who shared qualities with dogs before looking back over at Hibiki, trying to judge the boy's next attack.

The average-looking boy proved hard to read as his four clones merged back into two before finally a lone Hibiki stood across from Kiba. The Inuzuka pulled out two specialise soldier pills from his jacket, feeding one to Akamaru and popping the other in his own mouth to gain back the chakra and energy they had both spent. Akamaru's features grew wilder and less domestic as his coat shifted from its usual pure white to a more intimidating red.

"Don't think we're done yet Hibiki!" The other boy just glanced back with an amused expression.

"I would hope not." Kiba grimaced as his ex-friend managed to get under his skin again before throwing Akamaru back onto the ground.

"Man Beast Clone!" Hibiki just sighed at the reused technique and moved into his own stance, ready to split apart again.

"Fang Over Fang!" The last jutsu caught the traitor off guard as the Kibas suddenly erupted into human, and canine, drills. They charged right at him in perfect tandem to what would usually be a fatal or at least severely debilitating attack. While still mildly surprised that Kiba was still able to pull off such a taxing technique Hibiki sighed again. When the spinning duo approached Hibiki began his own spin, rapidly expelling chakra from the tenketsu in only one side of his body, quickly propelling his boy around in a move not dissimilar from Neji's rotation.

The two drill-like Kibas bounced harmlessly off the spinning Sound nin, ricocheting off him to bounce of the trees that bordered the clearing. They spring-boarded off of the trunks and tried to return and perform the same move as they had before only to get the same results. This repeated a few times as Hibiki continued his impromptu rotation technique while Kiba and Akamaru bounced around the clearing, unable to harm him.

Finally Kiba had to stop, the stress of the technique to much for him as he nearly collapsed to the ground across from Hibiki. He was quickly joined by his equally exhausted pup; now back to his rightful snowy white as they both lay breathless on the ground. Hibiki slowed down his own jutsu to a stop looking a little dizzy but not much worse off. He smirked at his nearly defeated opponents and calmly began to walk over, only for Kiba to weakly raise his head.

"Hey Saito, I bet you don't have enough chakra to do that clone technique again." Hibiki glared furiously at the boy; despite his near defeat he was still able to try and mock his attacker. Hibiki just stared at him more viciously while smirking to himself, he guessed he could do it as a last request for a dead man. His body vibrated rapidly and quickly split into two people, both approaching Kiba with menace in their eyes. Kiba just chuckled and pulled out a single kunai from the pouch at his waist, holding it in trembling and exhausted hands.

"Really Kiba? You're that desperate?" Kiba chuckled once again earning increased levels of hatred from the approaching traitor. The downed Inuzuka stared at the simple piece of steel for a moment before flicking it as hard as he could between Hibiki's blurred forms. Of course it just passed harmlessly through allowing the other boy to let out a victorious laugh as he once again took to staring at the panting boy with arrogance.

"Pathetic, I don't even have to resort to stage two. Well if that's all you have Kiba then-" That's as far as he got before Kiba tugged at the wire in his hand, pulling it taught from the kunai embedded in the tree across the clearing. The last thing Hibiki saw was the flash of light reflecting off the metal wire before darkness. Kiba finally let out a long sigh as he laid his head back against the grass. Darkness crept up on his vision as he contemplated the clouds above him, wondering for a moment what Shikamaru saw in them before succumbing to exhaustion and passing out.

Later on the ANBU and medical shinobi would come across the strange scene of a severely chakra exhausted boy in a fur-trimmed jacket; a dog proudly perched on his chest. The battlefield itself was a mess of burns, craters and a large but thin tunnel that was slowly collapsing on itself. To top it off the legs of another shinobi could be seen lying on the floor, the respective torso a few feet away from it.


Right now, all that was keeping Jirobo alive and not a small pummelled mass on the ground was his extraordinary durability. Lee's blows came too fast and too unpredictably for the giant to see or effectively counter, rendering him unable to return the flurry of rock-hard blows that rained down on his muscled body. Occasionally he would catch a brief glimpse of green only to have it disappear and the back of his head smacked with the force of a small boulder.

Jirobo's patience grew incredibly thin as Lee appeared again a few dozen feet away, not even looking remotely winded while Jirobo was covered in bruises. He wasn't majorly hurt but if the fight continued in this fashion then he would slowly be worn down until he was just a vaguely human-shaped stain on the ground.

"You have lasted much longer than I thought, your flames of youth must surely burn bright but I must ask if you are now willing to surrender peacefully before I am forced to take more drastic precautions." Jirobo grimaced; he didn't really want to find out what those drastic precautions were if everything so far had just been the warm up. He grunted as the arrow markings on his face distorted and spread to the rest of his body.

His skin became the same color red as dried blood while his hair grew wilder in the places it still grew at all. Certain areas of his body became blotchy and deformed as swellings and lumps appeared to highlight his hideous change. Imperceptibly his muscles expanded, increasing his already intimidating presence by a few inches. Lee decided to test out what this new form of Jirobo's brought and blurred forward faster than the normal human eye could detect.

Luckily for the red giant his eyes were now far from human and as Lee's foot swung out for the man's face he caught it in a crushing embrace. He held onto the ankle he had caught with one hand, slowly increasing the pressure by closing his fist. Before his lower-leg could be completely crushed Lee twisted his body and lashed out with his free foot, catching the transformed sound-nin in the mouth with barely fazed him physically but was enough of a shock for Jirobo to let Lee go.

Lee backed off on his hands, feeling his injured ankle would hurt too much to put pressure on right now. He twisted and stared at his opponent, glaring at him but at the same time excited by the challenge this man brought. He hopped back so the world was the right way up, only balancing on his uninjured leg as he once again evaluated his opponent. The man was now much stronger with better reflexes and was most likely faster as well. Lee just narrowed his eyes and smirked to himself, he would just have to be even faster.

"Gate of Opening, OPEN!" Chakra began swirling menacingly around Lee and Jirobo stared at him, wondering what was going on.

"Gate of Healing, OPEN!" The chakra picked up as Lee's body tensed and the floor around him began to crack. Jirobo didn't like where this was going and began to move forward before his opponent could finish whatever he was doing.

"Gate of Life, OPEN!" The chakra now swirled like a small maelstrom as Lee began to develop a glow around his body seemingly of pure chakra. He let up there, not wanting to overdo it and completely blow out his muscles like his sensei told him. He clenched his fists and the simple action caused the ground beneath him to crack even more before his disappeared into thin air. In the time it might have taken Jirobo to blink he felt a tremendous force slamming into him from below, unbelievably lifting his weighty body from the floor.

This happened three more times, slamming him more and more painfully into the air like he could fly. He was unable to retaliate in any way as he flailed madly in the air, trying to find purchase that he knew wasn't there. Lee suddenly appeared above him, his eyes void of pupils, just white globes that stared at him like the Shinigami itself. Jirbo got one good look seared into his memory forever before Lee spun in the air, viciously slamming his uninjured foot down into Jirobo's body with the force of a train.

The crater he created upon impact was huge; his own weight plus the force of the blow enough to leave him deep in the ground. The crater only widened when Lee followed up on his attack in a straight dive bomb onto Jirobo's chest. Even through his curse mark he felt the ribs crack from that strike. He was unable to heal even a little before the action was repeated, four times. Finally Jirobo groaned out as the markings receded back into his mark while the man himself was blissfully unconscious.

Lee stood over his latest opponent with a smile, he was slowly getting more used to the effects the gates had on his body. Fairly soon he hoped to match his sensei and open the sixth gate while being nearly unaffected by the first five. Right now he felt the ache from his overworked muscles but it was more the equivalent of an entire day's strenuous training. He thanked his sensei for such rigorous routines before jogging off into the forest, certain that his opponent would not be getting up. He still had to help his friends if he could.


Neji stopped himself from screaming out when the large arrow pierced through his chest, guided at the last moment to prevent to wound being fatal. He gasped for a moment before he was able to right himself and focus on the thread leading away into the trees. He grabbed the webbing, focusing on it before his body could succumb to its injuries as he directed chakra up through it, straight into the mouth of his deformed opponent.

He rushed the multi-armed archer before he could recover, delivering blow after chakra-sealing blow into the man's unprotected chest. With each strike he felt his own body failing him but he carried on through the pain until with a gasp he was able to call out.

"Sixty-four Palms!" Kidomarou flew back from the strike, if not dead then severely wounded. Neji smiled up at the sky for a moment, realising that he had done it; he had proved the people who called him a genius right. He had earned the name now and was allowed to finally let the pain that threatened to overwhelm him come crashing down like a flood. His last waking thought as he fell backwards onto the ground was a flash of green and a familiar black bowl-cut. He was already unconscious by the time two arms firmly stopped him from hitting the floor.


Naruto and Gaara were still focused on the two identical brothers before them but as usual Gaara was letting no moment go to waste and was already sifting his sand through the earth. Sakon and Ukon seemed to be playing with them more than anything else, bantering between themselves as they leant on their respective coffins dangerously, as if they would just reach in and snap the occupant's neck at a moment's notice, which Naruto figured was the idea.

"Well brother, I do believe the process is nearly finished."

"Yes, I remember our time in the coffin. Most painful if I remember right." His brother nodded along with him, further enraging Naruto.

"Give me back Tayuya or I will rip you two to shreds!" Both brothers put a hand over their mouths in mock shock and indignation.

"Really brother, the rudeness on this one."

"I know, it is sometimes so difficult to find civility in shinobi these days." Again the brothers shared a sympathetic nod as Sakon turned to the two seriously, capturing their attention.

"Besides, I don't even think it's possible for us to be ripped into shreds. You see the Kekkei Genkai we share allows us to sift our own molecules through those of out targets or really any solid object" A devious smile enveloped the androgynous man's face. "Isn't that right brother?" Both Gaara and Naruto looked across only to start in shock when they noticed Ukon was nowhere to be seen. They heard and ominous cackling from somewhere suspiciously close to Gaara as the two desperately looked around for any sign of the wayward enemy.

"Oh please, you'll never find my brother looking around" Again a smirk developed on his green-painted lips. "You'll have to look a bit more inward." The man chuckled at his own joke before they heard that same cackling, this time seemingly from where Gaara was standing. To both of their shock Ukon's head appeared to melt out of Gaara's shoulder like his body was nothing more than water.

"Hmmm, I've never inhabited a jinchuuriki before." Ukon frowned from his position inside of Gaara, his molecules spread out through the boys form. "They feel like-" He was frankly cut off as a gravely shout came from the forest behind them.

"Sand Burial!" Ukon's and Sakon's eyes' both widened in panic as the body Ukon was inhabiting suddenly lost its colour, instead becoming grainy and beige. Immediately the sand clone detonated, exploding outwards taking Ukon ad his molecule sifting body with it. Sakon just stared wide-eyed at where the clone had been standing before glaring at Gaara as he emerged from the forest, fist still held out in front of him, clenched tightly.

"You killed my brother!" Gaara's eyes narrowed at the last of the sound four pointing out the obvious.

"I'm sorry, would you have liked to go first?" The deadpan tone with which Gaara spoke only increased the menace behind his words. Sakon's eyes darted dangerously back and forth, caught between terror and righteous fury for his brother's murderer.

"I'll kill you for that!" However despite the words the pale man didn't move an inch in his muscles. Gaara began to raise his hand again while sand drained out of the ground, quickly forming into a small uneven ball in front of him. He hoped to use this moment of indecision and cowardice to his advantage; they had pissed him off by kidnapping Tayuya.

"Sand Bullets" From the floating ball little pebble-sized chunks of sand flew out at frightening velocities, straight at Sakon's frozen form. He was only saved as a tall pale man suddenly dropped down from the sky and stood right in the way of the attack. The bullets merely punctured the man's skin without penetrating the inexplicable layer of solid bone beneath.

"Kimimaro, what are you doing here?" The pale man turned to his teammate, staring at him with emotionless, cold eyes.

"Lord Orochimaru grew impatient with waiting. I have come to serve him by giving the vessel time to complete the process." Kimimaro levelled an equally cold and blank look at Naruto and Gaara. "And if that requires the removal of these two then so be it." Behind him Sakon shook his head, looking at his teammate in worry.

"But Kimimaro, your illness!" The glare the tall man levelled at Sakon was far from cold that time.

"I live to serve Lord Orochimaru and if it requires the sacrifice of my own life then I will do so gladly." Naruto and Gaara took in this entire scene somewhat impassively, wondering where this new guy had come from and what his abilities were. Naruto had just seen him survive a near-point blank range sand bullet. That attack was enough to break bones usually.

There was also that body armour they had seen, Naruto could have sworn it was actually bone but bone wasn't that tough. He narrowed his eyes as the two Sound nin finally finished their conversation and Sakon took off, fleeing from Naruto and his brother's murderer to the relative safety of Orochimaru. Naruto couldn't have cared less honestly; he hadn't taken the coffins so Naruto was more than happy to focus on the pale, lanky one until he could rescue Tayuya.

"Gaara, we should make this quick, that other guy might be going for reinforcements." Gaara nodded to him which the blonde Jinchuuriki caught from the corner of his eye as he didn't want to take his attention from Kimimaro.

"You two should flee while you can, nobody has ever survived my dances before." In any other situation Naruto might have laughed from the absurdity of a shinobi telling his opponent they were about to defeat them with a dance. He knew that sometimes specialised kenjutsu styles are names after dances but Naruto couldn't see a sword on the man's person. He thought it might have something to do with that strange armour ability but he hoped not.

He was finally tired of waiting and dropped into his four legged stance, Gaara just impassively crossing his arms looking almost as bored as Kimimaro.

"I will warn you only one more time, do not fight me or you will die." Naruto snorted, the man was about to face two jinchuuriki, he had no idea what was about to hit him.