A/N: I'm soooo sorry for the wait (I do however believe that you didn't have to wait as long as for chapter 35 ^^') and for the fact that after all this wait you still don't get a particularly long chapter -.-'

Well, don't really have anything more to say so I won't keep you up anymore but let you actually read the chapter ^^

Chapter 36: Away from the mountain

Naruto was with Rin and Tori in a small cave, secluded from the rest of the caves in the Konoha Mountain.

He had immediately gone to the mountain as Tsunade's voice had reverberated throughout the village since he was a chuunin.

At first he had only found Kiba and Shino to his dismay. Even though it was really Hinata they were fighting with he was still yet not on the best of terms with them himself because of his acting two days ago.

Fortunately he had soon been released from them as an ANBU came up to him, telling Naruto to come with him.

It turned out it was because Tsunade wanted to speak with him, Rin and Tori about the situation.

Akatsuki was attacking the village and they were the reason.

She told them they were not allowed to go out of the mountain, because if they were caught Akatsuki would be one step closer to world domination. Of course they had fought back, should they sit there like cowards as the village fought because of their mere existence?

Their attempts were however futile as six ANBU held them back and took them in to a small cave, where they now were sitting. The six ANBU had positioned themselves outside of the cave to guard them and had been sitting there the last four hours as the war had been raging outside of the mountain, they felt the explosions as they shook the ground. For now they had given up their tries to escape.

One of the ANBU came in from the small corridor outside the cave to watch over them and make sure that they weren't doing something that wasn't allowed just to walk out soon again.

The change came as they were sitting there in silence when they suddenly heard thumps outside the cave. They looked up in shock as somebody came walking around the corner, to their surprise it was not an ANBU but Neji, the veins around his eyes visible to all as his Byakugan was activated. He smirked at them in that calm Hyuuga demeanor.

"Konichiwa" he said to them. They just stared at him, unable to say anything.

"Weren't you planning to even try to escape?" Tenten said as she walked in after him, confidently spinning a needle in her hand.

"Of course we were" Naruto said as he got up, finally regaining his ability to speak and move.

"That's the spirit of youth" Lee said as he bounced around the corner, colliding with Naruto as the blond was walking towards the opening of the cave.

"Naruto-kun, were you so eager to see me?" Lee exclaimed in joy as he started to hug the poor blond. The other four just stood there and watched as Naruto fought to get up. Neji watched in his silent indifference, Tenten without stop to spin her needle, Rin with something similar to a smirk of amusement at Naruto and Tori in a frazzle, unknowing if she should help Naruto or not.

Just a few minutes later Naruto and Lee had gotten off of the floor and they were out of the mountain entirely, now as well with Sakura, Kiba, Shino, Chouji and Ino.

It had been easier to escape for the others since they hadn't been under surveillance in the same way as Naruto, Tori and Rin.

They stood at the top of the mountain and looked out over the cliff edge. Over at the river it looked as if there had been a flood, the water level was far higher than usual and it looked as if the surrounding ground were under water as well. Several buildings had been demolished, and at one place it looked as if the building had been leveled with the ground.

"How should we get down there?" Sakura asked as they stood there.

"We Jump!" Lee exclaimed as he made himself ready to jump. As he leaped in to the air however Tenten quickly conjured a rope with which she caught him in the middle of the air.

"We are not going to jump and tire ourselves so much that we can't fight" she said as she had dragged him up the wall of the mountain.

"I guess we have to run around then" Sakura said as they had untied Lee.

"Yosh, let's make it a race" the green clad enthusiast said before setting off. Tenten, Neji, Ino, Chouji, Kiba, Shino and Sakura followed him soon behind, just less enthusiastic.

Just as Naruto, Rin and Tori were to follow however a large explosion could be heard in the distance. At the sound Tori immediately stopped and looked back over at the village. In her run Rin looked back and saw how the other girl had stopped, so she took a hold of Naruto's sleeve to stop him.

"Tori, come on we have to hurry" she called after the blond girl, sounding slightly desperate – the sight of the village really had made her understand how grave the situation was.

Tori was however not listening, she was busy watching the unnaturally large, white bird with somebody standing on it circle around in the distance.

She could see how several small objects dropped from it, and just instances later every single one of them exploded as they neared the ground.

She stood there in shock and watched the bird, despite her being unable to really comprehend what she was seeing her hand slipped open her left hip-pouch and her hand slipped in to it.

Faster than ever before she chewed and worked on the clay, so just seconds later as she spit out the clay from the mouths of her hand it had taken on the form of a small, small bird almost identical to the one that was circling in the air. Throwing it out in to the air it grew until it was big enough to carry several people, it flew in a small circle before it stopped in front of the mountain. As it stopped she hoped on to it and took off.

Rin and Naruto watched as she stood there and started to chew the clay, as soon as she had thrown out the little bird and it had started to grow they took off towards her. They kept running as she hoped on to the now large bird, and as it had flown away they reached the edge of the cliff.

Naruto stopped, thinking that it was too far away, Rin however loaded chakra in to her feet and jumped.

The Kyuubi vessel looked on as he saw Rin fly through the air towards the bird, feeling the fear as it looked as if she was going to miss it and fall down towards the ground a few hundred meters down, he also felt the relief as she just barely managed to grab a hold of the bird's feathers and hang on.

He breathed out, noticing that he had been holding his breath, as he suddenly realized that she was on her way with Tori towards the fight that he was still up there on the mountain, now alone. Throwing all caution to the wind he jumped.

Gai looked at the strange, blue man that he was fighting.

He had been positioned at the river that went through Konoha as the fight started. It didn't take long until that large with his huge sword had come and started to fight with him.

Almost immediately the man had done some weird water technique that had flooded the entire place, so that it was inevitable for them to fight on top of the water.

The man had continued on by asking Gai if he didn't recognize the man, this truly perplexed Konoha's green beauty since he couldn't remember ever meeting a blue man. And he would probably have remembered somebody who was colored entirely in such a horrible color as blue, it should be green. Ah, how beautiful it would be to be entirely covered in green.

Kakashi looked at his opponent's feet, knowing what would happen if he looked up in to Itachi's sharingan.

As soon as he had felt the Uchiha's chakra he had gone to it as fast as he could, knowing that no one really stood a chance against him as it was.

To be able to stand up against him you needed a Sharingan by birth, and even though Kakashi hadn't gotten his by birth he was the only one there who actually had a Sharingan, therefore he was the one who should be the most capable to stand a chance against Itachi. Still yet, not even Kakashi with a Sharingan would be able to stand up against Itachi if he looked up in to his eyes and got caught in the Tsukuyomi.

Rin hang on for dear life as she held on to the big bird's feathers.

She didn't really know what had made her do it, but as she ran there she had been certain that she couldn't let Tori fly away on her own. So she had jumped and hoped for the best, she had just been lucky that she had actually managed to grab a hold of the feathers.

She had already given up trying to get Tori's attention, from the beginning she had been calling out to the blond girl but hadn't gotten any response.

It seemed that Tori's mind was too occupied with whatever it was that she was doing for her to actually hear something like Rin screaming for help.

Suddenly she felt how her hand started to glide downwards, she looked up but didn't see anything special that made her loose her grip on the feathers. She was merely loosing it. At first she was nearly gripped with panic, what would she do if she fell?

"Tori" she screamed out higher than before in a futile attempt to get help. All the while she was trying to get a better grip, her tries did however not have the wished effect, instead they made her glide downwards even more. It didn't take long until she held on to the feathers by her mere fingertips.

"Tori! Help!" she screamed out as she suddenly lost her grip entirely and felt how she started to fall down towards the ground in a neck breaking speed.

Sakura was quickly running down the mountain with the others, desperately wishing that she could get to know what was going on somehow.

She couldn't come up with anyway but to speed up even more. Because of that she had gotten up to the front of the group as they ran, only Lee was in front of her – and he was far ahead of all of them.

Feeling the others' chakra signatures behind her she ran without looking back to see if they were there, she was confident in her new ability that she would know if somebody wasn't there.

Then suddenly she felt a large spike in Rin's chakra, to her big surprise it wasn't anywhere near her.

She stopped and looked back towards where they came from as the others ran past her, not getting the time to react on the fact that she stopped until they had already past her. Less than a meter behind her they stopped and looked at her.

"What is it Sakura?" Kiba asked her concerned. She looked back at them with large somewhat frightened eyes.

"I don't know where they are" she told them. They looked confused at her as she turned her head back again.

"We don't have time for this forehead-girl" Ino slightly erupted in an angry manner. To their surprise Sakura didn't retort something about Ino being a pig, instead she took off in the opposite direction as they were already running.

"Naruto! Rin!" she screamed as she did. At her words the others realized that the two weren't with them.

"Shino, Kiba go after her, we will go after Lee" Neji ordered the others before taking off towards his team-mate who was still oblivious to this since he was so far ahead of the others. The rest of them stood there disoriented for a while before they took off again, now Kiba and Shino ran towards the top of the mountain again as the others followed Neji and Lee.

Naruto felt the air whipping past his body and cursed to himself.

Even if it wasn't that much of a problem for him to land without hurting himself it was still yet a stupid thing to just jump like that without thinking over his position in the air.

Right now he was in the middle, without anything to take a hold on to make him fall a little slower. Still yet he constantly looked around himself.

He was too far away from the mountain wall too reach that one, and since it was at the mountain there weren't any trees around.

As he fell he continued to think over his situation and curse to himself, at the same time he concentrated chakra in to his feet so that his landing would be somewhat cushioned.

Then suddenly he came to an abrupt halt. He groaned as he got up – he hadn't had the time to concentrate enough chakra not to get hurt at all – and looked around himself, wondering where he had landed.

After a while he recognized it as the top of the fourth Hokage's head. Apparently he hadn't noticed the heads on the mountain and now he was standing on top of the one positioned lowest on the mountain. Well, he guessed that was somewhat good - even though he had taken the fall badly and felt how his ribs burned somewhat - right now he could easily run down the side of the mountain just by doing something as simple as concentrating chakra to his feet.

He chuckled mentally as he ran down the vertical slide, remembering how hard it had been the first time that he was doing this. He still remembered the feeling when he stood on top of the tree with Sasuke at his side.

Then he looked up and saw how Tori's bird flew there and Rin dangling from the feathers, when suddenly the red headed Jinchuuriki lost her grip on the feathers and fell.

Panic gripped at him as he sped up for a while, after a while he felt how he ran too fast. He couldn't keep up with the chakra and was losing his grip on the mountain wall, and at the same time he was running too fast to slow down. It didn't take long until he was falling once more without control. When he looked up again however he felt relief wash through him as he saw Rin once more having a good grip on the bird's feathers.

Deidara stood on top of his bird made out of clay and watched the wonderful explosions going off all around him.

He was in the middle of a great work of art, observing it first handed as it existed for short moments of time. This feeling was far better than any orgasm.

It was with delight he watched the Konoha shinobi dying from the explosions and he seriously couldn't understand their reluctance to die in an explosion, was there any better way to go out than that?

He laughed slightly to himself as he tossed away another load of crickets towards a group of shinobi on the ground underneath laughter escalated as he watched them go off in pain.

"Be happy, you go die in the most beautiful way possible, un" he yelled down at them before laughing more.

Suddenly he noticed that the sound from the bird's wings sounded off. There seemed to be another pair of thuds, coming from his left. He looked there and saw another clay bird there, very similar to his but with thinner more defined lines.

On top of it stood a girl just a few years younger than him, her hair and eyes were the same as his and she was dressed in the red robes of his family clan. Her expression was shocked and her eyes were tear-filled as she looked at him.

"Deidara-niichan" Tori said in a small voice.

A/N: Hope you all liked it^^

Just want to say thank you to sabaku-vs-uchiha-vs-uzumaki, Ancient Kyubi. GraityTheWizard and Rena the pirate jedi wizard for your lovely reviews – please do so again^^ - and a sorry ahead of time since just as usual I will probably take some time with next chapter as well.. I do however seem to be on a creative spree and already have ideas :O