Chapter 50:

One could describe Uchiha Sasuke's execution of his plan as… insidious.

Really, it was the first time, in her own mind at least, that Hinata admitted to herself that she would hate to have him as an enemy.

It was one thing to say 'lets sneak in every few hours to wake them up' and leave it at that. It was quite another to do so in increasingly creative ways that would blur the line between healthy fear and paranoia for most people.

The first time, yes, it was that simple. Sasuke had volunteered to get in close with one of their teammates from Taki, pulling back once they knew they'd been spotted by the lookout and the enemy team was on full alert.

And immediately after that, Sasuke had decided that was too inneffective. Went in a second time, planted smoke bombs with seals before he allowed himself to be seen.

After that it had been Kiba's turn. And rather than repeat Sasuke's previous act in the middle of the night Sasuke had set off a few of those smoke bombs he'd left before, and told Kiba and Sakura, his partner; to give the enemy team a wide wide berth and instead set Akamaru to howling to the moon. The fact that Kiba could join in right alongside his dog was an added bonus. It genuinely sounded like a pack of wolves once they got a little bit of practice in.

After that, in the morning, Sasuke had asked Shino if he could use his Kikaichu to annoy and harass them rather than eat their chakra.

It certainly wasn't the ideal usage, There's a reason Kikaichu needed a living host after all, but Shino had seen the merit of it and so had decided to do so, sending off the insects to do their work.

After that it wasn't uncommon to see the lookouts angrily swatting at bugs.

Then, the Taki ninja and Akane were in line for their turn. Akane and her partner had made themselves obvious in their approach, standing on a small hill that overlooked the ruined village. They were spotted of course, the lookout calling the others on the team while the other two Taki nin scouted the place, marking the locations of traps and trying to map out the best approach.

And every few hours Hinata would activate her Byakugan and watch what was happening.

By the very first morning, she could see the effect it was having on them. The slumped shoulders, the bloodshot eyes, the weariness and irritability; even as the two teams kept their discipline and went about the jobs they knew they had to do. Foraging, patrol, trap making and guard duty.

All but one of them anyway.

The red headed one. If her lip-reading was accurate, and it was, his name was Gaara. His teammates were his sister and brother, Kankuro and Temari.

While the others cycled through their duties, Gaara only ever seemed to have one job. Stick by the client. He wore a blindfold but she doubted that was some kind of impediment.

The team dynamic was also something to make note of.

While both Kankuro and Temari assured their Kumo nin partners that Gaara could guard the client 'by himself' Gaara took direction from Temari. That told her that both his teammates thought Gaara was the strongest one of the group, but his sister had taken the leadership role.

Very curious.

Her observations of the kunoichi didn't reveal anything special. She was competent enough to be sure, but she did not have an exceptional mind like Shikamaru or anything that stood out other than her hair.

But judging by their words, and more importantly, body language, Gaara was more than willing to defer to her and she, had a reluctance to order him around.

Well… there was an obvious way to exploit this.

Most people would not associate the wicked little smile with the face of Hyuuga Hinata.

(X)(X)(X)

Miles away, Uzumaki Naruto came to the rather firm decision that he hated chuunin exams.

He would never ever do one of these things again!

Three days!?

Why the hell did the team have an exam for three days!

The hell was he supposed to do for three days without his team!?

Bee was gone now, called away on something or other and Naruto tried to not think about how predatory she'd looked when walking out of here. Mind no doubt on… Eugh.

He thought the exam would take a few hours sure, maybe a day or so. But three… while having no idea how much or how little danger/trouble his team was in?

This was a special kind of torture for him.

He wasn't sure where Gai and Kurenai were, Tsunade and Orochimaru had long since left, no doubt acting as either political statements, intimidation pieces or negotiators for Saru Jiji and of course Jiji was busy.

He didn't know what to do.

With no distractions… no people around him to take his mind off of things all Naruto had was his own thoughts.

And those were bad company.

He didn't go back to the hotel. Didn't even go to get something to eat.

What he did was pace.

Up and down the room, over and over again, and it was only as the sun was beginning to set that someone came and kicked him out, forcing him to leave and take his relentless walk out into the rounded mezzanine walkways of the village itself.

The views were still gorgeous, a bright, burning orange across the sky with hues of blue and purple beginning to crest the upper reaches of the vista while the clouds burned red and the snow capped peaks glimmered like sheets of spun gold thrown over jagged spears. And he couldn't appreciate any of it.

Chuunin exams were dangerous things and the thought that he could lose his team all over again made him sick to his stomach.

"Didn't think I'd ever find anything to put a frown like that on your face Naruto-kun"

The voice brought his eyes up, and the sight made him smile a bit, a little bit. Turning his eyes to Haku as she walked over to join him, taking in the view.

"Just worried about my team." He admitted.

"You're very close to them aren't you?"

He bowed his head the slightest bit. A lifetime of memories that never happened in this world passing through his mind. "Yeah. Probably more than I should be." He offered a laugh. "Always been close with my friends."

"That's a good thing she said-" leaning on the railing beside him. "-most days."

He stayed quiet. She had more to say… and he had a pretty good idea as to what.

""You know that…" She paused, seeming to measure her words. "Kiri hasn't officially taken a stance or declared itself an ally of-"

"It doesn't matter." He interrupted, smiling as he gazed out to the mountain range.

She looked at him, frowning. "It does… if the negotiations… You and I could end up as enemies Naruto."

The blond shook his head. "Kiri might declare for Iwa… or Kumo, the wars might make us fight on opposite sides but that doesn't mean we have to fight. It doesn't mean we have to be enemies."

"It's not that simple." She protested. "If they order me to…" She paused, and he could see her composing herself, gathering that steel in her spine to say what she wanted to say. "If they order me to kill you… I'll have no choice… I will do it Naruto-kun."

Naruto smiled, the echoes of a past that never happened returning to his mind. "Liar." He said. Then turned, looking at her over his shoulder. "You don't want to. And I don't want to. So we won't. It's that simple." He insisted.

She shook her head, sighing. "You're impossible."

His smile widened. "I try."

(X)(X)(X)

Soon enough the first day passed, then the second. All the while Sasuke and the others stuck to their plan. They harassed, irritated and stalked the enemy teams relentlessly, never allowing them a moment's peace.

As an added, unforseen bonus, Shino was able to map out the layout of a good portion of their traps, using the Kikaichu to search the fields for anomalies. He found tripwires, charged explosives, pits and a slew of other deadly contraptions and their triggers, those he could disarm with the bugs, he disarmed, those he couldn't he marked on a map.

And Hinata watched.

She watched the enemy teams as their energy levels fell, as their chakra control took a sharp nose dive, as their heads started drooping, their patrols became sloppier and sloppier; their decision making more and more sluggish.

The only exception… was Gaara.

The blindfolded redhead continued to sit calmly, the flow of his chakra indicating that he was wide awake. He was awake when she slept, and he was awake when she woke up. Nothing changed to ever reflect that he was in any kind of distress. Not like the others.

She didn't know what kind of training he'd gone through but whatever it was it was paying off. Three days and the guy didn't look like he had a hair out of place.

That worried her. Even so as strong as he was, he was just a gennin, and the rest of his team looked just about ready to keel over.

Now or never.

With a small flare of chakra to the back of her hand, where Shino's Kikaichu was Hinata smiled as she heard her teammate call the others to gather.

They'd been following Sasuke's lead so far. Now it was her turn to boss people around.

(X)(X)(X)

"It's gonna happen soon."

Temari's head snapped back up half because her head had fallen forward, half because of Kankuro's voice.

They were sitting inside one of the few remaining huts in the village that was in semi-serviceable condition. There was a rather large hole in the roof of what had once been the kitchen but four walls of bamboo and wicker served their needs well enough. It hadn't rained in the three days (thank god) but it had one entrance, and between the walls, lookouts, traps and a few well placed backpacks they had enough protection to make the enemy teams work for the kill. Even if they were too tired to actually put up a good fight.

She wanted to feel angry about that, but she just couldn't care. Right now, she just wanted to get this over with. She wanted a table full of food, a hot shower in a bug free hotel and a bed. Good god, if anything got between her and her bed once this was done that thing was gonna be killed. Horribly.

"How are you feeling?"

That was Gaara's voice and Temari allowed herself a moment to look at her blindfolded brother as he sat in the corner, trying not to feel jealous at how completely and utterly unruffled he looked compared to the lot of them. Even the client sitting beside him looked completely and utterly miserable.

"Like shit." She answered flatly, her expression shifting into an angry glare after a second. "This waiting thing of yours fucking sucks."

He had the nerve to smile; though she noted there was some apology to be seen in there. "It'll be over soon enough. Besides, it gave Kankuro time to put his trap making skills to work."

"Like I care about this idiot's trap making skills."

"That's hurtful sis."

"Bite me." She answered, tossing a look outside between the thin strips of straw, eyeing one of their Kumogakure teammates on watch. She could admit, they were at least taking the no sleep thing well. Better than she'd feared at least. They could still stand straight.

She let her head fall back, leaning against the wall. Trying not to let herself fall asleep as she looked at Gaara through half lidded eyes. "What do you thin-"

A whistle… no… a series of whistles, Five quick, sharp tones from the south.

She got to her feet, trying not to sway as her vision swam with the sudden movement while her hands reached for her fan, Kankuro doing the same with Karasu.

"Good Luck." Their 'client' said as Gaara smirked where he remained sitting beside the woman, somehow making his eyes look gleeful behind that blindfold.

Smug bastard.

She had to resist the urge to flip him off as she marched out the door.

She noticed two of the Kumo nin already moving to the south side of the perimeter, weapons drawn. She wondered where the third one was, but he was probably in hiding, or keeping an eye to the north or some other side in order to make sure they weren't flanked.

At least she hoped so. Right now she didn't have the energy to go hold his hand and make sure he was doing his job.

As soon as she walked out of the hut, the light of the sun hit her in the face like a sledgehammer and she just wanted to go back into the hut and call out a forfeit. It was through sheer force of stubborn will and an utter sense of 'fuck these leaf nin' that she soldiered on. One eye squeezed shut and another squinting so hard it may as well be closed she made her way around the hut to the south side.

Where she found Seven of the enemy genin. Eight if you counted the dog.

Definitely flanking somewhere.

"Finally decided to make your move huh!?" One of the Kumo guys taunted. She didn't care enough to know his name.

"Had to enjoy the scenery." The guy with the dog shouted back.

Temari had to groan.

Before this thing could devolve into some juvenile pissing contest she decided to intervene. "Let's just do this already." She huffed. "I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm irritated and I just wanna leave. By my count you guys have two hours left so get the hell on with it."

"If you insist." The leaf nin, the one with the dark hair and dark eyes was the one that spoke, a second before he started marching forward.

Temari felt her eyebrow rise just a bit. Was he seriously stupid enough to walk onto their trap field?

The incredulity gave way to a mild shock when he picked up speed and started actually walking through their trap field… without setting a single one off.

The other five followed, and Temari had a moment to hear Kankuro curse before all hell broke loose.

(X)(X)(X)

This was bad. This was really *really* bad.

The second the fight had started Kankuro could tell this wasn't gonna go well at all.

It wasn't just the lack of sleep, or the lack of food, or even the bone deep weariness of three days of misery.

No.

It was the fact that his chakra was being leeched out of him. He could feel it. Like a syringe sucking the blood out of a vein; Kankuro knew that something was terribly wrong. Worse was when he tried to use Karasu. Puppeteering didn't require a lot of chakra so he had enough to spare but when you needed five times the usual chakra requirement to even keep a stable connection to the puppet you couldn't help but notice that something was horribly horribly wrong.

His enemies were the Pink haired scarface and the red headed twerp. As of now he was able to keep them at bay by maneuvering around his own traps, trying to get them to trip one while using the equivalent of sheer brute force to make Karasu run interference.

How they managed to map out his trap layout was something he was gonna look into later, for now though-

With a twist of his fingers, tugging on chakra strings he forcefully triggered one of his traps, the snap of rope and wood a precursor to the spikes that shot out of the ground right infront of the little brat.

Unfortunately she was just a hair too short to get run through.

"WOah!" She shouted reeling a moment before she fell flat on her ass, the wooden bamboo spears now jutting out of the ground.

Kankuro managed a single kunai toss before the pink haired one was ontop of him.

Her Taijutsu strength was nothing special, but she was fast, and Kankuro had never been particularly devoted to the art. He managed to block a high kick, four rapid fire punches before he tried to counter and was rewarded with her knee in his ribs.

With another twitch of his fingers another trap was sprung, this time with a net shooting out from a launcher slightly behind him, one of the weights grazed his shoulder, throwing the momentum of the projectile off trajectory. That, coupled with pinky lunging to the side only saw her legs getting tangled up in the material instead of her whole body.

He'd take it and call it a win.

She hit the ground with a string of curses; gravel and dirt scratching up her arms as she slid.

Kankuro took the opportunity for all it was worth- and pounced.

Kunai blades in hand the puppeteer could see the startled fear in her eyes when suddenly, in a whisper of smoke, she was gone, replaced by the little kid who wasn't caught in the net.

The pipsqueak cocked back her fist as gravity took hold and he started to fall towards her.

Now, as stated before, Kankuro was no real devotee to the art of Taijutsu, but even he was fairly confident of his ability to tank the 'full power' of a seven year old's fist.

So he was immensely surprised when, with a roar of anger that sounded more like a squeal, she punched him dead in the sternum with enough force to break the henge his puppet was hiding behind and break Karasu's sternum along with it. The wood offered a moment's resistance before caving in with a teeth grinding crack of wood and groaning steel.

What. The. Fuck!

Kankuro and Karasu both flew backwards, with the puppeteer tumbling end over end where he was hidden inside the bandages on the puppets back before he finally fell out completely to hit the dirt with a pained groan, his puppet tumbling head over heels before carving a muddy trench through what had once been a rice field.

Picking himself up, the middle Sabaku sibling had enough mind to see the little girl's astonished face as she looked at her own fist.

Then someone touched the back of his neck, at the juncture where his spine met the brainstem.

And he, ironically, dropped like a puppet with his strings cut.

His heart pounded in his chest, a rapid fear taking over his mind as he found he couldn't move, couldn't even speak, only gasp clicking breaths.

Someone stepped infront of him, and Kankuro saw the Hyuuga girl offering a little smile and a wave of her fingers before she stepped past him.

(X)(X)(X)

Temari was not happy.

She noticed straight away that everyone here was outnumbered two to one, except for her.

That was a strange thing to be angry about but she was.

Hell, one of the Kumo guys was outnumbered three to one if you counted the goddamn dog.

And all she had was tall pale and broody to deal with.

The guy seemed fast, sure, and he was doing a damn good job of both avoiding her attacks and deftly avoiding all of Kankuro's traps with what seemed like absurd ease but she was straight up exhausted with something draining her chakra. He should have already kicked her ass.

He was smart though, smart enough to know he had to close the distance. Worse than that he was fast enough to do it too.

Trying to catch him off guard, on his next rush Temari decided to meet him, charging forward with all the speed she could pull out of her tired body.

She was rewarded with a mild surprise before his arms came up, blocking the iron fan with both elbows as he dug in his feet, sticking to the ground and using the moment to grip onto the fan, wrapping one arm around it before he sent out a kick to her side.

Keeping the rest of the fan between them she blocked the kick, trying to follow up with one of her own before his fist grazed the side of her eye, nearly clipping her face with a quick, follow-up elbow that looked like it had enough force behind it to crack her skull.

Using her longer legs to get some distance and kick him in the gut she yanked the fan out of his grasp and pulled away tossing a kunai that hit him dead in the chest, only for his body to vanish in a cloud of smoke.

"Too slow."

The impact of something, a kick or a punch -she couldn't tell- into her kidneys almost made her want to throw up, the pain lancing up and down her back and around her torso as she fell forward, barely keeping enough presence of mind to roll with the fall to try and spring back to her feet.

And he was infront of her again...

Grabbing her by the head Temari got two quick knees to her stomach before she let go of her fan entirely and blocked the next attacks with her arms. Then she thrust her hands forward and up the heels of her palms smacking against the leaf ninja's chin. She felt, more than heard the clack of teeth snapping together against her fingertips as he reeled.

She grabbed her fan, looking up in time to see him spit out a glob of red blood to his right as his left hand tossed a barrage of shuriken at the same time.

She opened up her fan, a single swing knocking the weapons away, only for him to close the distance again in that split second of blindness.

Was she so tired that she'd seriously forgotten to add a gust of wind to the swing?

Yes. Yes she was.

Even so, she adapted, her body moving as the leaf nin's fist shot forward. Ducking to the side she raised her foot into a perfect front heel kick, her leg rising up to a near perfect split as her heel caught the underside of his chin physically knocking him off his feet and into the air.

She couldn't help but smile in triumph.

Then, there was an impact on her fan, something knocking it out of her hands and throwing her off balance. She only just had time to see her victim vanish in another puff of smoke before something else hit her in the face and her vision went dark.

'Still too slow'

(X)(X)(X)

Sasuke looked at the blond kunoichi laying at his feet, tongue still throbbing from when she'd made him bite it with that hit. He grazed his teeth over the raw spot and felt it pulse with pain.

Something to be dealt with later.

The Kumo ninja were still fighting, but he could already tell they were gonna be overwhelmed soon. And… ahh. Looks like Hinata had taken care of that straggler and gotten to Sakura and Akane.

Time to deal with the 'actual problem' as Hinata put it.

"Suna!" He shouted into the hut. "Got your sister out here. You gonna come out and fight me, or should I kill her and walk in?"

There was no movement. Not even a sound from inside the home.

"Come on now. I haven't got all day."

Still no answer, no movement.

He drew a kunai. "Ya got until the count of five. One-"

The redhead stepped out the door.

It was a slow walk, if it wasn't because the guy had a blindfold one could almost call it leisurely, as it was Sasuke wasn't sure if it was a deliberate thing or if he was just trying to make sure he didn't trip and fall on his face.

He stepped forward into the sun, white clothes catching in the wind as he moved his head this way and that way, apparently trying to locate all the sources of sound.

"I suggest you let her go." He finally said, 'looking' straight at him.

"Give up the client." He shot back.

The Suna genin, to Sasuke's confusion; smirked.

And then to his utter befuddlement, his answer was cheerful. "Sure."

Turning around and stepping back inside it was only six seconds later that he came back out, woman in hand.

"I hereby surrender her to you." Gaara said, pushing her gently forward.

Sasuke's lip curled. Tossing a kunai that hit the woman dead in the chest.

Her skin, unsurprisingly cracked, a porcelain doll of sand that crumpled after a moment.

"Think I'm stupid. Give us the actual client." He snarled.

"Oh… I'm afraid that's quite impossible." The red head smiled. "I haven't seen her in… ohh… three days or so I'm afraid. No idea where she is."

His confusion was apparent, and he tossed a look to Sakura and the others to see that they too, were confused.

"You see." The redhead continued. "In the original offered twelve hours of prep time the instructors gave us, I took the liberty of smuggling our so called 'client' back to the village." His smile widened. "Sorry we didn't announce it. But you and your collective teams lost this exam three days ago."

(X)(X)(X)

Surprise :)

Next chapter will be interesting and fun. We have a returning character.