A/N: Cor... four months. /cry
Sorry, it is my fault, but not solely my fault. Some of it rests with my computer (having deleted half of the WHOLE STORY a while ago, including the new chapter which was 80% done at the time), some with work (still and always, apparently, having just gotten a promotion I certainly didn't ask for and don't really want...), and so on.
In fact, this chapter alone I had to finish writing twice today, because my computer locked up and the autosave didn't have all of it saved. But, at least it's here now.

A bit short, considering 55 should have been the end of the Suna fight and 15 pages long, but I'm tired of waiting for an update, as I'm sure you are, too.
So here's what I've got so far- the next chapter (no matter how long or short it takes) will probably be the final Suna fight one.

Thanks as always to Mouse (though he hasn't checked this yet), and all you awesome readers. More thanks and internets to the reviewers, though. ;)

Enjoy!

Chap. 55 Tornado

"You arealive... I'm surprised. Pleased, but surprised."

Sarutobi Asuma paused in his advance, clearly put-out that he hadn't detected the man who now stood on a rocky outcropping a dozen or so meters ahead of him. Not least of which because he had the clear advantage of height, another three meters, but also because he seemed to recognize Asuma personally. "Well, I'm happy to serve... and surprise, I guess. Do I know you?"

The tall man on the rocks watched, arms folded over his chest and one hand on the hilt of his katana, while the likely Chunin- and Jonin-ranked ninja under Asuma's command fanned out behind him. "I'm almost... hurt, Sarutobi-san. Think back to your Chunin exams... the man whose eye you almost removed."

Asuma grinned at the memory. Not because he was blood-thirsty. Far from it, in fact. It was just... "Baki? You're still alive, ya bastard?"

The Jonin from Suna snorted, "Bastard? You're the one who stole mygirl back then, asshole."

Despite the calm tones, no one, on either side of the brewing conflict, failed to notice the anger that had quickly taken hold in the Suna commander's countenance. Asuma, however, only sneered, "Your girl? She was a Konoha citizen! It's not my fault you couldn't pick a girl from the Land of Wind, stupid. Besides... Kurenai's dead now. Her sister's in Ootori somewhere, I hear, but I've never met her."

"Really?" Baki asked, his one eye narrowing, "Get fed up and off her? Decide if you couldn't have her, no one would?"

Asuma smiled and shook his head, "Nope, nope, and nope. I did find out she wasn't 'the one'... but that was six years after her death. She survived the Fox's massacre, but died saving her sister and younger brother from a ninja raid a few years later, from what I heard. She was in the Hi no Kuni capitol at the time... and the ninja were Suna, according to the report I got."

One of Baki's eyebrows, the visible one, raised. "Is that so? Well... I can assure you that I'll be looking into that... and if I find out who killed her, I might be kind enough to return the favor for both of us. I'm sorry you won't be there to see it, however... I know you cared for her a great deal, even if you were a whiny bitch about it back then."

If Asuma was bothered by that statement, the Ootori forces, which while watchful of the single Sand ninja before them were also keeping an eye on their own leader, didn't catch it. Instead, the newly-returned Heir of Sarutobi laughed, long and hard, "Good luck with that... I killed them a dozen years back now. At least, I think it was them. They were still operating a little pseudo-fiefdom in Hi. They carved out a little niche for themselves, making trouble for the people... I couldn't let that stand, you see. Anyway... I remember you being a wind-specialist, right? Well... if you recall, I'm not so bad myself at that. And I've had a lot of hard years working on my technique, defending those precious to me."

Baki's own smile grew, though it seemed decidedly cruel as he did so, "Interesting... you aren't as soft as I'd feared. This might even be a challenge. Today, Sarutobi Asuma, I repay you for the insult in the Chunin Exams..." he lifted the white cowl over the right side of his face, revealing a horribly red, perfectly straight, but still wide and painful-looking, scar that stretched from his hairline down to his chin, right through his eye. Strangely, there seemed to be no damage to the orb itself, just the skin around it, but it was a terrible mark all the same.

"Still bitter about that? Get over it, Baki... you lost. It's not the first time. You're good, damned good, and probably better than I remember, but there's always a bigger fish."

As he spoke, Asuma's hands fell casually onto the trench knives in his belt, and Baki's arms, in response, unfolded, his right hand closing around the hilt of his katana and withdrawing it.

"It seems the time for small-talk is over, Sarutobi-san. Let's end what we started years ago, shall we?"

Asuma nodded once, never taking his eyes off his enemy, but spent just enough time before leaping forward to give a single order, "Stay out of this. It's between me and him... and he's beyond most any of you. Take his backup out, though."

Several of the ninja, mostly Chunin, behind him seemed surprised at the mention of backup, but the most battle-experienced members knew that Baki had been standing where he was precisely to hide the Suna ninja on the ridge behind him, and were already in the process of launching weaponry in that direction to hopefully spear anyone who stuck their heads up over the ridge.

(O)(O)(O)

"Sakura-san!"

"Not now, Hinata, I'm almost done with this man, but he's-"

"Sakura-san!"

"Not now, Hinata!"

"We're under attack, Sakura-san!"

"I said- wait, what?!" Silence fell over the medical tent as Sakura fought to process the information she'd just been given by her triage 'specialist'. "What did you say?" she repeated.

Hinata, breathless, pointed through the wall, the veins on her temples throbbing with the rush of excess chakra and blood, "There's a force of sixty-three Suna ninja and soldiers coming this way. They've out-flanked Sarutobi-sama's unit, and they've already started attacking the logistics units!"

The next ten minutes were a blur of chaos for Sakura, as she finalized the order to withdraw and get the wounded out by any means necessary. Hinata had been a bit more of a stretch, the young woman had decided she would stand with the medic despite not having any real training in combat besides self-defense.

In the end, however, Sakura had one (dishonest) trump card: "Uchiha Hinata, if you don't leave, and you get yourself andyour baby killed, I'll resurrect you just so Sasuke can kill you again!"

Okay, so it was dirty, underhanded, and completely untrue. No matter how good she was, even Tsunade wouldn't have been able to detect a pregnancy on the first nightsince conception.

Maybe in a few days.

But, the girl had finally fled after sending Sakura one last, mournful look.

She, though, was not so worried. The non-combatants were cleared out by the time the relief pickets were broken, and the half-empty clearing where they'd been treating the wounded was only filled now with damaged supplies and the pile of dead or rapidly dying that Hinata had declared unsavable.

"All right, you bastards," she growled to the first Suna ninja, accompanied by several armored naginata-carrying warriors, "invade our homes? Attack a support camp? You don't know who you're messing with, 'Great Village' or not!"

The ninja only scowled slightly, "Haruno Sakura, Medic-trained kunoichi, student of Senju Tsunade... who first invaded ourhome, and aided in the destruction of an ally of Sunagakure, and was party to the assault on Iwagakure some days later. I think we know who you are."

Sakura couldn't hold back the rise of both eyebrows. It wasn't that she wasn't unrecognizable; how common was pink hair, anyway? But who was this man, not even wearing the high-quality armor that Suna gave their Jonin, to know who she was? "Hn," she copied her sometimes-teammate's mannerism for a moment- it seemed rather apropos- before giving her best rendition of his confident sneer as well, "So you know who I am... I hate to burst your bubble, but if you think I'm just a medic-ninja, you've got anything thing coming."

She was less pleased about the four other squads, at least six of which were ninja, stepping out of the shadows of the forest. At least she had plenty of ammunition... even if it was gruesome and a bit callous.

The body of one of the critically-injured soldiers, an Uchiha by his hair and one remaining eye, let out a soft wheeze as she picked it up by the collar, but Sakura was unable to tell if it was just from her moving his lungs, or a gasp of pain, or possibly a death rattle, but she had no time to debate it. Instead, pumping just a tiny fraction of her chakra into her limbs, she hurled the body directly to the left of the Suna ninja.

For a brief moment, he looked surprised at something. Perhaps that she'd missed? Or perhaps that Ootori, the 'second coming of Konoha', and therefore 'pacifistic', would abuse a body so? Or even that a medic would?

Then the almost-certainly-now corpse impacted, well, nothing. Except that the ninja staggered, and Sakura's smirk widened, "You think I wouldn't notice a basic Genjutsu like that? Please. Medic or not, I'm Haruno-Fucking-Sakura, you bitches! Come get some!"

Most of the Suna forces, perhaps shocked by her declaration, maintained some discipline. Nine of them did not, and they were the first to die, four of those from having large portions of their anatomy crushed by two flailing bodies, and another three by being impaled on a tent pole thrown like a javelin, with all the strength of a giant.

(O)(O)(O)

"Now, Yamanaka Inoichi, I believe it is time we truly discussed the weaknesses of Ootorigakure's defenses," the tall, shaggy brown-haired man growled as he stepped into the interrogation tent, clutching his side with one hand.

The blonde man who had just been spoken to shook his head weakly. An observer familiar with the father of the strong-willed and mentally disciplined Yamanaka Ino would probably wonder what, exactly, it took to make such a man so dangerous in his own right seem so feeble.

Then again, an observer familiar with Yamanaka Inoichi would probably also be familiar with, well, Inoichi's specialty of interrogation. And while the blonde man himself didn't enjoy or often use such crude methods as full-on torture... others did.

"Now, that won't do," the Kazekage growled again as he stepped toward the blonde man they'd captured a few days before, and gesturing the others out of the tent, "You have to realize... we're going to crush this 'Phoenix' village, one way or another. This expeditionary force here is only a tenth of our total might... not counting myself. And Suna, as much as I hate to admit it, is the smallest of the active Great Villages. If we don't destroy you now, someone else will. I'm simply trying to do so with the minimum amount of bloodshed on either side."

Inoichi only grunted, attempting to gather enough saliva or blood to spit at Tanaka, but was unable to summon that moisture.

The Kazekage continued, attempting to sound reasonable, "It's not like I want to killeveryone in your new village. I just want to remove their military might. Those that wish to join Suna, well, adding a few hundred ninja would swell our ranks enough to push us back up into fourth, wouldn't it? The civilians, even moreso. Obviously we can't support them all in Sunagakure itself, but we could absorb their numbers through Kaze no Kuni. Not to mention, we have long-term plans on a good portion of Hi no Kuni that is currently lawless. Or worse, held by crime families. Think of the good we could do if we worked together!"

A single chip fell from the wall of Inoichi's resolve. Drugs, torture, even crude mind techniques had not made such a dent. But this...

"Lies..." he said, but through the chemicals remaining in his system and the lack of water for three days, even Inoichi didn't think he sounded very convincing.

(O)(O)(O)

It worked better than Naruto could have hoped. While the main defensive line had not been able to push the invading Suna force back, they hadbeen able to force their advance to a grinding halt. That stalemate had lasted for hours, more than enough time for the creators of the sandstorm to run out of chakra, soldier pills or no.

So when the last vestiges of the blowing hand had stilled, and the forward commanders had seen the small, but apparently elite mish-mash unit lead by a tall blonde with an unnatural favorite color attacking the very center of their own line from behind, things fell apart.

Not at first, though.

The Suna commanders, while perhaps overconfident, were all hardened Jonin ninja, experienced in battle, if not actual war, command. They had contingencies in place, or at the least, knew how to react to a smaller force behind them. It was, in fact, thinking about their own plans to defend against such maneuvers by Ootori that had hatched the egg of their attack plan.

So the commanders had quickly turned a portion of their forces back, divided their strength, which allowed the Ootori side to gain ground... for a time.

In return, a force of nearly six hundred samurai, another thousand veteran, though regular, troops, and sixty-one ninja of Chunin rank or higher turned directly toward Naruto's squad, in an effort to ensure that they would not be outflanked, that their command and supply routes would not be compromised.

Unfortunately for the Suna forces, Naruto's plan had been countingon that very action.

As he ducked under a swing from the increasingly-wild attacks of the Jonin he was currently facing off against, Naruto's foot crashed down on the man's instep, directly between the two flanges of armor on his lower legs. Bones shattered under the blow, but it was the aftermath which proved fatal. Doubling over in sudden pain with a cry, the Jonin was unable to prevent the followup knee to his face, which sent cartilage and bone fragments from his face and nose up into his brain, killing him instantly.

Even while the Jonin, whose name Naruto never did learn, fell backwards with a quiet whumponto the sparse forest floor, the blonde Jinchuuriki was taking stock of the situation.

To his right, the lanky, brown-haired and arrogant (even if Naruto grudgingly had to admit he had the skills to back it up) descendant of Konoha's Sandaime Hokage whipped one of his paired kodachi across the unprotected inside of an elbow joint, removing the arm completely to dangle from the strap of the armor, while the other thrust back into the stomach of a samurai who had been attempting to flank him. Beyond Konohamaru, the white-haired heiress of Hi no Kuni (as far as he could tell) was putting on, if anything, an even better show.

While she was not handling more than one opponent at a time, even the better fighters of the group- at least, those Naruto and Uchiha Yoko, the team's sole Jonin- were unable to compete with the flair the teen girl had for one-on-one combat.

She literally danced around her opponents, her lean, athletic body warped into a blur of mostly darkened brown leather and tan skin, highlighted by the flash of her matte-steel kodachi-and-trench-knife weapons pair, with a single bright streak of white from her short-cropped hair. All the while, the blades of her weapons, and less often her own hands, feet, knees, elbows, and even head, pierced through the weak spots of her opponent's armor.

Those precise blows crippled, incapacitated, and then killed one person after another with a speed and rhythm Naruto, himself a close-combat and ninjutsu specialist, found awe-inspiring. Her teacher(s) had been good!

Even Yoko, who had a Sharingan to aid her, could not deliver quite the finesse the young heiress of Hi no Kuni was using against their enemies with almost an almost casual lack of care for her own safety. Rather than defend, Naruto saw, she almost seemed to lean intoher opponents' strikes, which seemed to throw them off just enough that she could slip through with just a scratch or minor flesh wound, while debilitating or ending her opponents with the first opening their surprise at her close range gave.

The close-knit combat group they were in, mostly circled around their medic pair of Shima Karukui and What-was-his-name Shuki, who were dashing to and fro helping where they could to support the engagement, with Karakui also occasionally taking potshots with her short han-kyu bow to help out the group's lone dedicated 'archer', who was the fourteen-year-old son of Uchiha Itachi's new wife, Inari. That boy had seemingly gotten over his fear, replacing it with a cold determination to take down as many of the advancing forces as he could before they were overrun and he would be slaughtered.

As a result, Naruto was also impressed with his accuracy. With only a pot to protect his head, and a small, hand crossbow barely suitable for hunting, Naruto had worried the boy would be effective. But he was certainly that. While the crossbow didn't have the range of a heavier weapon, it was still far beyond that of a kunai in effective range, and the bolts traveled with such velocity that only the best-trained ninja could block them.

One might think that the armor the heavier troops and samurai were wearing would protect them, but the kid was good, and even just the small eye-slits in a samurai's mempo were vulnerable enough for him, at least within fifty meters.

Glancing around once again as his new opponent closed, Naruto thought they were doing fairly well all things considered. The traps had certainly delayed or weakened several of the Suna force's squads, even obliterating a few via explosive tag or earth-style mud traps that sank heavily-armored men twenty feet below the surface of the forest.

Then, Naruto cringed as the voice of the vain Minamoto, one of his squadmates, rang out in a scream of pain.

(O)(O)(O)

"Yes, that's better," the Kazekage smiled softly, allowing his captive to rest. True, Inoichi Yamanaka, infamous everywhere but in Hi no Kuni (where he was nearly revered as a ninja of both honor and power, and the seedier elements that covered the country now stayed well away from his home) for his mental prowess and ability to ruin any opposing ninja team's day almost single-handedly, began speaking.

After all... no one was immune to pain.

You just had to find the best balance between pain and relief.

Even the gold dust under Inoichi's eyelids hadn't broken Inoichi, who himself was intimately familiar with all forms of interrogation, even if he found most distasteful.

But threaten his family, especially his heiress daughter with the same, when she was captured?

Everyone had a breaking point. It was just a matter of what, and when.

As the secrets started to flow, Tanaka's grin continued to widen.

A/N2: Not much to say... next chapter will be as soon as I can get it written and edited. That might be a few days, it might be a month. Can't say, unfortunately, because it looks like my hours are sticking where they are for a while. More money for me (I could use it), but less time to write (which sucks).
I'll have to deal either way, though.
Until next time, kiddies, don't forget to read and review!

Glossary:

Shuki:No one of note, a minor medic ninja. On Naruto's squad.

Shima Karukui:Not of particular note. Non-ninja, she was nonetheless pressed into service on Naruto's squad due to her skill in hunting (archery) and trapping, as well as first-aid.

Uchiha Yoko:An adult Jonin of the Uchiha Clan. Female, pretty I suppose, but nothing really special. Just there to back up Naruto in a fight.

Han-kyu: A small bow (the Japanese version of a European shortbow). It's roughly the length of an arm from wrist to shoulder, and has a relatively short effective range compared to the standard bow, but still effective in skirmishes and against soft (animal) targets.

Inari: Yeah, that's him, plus a few years. He may or may not be more important later, I'm not sure yet.