(A/N) Hello! I'm warning you now, this is the invasion chapter. That means blood. Stop reading after the feather genjutsu bit if you're squeamish at all…
"Wait for it, he'll forfeit in the next two minutes," Danromi commented, lounging on Taroko's back.
"I bet one," Taroko chirped at her.
"Last piece of jerky?" Danromi trilled right back.
"You're on," Taroko replied.
Two minutes later, Shikamaru forfeited, and Danromi got the last piece of jerky.
"Were you betting on when Shikamaru would forfeit?" Sakura guessed.
"Yep," Danromi said, gnawing on her jerky. "I won."
"Good for you," Sakura said absently.
Shikamaru slouched up the steps. "Be wary of that Gaara kid, he just killed two chuunin when they bothered him."
"Don't worry, we'll be wary," Danromi assured him. "He smells like blood, old blood. And tanuki."
"He holds the one tailed tanuki," Naruto muttered. "It's why he smells like that."
"Makes sense," Danromi agreed. "Likes killing I assume? Like the display with Lee?" Taroko shuddered at the mention of it. It had been a bloody mess. And this was coming from the dinosaur that made bloody messes any time she ate.
"Do you think Sasuke can stand up to him?" Danromi wondered to Taroko.
"Maybe," Taroko barked. "Depends on what Kakashi's been teaching him. I can think of a couple of ways to circumvent the sand shield, but again, depends on what he knows. Water could do well, maybe lightning to nullify the earth chakra in the sand, which I'm not sure if that would work, but maybe."
"Water to slow it down so he can get hits in?" Danromi guessed. "That would probably be the safer option."
"Somehow, I don't think Kakashi took the time to teach him water jutsu though…" Taroko mused. "It isn't one of his affinities, so it would have been more difficult to learn them."
Danromi eyed Sasuke, who was perched on the wall. "Those aren't signs for a water jutsu, so it looks like you're right Taroko."
"Lightning?" Taroko asked, staring as lightning collected in Sasuke's hand. "What on..."
"What on earth did Kakashi-sensei teach Sasuke?" Naruto asked, leaning over the railing. "What is that?"
"What kind of jutsu…" Danromi trailed off as Sasuke leaped forward, racing for Gaara. "What is he trying to do?"
'Stab Gaara?' Taroko suggested, tapping it out so the humans could understand.
"Would you look at that," Sakura muttered. "He is stabbing Gaara. This seems like a bad idea."
"You don't say," Shikamaru muttered mutinously from his spot curled up on the floor, napping.
The scream rang out around the arena, and Taroko knew this was not going to end well. There was no way that an unstable jinchuuriki screaming would end well.
Feathers started floating down, and Taroko noticed people getting drowsy. A quick pulse of her chakra later, and any fogginess was cleared from her mind. A genjutsu. She gently bit down on Danromi's wing, then on Naruto's shoulder. It didn't break the skin, just poked them slightly. Enough to break the genjutsu. It was a pretty weak genjutsu.
Sakura had shaken off the genjutsu herself, and Taroko was smart enough to know Shikamaru was only pretending to be under the genjutsu's effects. She kicked him, but otherwise didn't bother trying to wake him up.
"Naruto, Sakura, wake up Shikamaru and chase after Sasuke," Kakashi said quickly, landing near them. Gai knocked out a section of wall, then leaped away again.
Kakashi summoned a small dog. "This is Pakkun, take him, he's your team leader, and will lead you to Sasuke. Taroko, you're with me. Danromi, I don't really care."
Danromi flapped over to Naruto. "I'll follow them. Help Pakkun track Sasuke."
"Great, have fun. Taroko come on. Kill the sand nin, leave everyone else. Try and avoid getting blood on the civilians, don't want to traumatize them too badly."
(A/N) An extra warning. Don't read until the next authors note if you are squeamish or don't handle blood well. Final warning. It's pretty bad.
Taroko nodded amicably, racing into the fray.
She tackled one off of Gai, who'd clearly been fine, but she got the person off of him anyway, tearing into his stomach with her teeth. He died quickly with half his organs missing.
The nin were all over the stands, so Taroko had little difficulty locating another one to tear into. She would seriously need a bath after this, her face was covered in blood.
She went at the next with her feet, clawing him viciously across the chest, snapping ribs and crushing organs.
The next put up more of a fight, having recovered from the shock of seeing her. She dodged a kunai, got in close, and bit his arm off, tossing it away and lunging backward before he got a slice in across her chest. He was bleeding heavily and off-balance from the abrupt loss of his arm.
She backed up and waited until he was just off-balance enough, then lunged. She went for the throat, hitting her mark, as her teeth tore through muscle skin and bone, severing his head from his neck.
Four surrounded her, as their comrade fell to the ground, blood spreading in a pool around him.
She growled menacingly, but they didn't seem phased. So she lunged, dodging the kunai of one to tackle another to the ground. She had to dodge a tanto and didn't get to kill him, however. A long slice appeared on her side from a wind jutsu, and she staggered to the side, before lunging for the wind user with the fans in his hands.
Kunai flew at her, and she barely managed to bite off one of the wind user's hands before she had to duck away to spit it over the edge and avoid the kunai. A hard swing from her tail, and one tumbled over the edge. Two down for a little while, although both would get back up.
The one with the more kunai had to go next, so she dodged under another hail of the things, smacking the second person in the ribs with her tail, and biting into the kunai user's torso with her teeth. She lunged backward with her teeth still closed, tearing out a massive chunk of the person's torso. They quickly toppled over dead. She twisted out of the way of an attack from the wind user, lunging for them next. They wouldn't survive this attack. Taroko would make sure of it.
The person from before, that she had knocked off of the railing, was about to tackle her, but Gai kicked him out of the air, nodding to her, before running off. Taroko tore into the wind user a second later, almost biting their torso in half.
For the final person, she lashed out with a kick, slicing through skin and bone in their chest. They were quickly dead, and Taroko raced off for another challenge.
She went back to back with Gai when two puppet users and their four puppets surrounded the two.
Taroko growled a challenge, then lunged. She couldn't afford to be caught by the poison-tipped weapons, so she dodged everything she could. One puppet went down when she managed to leap straight onto it, crushing it beneath her feet, and she lunged for the puppeteer while Gai distracted and destroyed the other puppet.
The puppeteer was almost entirely dependant on his puppets, and went down quickly, Taroko's jaws crushing his skull.
A hawks screech had her glancing at Gai quizzically.
"The jounin have been given permission to use their full arsenals against the invaders," Gai explained quickly, killing the other puppeteer with brutal efficiency. "The ANBU have also been dispatched. The invasion will be taken care of quickly."
Taroko nodded her understanding, lunging for a sound nin and tearing out his throat.
(A/N) You should be fine now. All of it's over with. Now just a bit of aftermath.
True to Gai's word, the invasion was over quickly. The stadium cleared of enemy shinobi, the barrier around the roof of the kage fell, and the shinobi had been driven from the village itself.
They'd had casualties, but they weren't as high as it could have been. They did lose their Hokage, but it could have been worse in Taroko's opinion. Naruto and his team were unharmed, the other rookie nine that had been at the stadium were also unharmed, and their sensei were all intact. It was all good for now. Now they had to rebuild, and that would take a while, as the damage had been extensive. But it was Konoha. They would rebuild, better than before.
(A/N) A slightly happier end for the fact that like half this chapter was heavy gore. I can't find it in myself to be sorry, so… *shrugs*
Anyway, this is the conclusion of the invasion, and thus the conclusion of NDSA. There'll be a poll up soon after posting this, so go check that out! Don't be surprised if I end up like, posting one shots that are in this universe whenever I feel like writing something particularly gorey, so, uh, yeah… Don't read if you are squeamish. Although if you are, I'm not entirely sure how you got to the end of the book… Anyway! Have a nice existence, sorry for rambling, and maybe I'll see you on a different fic or a oneshot!