The remaining sound ninja were still on their way to the hide out where Orochimaru was. But they still had some problems with the leaf ninja that were chasing after them. Three members had stayed behind to deal with them, but they found themselves facing off against one opponent at a time.

"We still haven't shaken them off yet" Sakon said

"Yes, and we still have a long way to go until we reach the hideout. We can't let them discover where the hideout is" Kidomaru said

Ogron thought for a moment. He was one of the strongest sound ninja in the sound village.

"I'll keep them busy. You keep going towards the hideout" Ogron said

Tayuya was the first to object.

"You can't stay behind! We need you here. You're one of the strongest sound ninja" Tayuya said

"That's exactly why I must stay. I can keep them busy" Ogron said

"Well, he is the strongest in our group right now" Ukon said

They came to an agreement that Ogron would stay back and take care of the remaining leaf shinobi.

The remaining leaf ninja saw that Ogron had stopped and was facing them.

"This guy stopped to buy his team some time" Shikamaru said

"We'll have to power our way through him then" Naruto said

"That didn't work on the last guy and I highly doubt that will work on this guy either" Shikamaru said

Neji made the decision to go forward and try to take care of him.

"I'll take care of him" Neji said

Ogron saw the Hyuuga running at him with hands ready to strike.

"He's a member of the Hyuuga clan. Which means he can also use the gentle fist" Ogron said

"Gentle fist"

The gentle fist landed a hit, but something wasn't right. Neji noticed it right away.

"What is this? I hit him with the gentle fist but…It's like it didn't affect him" Neji thought

Ogron looked at Neji with a confident smirk.

"You have some powerful chakra there. Let me show you some of my chakra" Ogron said

The redheaded man surrounded his right hand with chakra and aimed a punch at the Hyuuga genius. Neji crossed his arms to block it. But Ogron broke through his guard completely and sent him flying back.

"No way!" Naruto said

Bloom jumped up and caught Neji and made sure they landed safely.

"Neji, are you ok?" Bloom asked in concern.

Neji managed to recover from that heavy blow.

"Yeah, thanks, Bloom" Neji responded

Bloom then started using her medical ninjutsu to heal Neji.

"Looks we'll have power through him after. Leave it to me!" Choji said

Choji started to bloat up.

Ogron observed this and smirked.

"A member of the Akimichi clan huh? Well this should be interesting" Ogron thought.

"Ninja art: Expansion jutsu"

Choji then retracted all of his limbs and his head into his clothing. Ogron compared it to a turtle retracting into its shell.

"Human boulder"

Choji started rolling towards Ogron. The sound ninja kept smirking.

Shikamaru noticed something about the man's strategy.

"Something's not right here. This guy could've easily dodged our attacks. But for some reason he prefers to take a hit instead. Why does he want to get hit by us?" Shikamaru thought

Ogron grabbed the rolling Choji. He was being pushed back by Choji's strength.

"Way to go, Choji!" Kiba cheered

Akamaru barked in agreement to his master.

Neji was using his Byakugan and saw a revelation. What he was seeing was that Ogron was absorbing some of Choji's chakra and putting it into his own body.

"This guy can absorb chakra. That must be why he's not dodging any attacks we throw at him. From the looks of it, this guy grows stronger the more chakra he absorbs. That explains why the gentle fist didn't work on him. He absorbed the chakra he took from the gentle fist" Neji thought

"Choji! Get away from that guy now!" Neji shouted

Orgon punched the rolling Choji and the round ninja was sent flying backwards. Shikamaru went over to his best friend to see if he was ok.

"You ok, Choji?" Shikamaru asked

Choji managed to get up.

"Yeah, I'm fine, but this guy is strong" Choji said

Neji then started to explain to everyone about his ability. Everyone found it troubling that such an ability even existed.

"What are we supposed to do then?" Naruto asked

Bloom, who just finished healing Neji and Choji, looked at him for a moment. She knew what she had to do.

The young redhead walked and stood in front of the rest of her friends.

"Leave him to me" Bloom said

Shikamaru tried to convince her to not fight him on her own, explaining that facing this kind of enemy with this type of ability was too dangerous to face alone.

"Don't fight him alone! Now that we know what his ability is, we can work together to take him down" Shikamaru said

Bloom looked at him and started to remind him about the mission.

"Remember our mission is to bring Sasuke back to the village. I know about this guy's ability and I know the risk. But all of you must move ahead because if you don't, you'll lose sight of the sound ninja. Don't worry, I'll beat this guy and catch up to all of you soon" Bloom said

Neji started to think that Bloom might be the only one capable of beating him.

"Out of all of us, she has the best chance against him. Let's leave it to her" Neji said

Naruto was about to object because he didn't want his sister to get hurt but when he thought back to the time where she managed to defeat him in sparring match right before the chunin exams, he realized that he needs to trust in her strength.

"Yeah, let's let her take care of this clown" Naruto said

The other ninja left, and Bloom stopped Ogron from attacking them by throwing a kunai. The redheaded man deflected it with a kunai of his own.

"So, I'll be taking on a little girl? How disappointing" Ogron said

"It's safe to assume that ninjutsu would just be absorbed by this guy, I'm not the best at genjutsu either and taijutsu is risky because he could grab me and start absorbing my chakra. Genjutsu and Taijutsu will probably the most effective but I may have to resort to using ninjutsu too" Bloom thought

Ogron decided to go first and aimed a punch at her. Bloom saw him coming and quickly dodged it. She then saw him surround his fist in fire and aimed more punches at her, she managed to evade ever punch that was being aimed at her. He then switched to using kicks but those were dodged as well.

"This girl's good. She's able to read my movements and dodge them perfectly. It's like facing an Uchiha with the sharingan" Ogron thought

The redhead decided to charge at him and aimed a punch at his midsection. He sidestepped to dodge it. He was about to elbow her, but she managed to counter his elbow attack with her knee. She then tried to elbow his chest but Ogron crossed his arms to block it.

Bloom then performed an axe kick and the intense physical strength in that kick was strong enough to force her opponent to uncross his arms. She did another axe kick and he was sent flying after getting hit in the chin.

Ogron got up and looked at her with a glare.

"This girl is quite skilled. She's not an ordinary ninja that's for sure. Well then I better go ahead use some ninjutsu" Ogron thought

Ogron then weaved some signs and was ready to launch his jutsu.

"Fire style: Majestic flame demon"

A giant fire lion was crafted and was then launched towards Bloom. The redhead was quite surprised to see a powerful fire jutsu like that. She already knew what to do.

"Water style: Two headed water dragon"

A dragon with two heads made out of water appeared and it slammed into the fire lion. The clashing of fire and water caused some steam to form in the air. Ogron couldn't tell where his opponent was but what he didn't know was that his opponent could see him clearly even thick steam.

"I'll attack as soon as this steam clears up" Ogron said

The sound ninja then felt a punch in his stomach causing him to lose his breath.

He was then kicked in the side and was sent backwards by at least two meters.

"How can she see where I am?" Ogron asked

The steam cleared and his opponent was visible again.

Ogron was left with no other choice. He activated his curse mark and it spread through out his whole body.

"It's been a very long time since I had to use my curse mark. You have my respect. Not many shinobi were able to force me to use this" Ogron said

Bloom kept her composure. She knew what the curse mark can do to someone. She didn't want to rely on such a power.

"That reminds me, you got a curse mark from lord Orochimaru too, didn't you?" Ogron asked

"So what?" Bloom asked

"Why not simply allow that power to fuse with you? You would be 10 times stronger than you are now. Let the curse mark take you over and you will get the power you desire the most" Ogron said

"I don't want to rely on such an evil power that I didn't even ask for in the first place. I don't want to become something that I'm not. I'll gain my own strength without relying on this evil thing" Bloom said

"Well then looks like I have no choice but to kill you then. Lord Orochimaru will be quite disappointed but there's not much I can do" Ogron said

Ogron then started to charge at her with intense flames surrounding his body. She managed to dodge his attack in time, but he thrusted his hand out and a massive heatwave of fire was released. She was hit by the intense heat and it left severe burns.

She was on her hands and knees panting.

"How did that feel? Wasn't that power amazing? That was the power of my curse mark! The same power that you're trying to suppress" Ogron asked

Ogron then noticed that the burns that he gave to his opponent were disappearing. The young Uzumaki had surrounded herself with green chakra.

"So you're a medical ninja. Good to know. The more chakra I sap out of you the stronger I'll get" Ogron said

Bloom stood up and faced her foe again. She never thought how much she relied on her ninjutsu to get herself out of trouble. Not being able to use it at all was a challenge.

Ogron gave her an evil smirk.

"Lord Orochimaru informed me that your specialty is ninjutsu. Too bad your jutsu won't work on me" Ogron said

Ogron charged at her again. Bloom knew that using taijutsu wouldn't be a good idea since the sound ninja had coated himself in fire. She had no choice but to use ninjutsu.

"Water style: Liquid bullet"

Bloom spit out a giant ball of water at her opponent. Ogron smirked and stopped charging and held his hands out to absorb the jutsu. The water went right into his hands and he felt stronger.

"It looks like your nothing without your ninjutsu" Ogron said

Ogron then grabbed her by the neck and started to squeeze her.

"I'll choke the life out of you" Ogron said

She then smirked. The redhead disappeared in a puff of smoke and fire appeared in her place and consumed Ogron. The surprise was so unexpected that he didn't even have time to absorb it. The jutsu did do so significant damage.

The sound ninja was down on one knee.

"A fire style shadow clone. Not bad. I didn't have time to absorb the jutsu. She must've created that clone when I changed my focus on her water jutsu so I could absorb it" Ogron said

The young Uzumaki now knew that if a technique was fast enough or unpredictable then it would work. If her opponent isn't prepared for a technique, then he could get hit by it.

Bloom then released some hot steam in the air causing the temperature to rise. Ogron started to sweat when he felt the temperature rise.

"It's getting hot here. It must be this steam" Ogron said

Ogron then felt his body light up on fire. Ogron simply used his chakra and the temperature was back to normal.

Bloom was surprised that her genjutsu was ineffective.

"A genjutsu at that level won't take me down" Ogron said

Ogron then released another fire jutsu.

"Fire style: Fire fists"

Giant hands of fire appeared, and they were headed towards her. Bloom managed to dodge the first hand but the second managed to punch her hard and send her into a tree.

"Hm, you're seem to be out of tricks. I was starting to enjoy this too. Oh well, all fun must come to an end" Ogron said

The young Uzumaki threw some Kunai at the redheaded man but he deflected them with ease. He then saw that kunai had some paper bombs on them and they exploded.

Bloom was panting heavily. This fight was truly challenging. She was also repairing some of the damage that she received from Ogron.

She then sensed some evil chakra and looked over towards the smoke that was caused by the paper bombs. When it cleared she wasn't sure what she was looking at. Ogron had undergone a physical transformation. His skin was red and had two red horns sticking out of his head.

"I never thought you would actually force me to go into the second state of the curse mark" Ogron said

"That's what the curse mark's second state can do to you?!" Bloom thought in shock

Ogron charged and hit Bloom with a burning punch that caused some intense pain and left a bad burn as well. She was knocked out and fainted for a second and she managed to get back up after regaining some strength.

Ogron then grabbed her by the throat and started to absorb her chakra.

"I'll suck you dry" Ogron said

At the same time her neck was getting burned. She then started to feel that her curse mark was trying to take over, but she managed to hold it back from taking over. She then thought of an idea.

"Water style: Hydraulic pressure"

She spit out high pressure of water and that sent her flying backwards and she managed to land on her feet. Her hair had come undone, but she didn't care about that right now.

She then saw that Ogron was charging at her again. She needed to keep stop him from getting closer even if it was for a moment.

"Water style: River current shockwave"

Bloom sent some water rushing at him. Ogron then dodged it which was something that Bloom was not expecting.

"Hold on, why did he dodge it? He can absorb chakra, so he could've easily just nullified it and absorbed into his body" Bloom thought

Ogron then kicked her towards a large tree and that caused her to cough up some blood. She then slid down and landed on her stomach, but she managed to slowly get back up. She needed to find out why he didn't absorb her jutsu. She needed to put that to the test. She saw that Ogron was going to release a massive jutsu.

"Fire style: Majestic flame formation"

A tsunami of fire was sent her way and she sensed that a large amount of his chakra was used in this technique. She needed to counter this jutsu quickly though.

"Water style: Tsunami shockwave"

The young Uzumaki released a tsunami of water and it managed to extinguish and overpower the large fire jutsu. Ogron then absorbed the water jutsu. Bloom then sensed that the chakra that he used in that fire style was back. Now for that test that she wanted to do.

"Fire style: Dragon flame bomb"

A sea of fire was released from Bloom's mouth and Ogron dodged the jutsu.

"He dodged. That could only mean one thing. He can absorb chakra and place it in his own body, but there appears to be a limit to how much chakra he can absorb. It's probably dangerous for him to absorb more chakra than he's capable of. Which means right now…ninjutsu will work on him without the risk of him absorbing it and making him stronger" Bloom thought

Bloom was almost out of chakra though and she only had enough to heal her wounds.

"Looks like I'll have to resort to the training that Guy put me through" Bloom thought

FLASHBACK

Bloom met up with Guy with a request.

"Guy-sensei, I would like to learn the eight gates" Bloom thought

Guy looked at her in surprise and then he put on a serious face.

"Why would you want to learn the eight gates? You already have some powerful ninjutsu in your arsenal" Guy said

"I want to increase my skill and healing power. I only need access to the second gate" Bloom said

Guy seemed to be deeply moved and agreed to teach her the eight inner gate formation. Of course, he saw that she had the potential to open more gates. The training proved to be hard, but it was successful. Bloom had ending up being able to open 5 gates. She had access to five gates.

FLASHBACK OVER

The young Uzumaki knew that this would cause her some pain, but she needed to defeat this guy here and now.

Ogron knew he couldn't attack her recklessly. He guessed that she probably caught on to the limit of how much chakra he can absorb. He then saw that his opponent was doing something strange. She closed her eyes and crossed her arms.

"What is she doing?" Ogron thought

Bloom started to surround herself in green chakra to heal her wounds and then started to unleash the gates.

"First gate, gate of opening, open"

"Second gate, gate of rest, open"

"Third gate, gate of life, open"

Ogron then saw that the redhead's skin changed color from porcelain to red.

"Has she activated the second state of the curse mark?...No this is something different. But what is it?" Ogron thought

He then saw the air around her started to vibrate. He didn't know what was going on but he knew that this wasn't good.

"Fourth gate, gate of pain, open!"

"Fifth gate, gate of closing, open!"

Ogron then noticed that she had released more chakra than before.

"What's going on here? Her chakra was almost completely drained a moment ago but now she somehow has more! She didn't absorb any chakra from me so how?!" Ogron asked

Ogron decided to end this quickly and charged at her with his fire armor active. He tried to punch her, but she disappeared instantly. He was shocked because her speed suddenly increases drastically. He then received kick to the jaw that sent him hurling in the sky.

"I didn't even see her! Her speed is greater than before, and her strength has increased as well. She managed to bypass my fire style armor. What kind of jutsu is this" Ogron thought

Ogron then felt himself receiving blow after blow. It was impossible to defend himself against someone who was now much faster than he was. He couldn't even keep track of her movements either.

"You're finished" Bloom claimed

Using her full power, she performed that hidden lotus and smashed right into Ogron and slammed into the ground hard.

There was a big crater from the result of the attack. Bloom was panting heavily. She had already healed the muscles that she tore during her attack. Ogron was on the ground and his curse mark deactivated. There was a hole in chest and his heart had been crushed. Ogron was killed and Bloom could rest easy now that she had defeated such a powerful foe.

She then leaned her head against a tree and passed out from exhaustion.