Aiko knew immediately that she was on her own. The Okumura compound resided outside of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, sitting on the outskirts of their boundaries, and she didn't have time to run and tell anyone what was happening. Right now, she had to focus all of her energy and attention into running her parents down. She couldn't let them escape. Already, they were about to cross the threshold of the Okumura main gate, she couldn't lose them out in the forest; she needed to stay hot on their heels.

Nanami laughed over her shoulder, "You're going to follow us?!" Though, it was more a statement than a question; they knew Aiko didn't have a choice. "You're going to leave your grandmother alone with the clan while she turns them against you once more?! All your grandstanding, all your shows of power—it'll have amounted to nothing!"

Aiko grit her teeth but didn't respond. She recognized the truth in her mother's words. Even if she was able to capture her parents—kill them if they wouldn't surrender—she would return only to find all of the work she had built from her initial entrance and the duel crumbling. Hitomi was a conniving, intelligent, old woman—she would find a way to spin all of this against Aiko and shatter any support the red head might have gathered already from the family. She would be hated once more.

Right now, none of that mattered. Aiko could return immediately, let her parents escape, but the result would be the same. She needed her parents' surrender, or their corpses, to prove to her family that her challenge to the succession was sincere. Letting Nanami and Karasu get away would only paint Aiko as weak—as unworthy—and would dissolve her support just as easily. She would just have to fix whatever damage her grandmother did when she got back.

All she had to do was catch up.

The three of them passed through the Okumura entrance and out into the green of the forest edge. Aiko barely registered the voice shouting after her or the figure that had been making it's way into the compound.

"Aiko! Where are you going?!"

Whoever it was, the red head didn't have time to stop. Didn't even have time to look over her shoulder. Her parents enjoyed life at the top, often sat behind a desk, but that didn't mean they weren't skilled ninja themselves—to some degree. If she gave them even an inch, they would get away. They would use some trick to disappear.

"Hey! What's going on?!" The voice was close now, the person who called to her was sprinting at her side, just a little behind her. She recognized that overenthusiastic tone, however.

"Not now, Naruto!" She shouted, though she never once broke eye contact with the two figures in front of her that were trying desperately to get away.

"Aren't those... your parents?"

"I don't have time to explain!" But then a thought occurred to the Okumura girl and a sly grin crept over her face. "Naruto, catch up to me, quickly!" A plan was half formed in her mind. If it worked, then she wouldn't have to worry about anything back home.

The blond boy didn't understand what was going on, but he needed no further prompting. Kicking harder in his sprint and grunting as he pushed forward with all the momentum he could muster, he managed to just barely creep up to Aiko's side as he matched her pace.

Before he could ask anymore questions, however, she went off. "I need you to do something important for me," Aiko began, speaking as softly as she could so Naruto could hear her but not her parents up ahead. Swiftly, she recounted everything that had happened up until now, leaving out a few gruesome details that weren't relevant. She instructed Naruto to run this information back to the Hokage, to tell Kakashi to take hold of the situation back at the compound before her grandmother spiraled everything out of control. Then her tone became grim as she thought on the next bit that she wasn't sure whether she should say or not.

"And, Naruto... Sasuke should still be with the Hokage. Tell him..." she paused. No one in Konoha knew of her family's dark alliance, not even most of the clan, it would be a risk to even speak of it to someone she considered one of her closest friends. Though, Sasuke was probably telling Kakashi that he had killed the Snake Sannin at this very moment. So, did it really matter anymore? "Tell him that my parents are most likely headed to Orochimaru."

The blond was startled, "WHAT?!"

"Please!" Aiko begged, she didn't have time to answer all of the questions she knew were spinning like a torrent in Naruto's mind. "Tell him to follow me! I can't do this alone if my parents get that far. Orochimaru still has followers, even if he's..." She was going down rabbit trails—she needed to focus. "JUST GO!"

Naruto nodded, though his face showed his confusion as he slowed and quickly dropped behind Aiko as he began running back in the opposite direction. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she listened to the Uzumaki's footsteps fade away into nothing.

"Still associating with that cretin, I see," Nanami hissed over her shoulder, "what good do you think that monster will be able to do? You're already finished, Aiko!"

"I don't think so," Aiko called back, dodging a kunai her father absently threw over his shoulder to slow her down. "You're headed towards Orochimaru, right?"

Nanami shot a sharp glance behind her, eyeing her daughter suspiciously, but Aiko only grinned back. The advantage was on her side, her parents didn't know that the Snake was dead. He couldn't come to their aid, offer them sanctuary. Not that he would anyway. If Nanami and Karasu barged in like they were planning on doing, interrupting anything Orochimaru might have been working on—well, Aiko almost wished the old man was still alive. He might have killed her parents just as readily.

That was wishful thinking, though. Aiko didn't know the entirety of the depths the relationship Nanami and Karasu had with the Snake Sannin even went. Perhaps he would have aided them. Perhaps he would have killed her instead.

Either way, it was best he was gone now.

"You think you know all our secrets, girl?!" Nanami's voice dripped with venom, "You don't understand anything!"

"I understand that your plan is futile," Aiko spat back, "Orochimaru is dead! Sasuke Uchiha killed him years ago. Have you been living under a rock? No one's come to tell you of this?"

It was Karasu who looked back this time, his silver eyes still cold in their stare, "You lie."

"What benefit do I gain from telling you such information?"

"Throwing us off our guard, perhaps?" Nanami interjected, as if she saw right through her daughter's ploy.

Aiko laughed, "You're not so skilled that I need to resort to such tricks!" She reached for her fan but then stopped; she would have to stand still to swing her weapon with any amount of strength, and if she missed, Nanami and Karasu would get away.

The risk was too great.

Cursing under her breath, Aiko moved her hand away and towards her ninja pouch. She just needed to land a few hits and it would slow her parents down enough that she could catch up.

She pulled out three kunai and two shuriken and nearly shouted her annoyance. Aiko hadn't had time to restock her pouch with tools since they had left the hot spring village. She and Sasuke had been on the road constantly since then, not stopping anywhere else—hunting in the wilderness—and had then run into the ANBU. At the time, Aiko hadn't thought to ask if they had any spares, and she had had no time even when she returned to Konoha. Speaking to the Hokage and then immediately going after her family had been at the forefront of her mind. Chasing her parents into the forest was an unexpected detour, and it left Aiko unprepared and only equipped with an abundance of bandages and salves—which she didn't need right now—and only this small handful of small weapons. She cursed again, wishing she had Sasuke's skill with his shuriken jutsu. She could attach wire to the small blades, but she wasn't practiced at it. It would likely slow her down even more.

"What's the matter, dear daughter?" Nanami asked after the small moment of silence passed, a malicious smile on her lips that Aiko couldn't see while her mother stared forward. "For all your boasting, you're not putting in much effort to stop us!"

One of Aiko's three remaining kunai whistled past Nanami's ear as it clipped the top and sliced through several strands of her raven hair. The older woman's eyes widened as she reached up and touched the fresh cut, looking sharply over her shoulder. Her golden eyes narrowed and her brows furrowed deeply, "FILTHY, UNGRATEFUL BRAT!" She screamed hysterically before her and Karasu pressed their heels more firmly into the ground and increased their speed. They didn't look back after that, or say anything more.

This was no longer some game to the two Okumura heads. They saw the seriousness in their daughter's eyes, saw the red hatred that masked over those blues until it turned them purple, and they felt the weight of reality. None of them could turn back. Death was the only way to make it end.

.

Either hers.

.

Or theirs.