Naruto stared at her nemesis.

"Let me reiterate," she began. "You're Orochimaru, and the only reason you tagged me was because I have loads of power, and because it's a fail-safe when the real you dies. Am I correct?"

"And to control your thirst for power," he replied silkily.

She stared at him for a minute longer.

"I'm going to kill you!" she shouted, lunging at him. "Kyuubi, let's kick his ass outta my head!"

"Gladly!" Kurama roared.

Together, two waves of chakra converged on the Orochimaru in her mind.

But Orochimaru, ever-so-helpful in his sense of preservation, blurted, "I'll teach you the Doton techniques!"

The chakra stopped.

"You can do that?" Naruto wondered. "I mean, I'm no slouch at techniques..." She was instantly sitting at a desk, scroll and brush out. "Tell me how to master the techniques!"

Orochimaru smirked at her.

Unknown to Orochimaru, Naruto was just using him. As soon as he told her all his knowledge in jutsus, mind figment or not, he was gonna die.

~:~

Gaara stopped as he went through the Forest of Death, again. He was just too... Energetic, today.

He was nearing the entrance when he heard bickering.

"I'm not going to touch her! She looks dead, okay? I am not touching her until she stops looking so waxy and pale!"

"All three of us have to make it to the tower, you moron! If we're stuck here, Naruto will kill us both! We also need to get an Earth scroll. Naruto's carrying the Heaven scroll."

"I'M NOT TOUCHING HER! YOU PICK HER UP!"

"I'M TOO WEAK!"

Gaara entered the clearing, an Earth scroll in his hand.

"I'll carry her," he offered. Mother was silent when he did so. "I'll give you the Earth scroll if you let me."

The two redheads looked at him blankly for a minute.

"As long as you give me a bowl of that stuff blondie was eating at the test," he said. "Otherwise I'll just kill all three of you."

"Okay! We'll give it to you when we reach the tower!" the redhead with glasses said, pushing them up her nose. Gaara nodded, satisfied with her response. He dropped the Earth scroll at their feet, then gently wrapped the blonde in his sand. More sand appeared beneath him, and the two other ninja grabbed the Earth scroll lying on the ground before going ahead of him.

~:~

Baki facepalmed when he watched this happening. How in the nine hells did Gaara get involved with the insanity of the Uzumaki clan?

(Although, he did see the advantages of doing so. Hatake Kakashi was actually more focused now that his 'kawaii genin' were in danger, and Kiana-san [though according to the Sandaime, Kiana was not a jounin, but since she was an Uzumaki it was probably better to leave her alone] was also quieter. Neither of them were acting as weird as they had earlier. Plus, from what he heard, the Uzumaki were loyal to a fault. Or maybe that was fake, because he'd also heard that the Uzumaki were one of the sanest clans out there...)

The Sandaime looked at Baki, confusion in his gaze.

"Didn't your genin use his sand to kill three teams?"

One from Ame, one from Oto, and one from Kiri.

"Yes," Baki sighed.

"So why is he helping that team?"

Baki shrugged, at a genuine complete loss. He had no clue at all. Gaara usually killed indiscriminately - but then, Baki had had to press upon him the importance of passing the Sanity Measurement so he could get to the final round.

Baki could do nothing more than watch as the small group traveling started in the direction of the tower - and, unknowingly, in the path of the Taki team, which also had the jinchuuriki of the Nanabi on it.

~:~

Fuu kept walking, both scrolls tucked securely in her possession. She and her team (well, her, mostly...) had come up with the idea of putting four Taki teams in the race. At least one of the teams had to get the opposing scrolls, right? (Well, being known as the 'Lucky Seventh Jinchuuriki' had also helped. The fact that nobody had seen her create the teams was luck, as was the fact that there were only two scrolls that needed to be taken...)

So, after popping them, they'd taken the scrolls and had continued on their way, Fuu randomly picking a direction and walking.

Yes, walking. Not doing shinobi jumps or anything.

She had a feeling something was going to happen, and she wanted to be there when it did.

They marched onwards.

Sand particles fell, catching her attention. She looked up... And promptly sprouted wings to fly up there.

"Wait for me at the Tower entrance, guys!" she called to her team. "Hey, Ichibi dude! Wait up, I wanna talk to you!"

The Ichibi holder stopped in midair. His companions, two redheads, were breathing hard and looked quite grateful for the pause.

"I'm Fuu!" she introduced. "Who's the girl you're holding? Who are they? Who are you?" Fuu fired off question after question. "Where do you live? Is the reason you have sand manipulation because of the Ichibi?"

"Oh, you're a jinchuuriki, too?" the redhead with the glasses asked.

Fuu nodded, beaming. "Yep!" she said cheerfully. "You?"

"No, the girl in his sand is the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi," the redhead without the glasses (Technically she was a pinkette, but... Whatever, right? Fuu didn't care.) said gruffly.

Fuu eyed the pasty-looking girl in his sand.

"Are you sure she isn't dead? She looks kind of dead," Fuu noticed.

"She's not dead," the Ichibi jinchuuriki spoke in a bored tone. "She's unconscious. We really should get her to the Tower, in case she does die. I don't want to carry a dead person."

"See?! She's not dead!" proclaimed the redhead with the glasses.

"I said she looked dead!" the one without the glasses cried.

Fuu liked this group, she really did. She wondered if Shibuki would be too opposed to letting them visit Taki.

~:~

Fuu spotted her team at the Tower, a grin on her face.

"Let's go!" she skipped into the room, pulling out the scrolls. Pushing chakra into them, Shibuki appeared. "I thought you back in Taki, nii-san!" Fuu said, hugging her older brother figure.

"The Sandaime asked me to stay in case you made it," Shibuki replied with a grin. "I watched your team - nice job."

Fuu beamed more. "Thanks!" she said, hugging him more.

"Now go rest up, I'll talk to you later," Shibuki promised. "I'll be here when you get to the Leaf Inn."

He hugged her back, then waved at her starstruck companions.

"Wow," her companion, Mebuki, said, her eyes wide. "You know the leader personally?"

"Yep," Fuu said, tilting her head with a closed-eye smile. "He's one of the few that actually like me."

She didn't see the flinches Mebuki and Suko gave.