A Month later, Land of Vegetables

The same routine went on for Naruko. Waking up, helping the villagers and keeping an eye out for the rogue nins. However, she was left uneasy, for the nins had not shown up since the first day she got there. Today was her final night here, and she was contemplating the dilemma. She then dismissed the thought and said to herself, 'Those nin were probably genuinely scared of me and didn't come back. I don't have to worry about anything else.' With that in mind, she went to sleep, not knowing how wrong she was.

Naruko woke up, yawning, stretching her limbs as she realized this was her last day in the village. Under her careful eye, the village had grown back to what it used to be and had prospered. She had even trained some of the villagers to defend the village if an enemy decided to attack it. There were great oak walls that kept the village safe, with seals, courtesy of Naruko, to withstand elemental and physical attacks as well as detection seals to detect intruders. She sighed sadly. She really bonded with the villagers, and she hated to leave, but she had too. She quickly packed her camping gear into her scrolls, double checked her weapons, and then headed to Zoro's office, and opened the door.

Zoro approached her and said, "Well, here is the five hundred thousand ryo. Thank you again for helping us, Naruko-chan." Naruko counted out the five hundred thousand ryo and then nodded. She then smiled and said, "It was a pleasure working with your village. I hope your village continues to prosper. If you ever need help, feel free to call me." Zoro nodded his head in thanks and said, "We will always welcome you in our gates." "Plus," he said with a sly and perverted grin on his face, "The men seem to like you and would gladly like to see you again." She shook her head and smiled, old habits died hard. With one last hug to the old man, she walked out of the office and out of the city gate. With one last wave of goodbye, she bade the village farewell and set out to return to her home.

However, Naruko suddenly sensed numerous chakra signatures and jumped onto the gate to have a better look. There were 100 various missing nin gathered in front of the gate, ready to destroy the village. She gasped and shouted to the villagers, "Be careful and arm yourselves! There are missing nin about two miles from the village!" The people scrambled to get their weapons and gathered around her and were asking her, "Naruko-chan, what do we do?" She weighed her options, and then said, "I will deal with the nin by myself, if any get past me, I trust that you can take care of them." The villagers protested, but she was firm in her decision. Reluctantly the villagers gathered at the gate while she started walking towards the missing nin.

Naruko drew her greatsword, and shouted, "Rogue nins, the Land of Vegetables is under my protection. I'll give you one last chance. Turn back now, or be eliminated." The rogue nins just laughed and said, "What can one girl do to us? Even though you are S ranked, we still hold numbers and have quite a few A ranked shinobi as well." Her eyes grew cold, and her eyebrows narrowed dangerously into a v. She hated being underestimated. They continued to charge, and Naruko channeled wind chakra into her sword, making sharper and longer, and started to charge at the enemy.

Making a few hand signs and pouring a massive chunk of her chakra reserves in, she yelled out, "Katon: Gokkakyu no Jutsu!" She spat a massive fireball at the group of missing nin, incinerating a couple and scattering the rest. She blurred out of existence and appeared in front of two nin, slashing her greatsword at them, ripping open their chests. However, she had no time to rest, as she was forced to jump back, dodging and weaving attacks while blocking others. Finding an opening, she quickly sliced five more nin before being forced back by the rogue nins' onslaught.

Backpedaling rapidly, she continued to block kunai, shuriken, and katanas as she dodged jutsus thrown at her, getting frustrated at the lack of opportunity to attack. Seeing as she was rapidly forced back, she ran through a series of hand signs, gathered a huge amount of chakra, and shouted, "Suiton: Mizurappa!" A huge wave a water exploded from her mouth, pushing back the nins. The nins quickly jumped out of the water, and a few of them formed hand signs and called out, "Raiton: Sandāboruto!" Bolts of lightning raced from them to the water. Naruko, widening her eyes in realization, tried to stop the flow of water she was spewing out, but was a little late. "Aaaahhhh!" She screamed out in pain as hundreds of volts coursed through her body. She collapsed to her hands and knees, her body quivering due to the pain, but forced herself up, her clothes still smoking from the electricity coursing through her body.

She glared at rogue nins and said angrily, "You'll pay for that." She channeled a massive amount of chakra into her sword, and shouted, "Ninpo: Fū ryū no tsume!" A giant wave of wind chakra raced towards the rogue nin, and few were able to dodge it. The rest were sliced into two by the massive wave of wind chakra, and the surviving rogue nin admired and were in shock of her impressive kenjutsu skill. She noticed a few of the rogue nin were heading into the village, and she put her hands together forming a single hand sign. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruko cried out. 10 shadow clones appeared around her. "Help protect the villagers at all costs!" she ordered.

"Hai!" the clones said, and raced to intercept the advancing nin. Naruko then focused on the five remaining nin, and judging by their chakra levels, were all A ranked nin with one S rank. She frowned in frustration. 'I don't have much chakra left, which is saying something. I haven't recovered completely from carrying all that lumber using chakra, and thanks to my temper I put way too much chakra into the fire and water jutsu I used. And then, I used my Wind Dragon Claw sword technique, which also costs a lot of chakra. On top of that, I created 10 shadow clones, which puts me at 1/8th of my reserves. I better be careful with the rest of my chakra. I should probably end this fast.'

She then snapped out of her thoughts to the battle. Naruko then charged her sword up with wind chakra, and swung at the ninja, sending a wind blade at them, hoping to end the fight quickly with this jutsu. However, she frowned as the group did not seem fazed or worried at all. They formed hand signs and yelled, "Katon: Karyu Endan!" A massive dragon made of fire raced toward her wind blade, and to her horror absorbed her wind blade, moving twice as fast and now twice as large, with double the heat. She frantically formed hand signs, pushed out a huge amount of chakra, and yelled, "Suiton: Suirō no Jutsu!" A massive dome of water covered her, and she hoped that it would protect her from the dragon.

The dragon collided with the water dome, and a huge cloud of steam rose. Naruko sighed in relief, her plan had worked, though at the cost of a great amount of chakra from what little reserves she had left. Using the steam to her advantage as cover, she shunshined behind the nin, and quickly sliced them in half. However, she quickly noticed she only killed four. Eyes widening in realization and sensing a huge chakra signature behind her, she quickly turned around, but then a massive fist met her soft stomach, sinking deep into her belly. She gasped in pain, having the breath knocked out of her, but before she could do anything to relieve the pain, the force of the punch caused her to get flown back, tumbling along the ground for about one hundred feet until she crashed against a cliff, where she made a Naruko-sized indent.

She coughed up a mouthful of blood as she fell from the indent in the cliff, dropping her greatsword and clutching her severely bruised and battered stomach, before collapsing to the ground, writhing in pain. Tears sprung into her eyes, for this was one of the most painful blows she had taken yet. 'Had I not reinforced my body with chakra at the last second, I might have turned into a splatter. This guy's strength is no joke!' She then struggled to her feet, her legs wobbling as she tried standing. Naruko focused on the last rogue nin, and realized who he was. He was Daichi, a.k.a. the Iron Giant, famed S rank user of the metal release. She paled as she realized she was going against a fellow S ranked nin with 1/10th of her chakra reserves, and that he had activated his most powerful jutsu, the Kinton: Kongō no Yoroi. With a near indestructible adamantine armor, it sharply enhanced his offence and defense, making him almost invincible, even against seals, but at the cost of speed.

"I'm surprised you're still alive, but you're not The Golden Blade Mistress for nothing, it seems," Daichi exclaims. "However, it seems that you are running out of chakra, and you seem very tired and wounded. It would be in your best interest to surrender. I'll even be merciful and let you live." Naruko's lips firmly pressed into a line, and she said, "I'll still find a way to take you down." Daichi then scowled and said, "Then so be it. While I do admire your resolve, I will be forced to kill you, or at least subdue you." His mouth then morphed into a lewd grin. "After I defeat you, I'll be able to admire your body as well." As his eyes roamed her body, her face turned into a look of disgust.

This was his first encounter with Naruko, and he had to say, she was a looker, probably one of the prettiest women he's seen. Her clothes greatly showed off her curves. Though her purple kimono style blouse was frayed and worn, it still effectively showed off her C cup breasts. Her blue obi accentuated her slim, toned stomach, and her slightly frayed biker shorts accentuated her curved but not too big ass, and showed off her slender and unblemished legs.

Overall, her figure was well-desired; she did not have an overly large ass nor breasts, but had a slim but athletic build. However, what caught his attention the most, was her face. Her oceanic blue eyes were riveting, and her whisker marks just made her all the more cuter. Her golden blonde hair shown brightly, enhanced by the sun, and her lightly tanned skin completed the picture, even with the smears of dirt and grime on her face.

'Great,' Naruko thought. 'I really don't want to get captured by this guy, for he'll be sure to violate me if I lose, but I'm not sure how I'll win this. My best bet is to try and weaken his armor with consecutive blows, and then go for one crushing blow. I can dance around him due to my speed, and I know his armor takes a lot of chakra, so once I take it down, I will have more of a chance.' With her eyes steeled in determination, she grabbed her greatsword, and settled into a stance, attention never wavering off of Daichi.