Hey everyone, I'll keep this nice and simple so here's your dumb disclamer: I do not own Naruto, whats-his-name does. I do own my characters and this story line however

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A thunderclap...

A shrill whistle piercing the night sky...

"Wha'...? Damn!" Naruto dove out of the alleyway he was hiding in and scrambled across a debris covered street into the relative safety of an abandoned house. Relative being the key word here as shards of stone and other shrapnel shattered the window next to him. Naruto waited... another blast, but this one landing in another part of the war-torn city. He let out a breathe he didn't know he was holding and cursed.

"That one was close."

He and a few other ninja had been hired to take out this city's tyrant of a lord after the neihbouring country had declared war on it. Apparantly, the lord had hired bandits to attack merchent caravans to steal their goods for himself.

Before they arrived though, the lord had begun firing his cannons into his own city to eliminate any enemy troops that were there, leaving most of it a burned out wreck.

So for the moment the cannons were top priority.

Adjusting the black cloak draped over his shoulders Naruto peered through the broken window and brought his binoculars to his eyes. The cannons had moved their aim to about two kilometers east of him. He smirked, Oni must be drawing them away. Oh well that was the plan anyway. Naruto just hoped the madman wouldn't get Bakumaru and himself killed by doing something crazy. The smirk turned into a sigh because unfortunatly, odds were in favour of that happening.

He put the binoculars away and place a fox mask over his face. If they were that close then Shiki must be close to her target, and he needed to get to his quick.

The tyrant lord's palace was a huge structure built into the side of a mountain with four massive cannons in the main structure and a large wall surounding it. The wall had three towers on it, one in the middle and one on each side where the wall met the mountain. Naruto's target was the one on the left while Oni and Bakumaru attacked the center, which left Shiki on the far right.

Naruto ran up the side of a wall and jumped from shadow to shadow, making his way to the castle.

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The gaurd of west tower was bored. Very bored. There was only so long you could watch the cannons fire into the city before it got boring, and that had happened a yesterday. He sighed and took a sip from his bottle of sake.

The gaurd hated tower duty. Especially when the other soldiers were inside eating whatever was left of dinner, oh what he wouldn't give for some food right now.

Mabye he should sneak away and get something? Its not like anything was going on this late at night. If there was, he would have heard it. Like the familiar creak of the window shutter opening. Course, it wouldn't be opening. Damn thing was locked so that the wind wouldn't make it creek. But if it was locked than w..

There was a loud crack as the gaurds skull was slammed into the stone wall as Naruto jumped into the room. He silently cursed that damn window, the gaurd had almost turned around.

"Oi, Shiro! Watcha doin' up there? I brought ya some stew." a voice called from below. The hatch in the floor opened to show another gaurd carying a pot climbing up. He looked around. "Shiro?" he said putting the pot on the table next to the wall. No one was here. He turned around and was met by Naruto's fist.

Naruto tied the gaurd alongside the first one on the cross beams in the roof. "That should do it." he thought. He saw the pot "Hey, is that beef stew?" Then, deciding to eat the stew, he walked over to the window facing the other towers. He waited... and was awarded with the sight of the top of the middle tower blowing open to reveil a monsterous horned demon clawing its way out. The beast swiftly crawled its way down to the towers base, scattering the warriors that were on gaurd at the gates on either side of it.

"Bingo." Naruto said.

Getting over their shock one of the cannons opened fire on the demon, but faster than its bulk should have alowed, it swept to the side and the blast smashed into one of the gates. The demon hissed at its enemy but was taken full on by another cannon, causing it to burst into a cloud of red mist. Unfortunatly, the projectile continued on unempeaded and blew another hole in the wall. A few minutes later, dozens of soldiers began pouring through the hole to engage the gaurds in the courtyard.

Naruto ran up the palace wall and dove fist first into the opening that housed the cannon, knocking one gunner across the room and sending two others into a heap with a kick. Then he slapped a few eplosive seals on the bottom of the cannon and blew it off the railing that held it in place. The gunners from the next room rushed in, swords drawn and attacked, but kunai thrown by Naruto slashed across there hands causing them to drop their weapons. He then proceeded to knock them out with a couple of punches. He entered the second cannon's room and derailed it aswell.

"Took your sweet time." came a woman's voice from behind him. Turning around his fox masked eyes me those of the snarling banshee masked women standing in the door leading into the palace. Tall, hunched slightly, covered in a black cloak similar to his along with the banshee mask made for an imposing figure.

"Sorry Shiki. I always loved watching Baku work." he said with a grin.

"Move faster next time, I was taking out my first cannon before they even fired on his demon."

He waved her off. "Yeah well I did it didn't I?" She gave a light 'hmph' and disapeared into the palace.

"Oni and Bakumaru are already on the move. I suggest you get moving before they take your target." her voice called.

"And what? Let them have all the fun?" Naruto snickered and ran through the door and into the palace.

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The lord gulp as another impact smashed into the the doors to his throne room. He stared on as the remaining gaurds pushed the doors back with all their might, but to no avail. The doors were beging to buckle under the punishment.

He turned to the shadowed figure behind him, his opulent robes swinging about in the motion. "Your boss said no one would breach my wall!" he snarled, "That I would rule if I followed your plan! These butchers are about to kill us all, I don't want to die I-"

"Would you be silent?" the lord was cut off by the man. "Mabye if you hadn't had imbeciles manning those guns they wouldn't have shot your own walls."

"NOW SEE HERE YOU WORTHLESS LITTLE THEIF! I AM-" again he was cut off, but this time by the shadowed figure's knife through his throat.

He sighed and heard the sound of wood shattering. Turning, he saw that some gaurds had fled as two large hands pried open the doors. As they crumbled, two pairs of red eyes could be seen peering through. The man stepped out of the shadows reveiling that he wore a chunin vest and his arms, legs, and head rapped in bandages. Over his eyes were a pair of optical lenses and around his arm was the forehead protector of the Hidden Cloud.

"Stand and fight you cowards!" he bellowed to the remaining gaurds in the room. There was a roar and the door buckled inward and were thrown to the floor to reveil a demon the size of a large man stomping in. It gave the room and its ocupants a passing glance then grinned, showing hidiously jagged teeth.

"Good killing today." its low voice hissed.

With cries of rage the gaurds flung themselves at the beast, who dispatched of the first two with a sweep of its clawed hand, taking their heads clean off. It made a backhanded strike at another group of warriors and a large crescent shapped blade ripped out of its forearm and sliced through their ranks, curving off and embeding itself in the wall. The beast then lept forward and smashed its way through the rest toward the Cloud ninja.

The ninja stood still as his gaurds were slaughtered, not caring for their lives.

With a roar the demon lashed out at the ninja with its claws repeatedly but missed each as the man ducked and weaved around the blows.

"I'll admit," he said as he dodged a blow that tore into the throne, "your rather good illusion. You must have some of experiance with true demons. Unfortunatly, so have I." he then preformed a quick hand seal and struck the demon in the chest. Upon contact, the demon seemed to peel away into red mist to reveal a black cloaked figure. He wore a lion mask over his face and held an axe in each hand.

"I've had some, but just so you know. I know shit all about illusions."he said with a sneer evident in his voice.

There was a sharp pain in the Cloud Ninja's lower back and he toppled forward. Slamming into the ground, he tried to get back to his feet but discovered he couldn't. He was paralysed from the waist down. Twisting around he saw another black cloaked figure, this one wearing a smooth red mask with a single eye in the centre.

The lion masked one gave a wave of goodbye while the red masked person drew a kunai from inside his cloak and threw it through the cloud ninja's eye, killing him instantly.

Kicking the corpse for good measure the lion masked one then asked "Think Naruto will want our help against this guy's leader?" Only to see his companionrumaging through a fallen gaurd's pack.

He cocked his head to the side.

"Sweet!" the red masked one suddenly cried then turned back to his friend to show a small package. "Dude had instant waffle mix." he said and gave a thumbs up.

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Reviews! I crave them! Or potato chips, either would be good.