She had only one chance; that much she knew. One mistake and she'd be back where she had been; only this time she doubted she'd survive what they threw her way.

Naruto had one shot at escaping her captors, and that meant she had to be patient.

Patience was something Naruto learned to have a long time ago. Back before she had met Roshi she had jumped into everything and tried to use her brawn over her brains in order to make it out of the messes she often found herself in. Only her luck kept her from dying a lot of the time, or so her brother and the Tsuchikage claimed.

Roshi had practically beaten the thought into her thick skull. She spent hours locked in dark rooms, days without food and months without human contact. Naruto had learned not only how to cope, wait, and think, but also how to survive from Roshi.

Now was the time to wait and think, now was the time to think about survival above all else. She'd have time to break down later, to rest and to scream and cry.

Thinking back to the rush of lightning in her veins, to the shocks that left her breathless and seeing spots, Naruto willed the door before her to open. She needed to perfect circumstances, and then she'd be gone.

Lightning scars along her wrists and legs were already fading. The white marks had grown lighter and lighter as time went on. Neither of her captors had noticed, and Naruto hoped they never did. She knew that she healed quickly, but for her captors to learn, for Hatake to learn would spell trouble. Being able to heal from extreme injuries meant they could torture her more so than normal without fear of her dying or losing herself.

She had to leave before they noticed.

She had to wait so they wouldn't drag her right back to where she was.

Naruto had to be patient.

So, with the intentions to distract her until the time came, Naruto started to think about her life.

The most prominent memories had to be of Deidara. Next, to her brother, there was an abundance of memories linked to Roshi, Hatori, Ikate, and the Tsuchikage. More recently, the blonde had acquired memories pertaining to her teammates and she even had some with Haku and Zabuza.

Memories with Deidara tended to be sweat. He was a gentle older brother. For all his bravado and love of explosions, he had a warm and calming personality. Often times Deidara would be teaching her something new, however, there were other times when they just sat and enjoyed one another's presence. These times were among her most favorite.

Next came her Sensei and Deidara's teammates. Roshi's memories often held great importance to her, or they served as a source of entertainment. Ikate and Hatori both served as comforts. The memories that Naruto had of the two helped her sleep soundly at night and kept her going during difficult times. The Tsuchikage often acted a goal for her to attain, a level of not only power but also respect that she wanted one day. She cherished these ones the most.

Finally, there were Naruto's memories with her teammates. From the stoic Shisui to the analytical Darui to the ever boisterous Yarui, all of them were slowly worming their way into her heart. Shisui acted as a reinforcement of her beliefs, while Darui stood as an encouraging force that kept her going. Yarui stood for who she had been and all she could improve. The three shinobi had made themselves pillars holding up Naruto's foundations, and she didn't want to lose them. She held these at the highest of importance.

The door at the front of the room opened.

Naruto raised her eyes to the newcomer, taking in the brunet in his entire splendor. Simple coloring, rather plain eyes, and no distinct clothing other than a hapuri faceguard. Just a plain Jonin from Konohagakure, nothing special.

Except, Naruto had watched this Jonin try and detain Zabuza with a large wood dragon.

"Awake?" The Jonin inquired as he stared blankly at Naruto.

Naruto only met the man's gaze with a bored expression. Her muscles began to tense as the man reached for her face, his fingers trailing down her eye.

"Strange…the lightning scars that were on your face aren't as prominent. Taichou had thought they'd be there for forever. Perhaps you got off lucky." The Jonin muttered in slight confusion, his fingers trailing down the side of her face to follow the line of the fading scar.

Naruto stiffened further and had to refrain from snarling at the man as his hand pushed aside her top to reveal her shoulder.

Against her tan skin rested the twisting remains of a bright tattoo, the segments of the mark crawling down toward her left breast. The markings looked a lot like the drawn-out strokes of a calligraphy brush, though they were pointed at both ends. The marks all spiraled toward the center mark resting right above her heart, the burst of red sparks that signified who she was.

Thankfully the Jonin did not invade her privacy and instead pulled away to stand. The Jonin worked his way around the room, making sure that she was still bound and that there wasn't anything left around. As he observed he tried to make small talk with the Kunoichi held captive.

"So, you're Iwatoshi Deidara's little sister?" The man commented.

Naruto stiffened again, her eyes narrowing to a glare on the man's back.

"I would never have thought we'd run into any Iwa Shinobi on this trip. Nor did I think my student would end up on her deathbed."

For a moment the Iwa Kunoichi felt like scoffing, but then she caught on to the end of the man's sentence.

So the girl she had poisoned, the Oreshizoku, was still alive? She must be quite strong then, Naruto thought.

"What did you use on her, anyway?" The Jonin turned to meet her gaze, his unsettling orbs digging deep into her soul with only a simple look.

On sharp intake of breath, and another more reluctant release left Naruto free of the man's gaze again, his attention turned toward the wall opposing her.

"She doesn't deserve to die."

The man murmured.

Naruto allowed her head to fall, her messy bangs falling over her face as she felt the ropes around her wrists slacken.

Lady Rida hadn't deserved a knife to the gut. Her Tou-San had deserved to be betrayed. Her clan did not deserve destruction.

Though, all of those things hadn't been within her control.

"Not many people do in our career choice." Naruto offered to man.

Ropes fell to the ground as Naruto raised her arm upward. She grasped the chakra-suppressant seal on her shoulder and tore it free in one swift motion; then she launched at the man.

The Jonin turned toward her, intent on answering, only to be greeted by Naruto ramming her fist into his face.

The unsuspecting Jonin hit the door's surface hard, falling even as Naruto threw him across the room.

Working quickly Naruto grabbed the handle of the door and twisted it, launching out of it even as she felt the earth rise in an attempt to swallow her whole.

Naruto rolled out of the way of several large spikes of the earth. She reached out and grabbed the first object near her. The object turned out to be the leg of a chair.

Without a thought, Naruto slammed the chair into the floor to break off the chair leg, twisting around into a crouch as she faced her opponent.

Her senses had rushed back to her without the seal keeping her down, though she still had a lot of chakra locked under several more seals she couldn't quite reach at the moment.

Before her, the Jonin had left the room and was flying through hand signs.

Naruto cursed and launched the wooden chair leg at the man, leaping clumsily over the burst of roots spawning beneath her feet. She hit the hard cement with a gasp but was soon scrambling back to her feet. She broke into a run and slammed into the door leading out of the main hut.

As she did, splinters of wood rained out into the brightly lit day.

Behind her, the Jonin had summoned more roots that kept reaching for her, though Naruto managed to evade them.

Landing hard on the ground, Naruto reached for chakra and pulled at the two elements that could get her out of her situation. Fire and lightning met in her clapped palms as she twisted around and glared fiercely at the man trying to detain her. Knowing what would happen next Naruto closed her eyes tightly and dampened her hearing with chakra.

A rather loud explosion rang out and sent her flying from the spot she had crouched at. The explosion spread out and compressed before lighting everything around it on fire, the hut that Naruto had resided in now burning brightly.

Stunned by the sudden attack, the Jonin stumbled from the area, his face slightly bloody and black while his right hand clutched his other arm. The man raised a hand and roots spawned below her once more.

Drawing up more chakra, despite the pain that it brought on her limited coils, Naruto spawned another explosion. This time she was too frantic to dampen her hearing in time, though she managed to close her eyes.

Ears ringing and without proper grounding, Naruto was left to the mercy of the force of the compressed energy. Her back slammed against the ground several meters away from where she had just been. All of the air circulating was knocked from her lungs and she tried to rise to get away.

Naruto had planned for the pain that came from being hit with her own abilities. More than once she had suffered at the hands of Roshi's lava; her own explosions were no better. She rolled over and bit her lip hard enough for it to bleed as pain raced up and down her limbs, her lungs tightening in an effort to push out more air in their damaged condition. Hatori was going to kill her for hurting herself so recklessly.

The world swam and Naruto turned around. She started running, even though she stumbled her first few leaps. She coughed and tried not to think about the metallic taste in her mouth as she tried to figure out where she was.

Something sounded behind her and she cursed, trying to work some earth chakra up past her burning coils in order to create a large wall. As she did so, the tags placed around her body lit up.

Unlike with the light of the explosion, this light did not spread. Instead. it melted into Naruto's skin, black marks forming all the way across her limbs as the chakra within the tags reacted to her treachery.

A fist nailed her in the gut and Naruto doubled over as her vision went black for a moment.

Her ears still rung painfully and her body ached as every limb became impossible to move. No matter what Naruto tried to do she couldn't feel her body or channel any more chakra.

"…messed up, " The man's words rang painfully along with the increasing buzz around her.

"Should have…quite possibly-" His comments continued along with the pounding in Naruto's head.

She had screwed up. She had ruined her only chance.

Nauseated, Naruto opened her eyes and tried to blink away the black spots in her vision. She could see wooden binds wrapping tightly around her and felt hands gripping her arms. Annoyed and vindictive, Naruto grasped the Jonin's wrist.

I~~~~I

Tenzo felt lightheaded and rather close to collapsing as he dropped down by his charge. Behind him the hut they had originally kept Naruto in burned furiously, the flames growing in volume and brightness every moment that passed. For such a small and young kid, Iwatoshi Hosha sure packed one hell of a fight. The kunoichi was able to overpower several suppressant seals to the point of enacting the overload feature Menma had only recently created.

They had all been surprised to witness the child's large chakra reserves and only now did Tenzo fully appreciate the hindsight of Menma to draw up several more permanent creations for their prisoner. Without them, Tenzo feared that the girl would have been able to escape him.

Reaching out for the girl's hands so he could search her for the tool they missed because those ropes had been sawed through, Tenzo stiffened.

A weak hand clasped around his wrist and two crimson eyes opened to glare into his own. A sharp pain flared up his arm and Tenzo tugged his arm away from his captive while glancing down sharply. To his utter surprise, resting just on the palm of the young blonde, was a mouth.

There was a fucking mouth on the girl's hand.

Tenzo fought the instinct to leap back and instead analyzed the mouth the girl had on her hand, glancing at the other in order to confirm the new idea in his head. As expected, another mouth rested on the other hand.

How in all of hell had they, during their removal of the girl's effects, missed the fact that this Kunoichi had a mouth on each of her hands? Tenzo didn't quite understand how someone wouldn't notice something like that about the girl.

That was when Tenzo remembered the red eyes the girl had suddenly gained, his head swiveling to meet the girl's tired gaze again. Red hues met his gaze, slit pupils turning thin from the exposure to the fire's light. The entire beach was lit with the flames, something that Tenzo knew he would have to rectify and then get away from.

Tenzo summoned a Mokuton Clone next to him quickly. Even as his clone marched to put off the blaze with a few Water Jutsu, the Konoha Jonin kept his gaze on the girl's eyes.

The Iwa girl was strange in more ways than one. The only time that Tenzo had ever experienced someone's eyes changing red like this child was when Kushina had been threatened and drawn on the Kyuubi's Chakra. After she had lost the Kyuubi, Kushina no longer displayed the animalistic characteristics and her eyes no longer changed colors.

For a frightening moment, Tenzo feared for what this implicated.

Applying more wood to the girl's body, Tenzo's fears were realized when the red in the girl's eyes drained back to Cerulean.

All of a sudden, the girl's extra healing abilities made sense. The way that she was able to handle more than the average shinobi, or the fact that she had ten times the amount of chakra of a Jonin. All of the facts added up to one horrifying realization that Tenzo would rather have not made.

Iwatoshi Hosha had traces of Bijuu Chakra in her system. Tenzo knew it.

"Oh, you poor kid." Tenzo whispered sadly at the girl, his eyes taking on a shade of compassion. He knew how it felt to exist only as a weapon. The Jonin knew exactly how it felt to be created for the sole purpose of power.

"A Jinchuuriki…" He whispered again, watching as the girl below him blinked rapidly, confusion in her gaze. Then, almost as though her strings were cut, the kunoichi's eyes slipped shut and she fell into her exhaustion.

Twisting around, Tenzo took in the dwindling flames. He let out a sharp breath and then reached for the girl. The wood bindings fell away under her grip and soon the Iwatoshi female was resting against his chest. Careful of the girl's hands, Tenzo bound her with more tendrils of wood and then set toward Tazuna's home.

Right now, the home would be the safest place to stash their prisoner. Just until they could negotiate terms of release and possibly save Sashiko.

Tenzo was not optimistic regarding the latter possibility.

He pushed his legs harder and ended up flying through the trees toward Tazuna's home. His thoughts were silenced with the ease of someone used to not caring about anything anymore.

The Jonin figured he'd soon be back with his comrades, that he didn't have much more to worry about.

He was wrong.

"And just where do you think you are going with that?" Someone spoke to his right, just before Tenzo was forced to dive to the side.

Reflexively, Tenzo shifted his burden to his shoulder, his eyes lifting sharply to view a red-haired man drop where he had just been.

Molten lava splattered on the ground below the redhead, burning and smoldering with the smell of sulfur and carbon.

Tenzo's mouth went dry as he met the eyes of Roshi of the Lava Style with something akin to grief and determination.

Roshi rose to his full height and met Tenzo's stare head-on, his eyes restlessly scanning the man before they landed on his burden.

"So, you kidnapped my Student…of course. This is why I don't let Deidara watch her anymore." Roshi huffed gruffly and raised a hand, offering it to Tenzo.

"Give her over before you get hurt the kid, I'll only ask once. Then I'm just gonna take her from you by force." Roshi offered Tenzo.

Tenzo stiffened and stepped away from the offered hand.

Roshi's eyes narrowed and his hand dropped to his side at the action.

"Yeah, that's what I thought too."

I~~~~I

"He's doing well." A dark voice spoke up.

"Surprisingly. That sister of his has kept him going. She's the reason he refused our offer the last time." A blunt and yet amused monotone answered.

Both figures stood in the trees overlooking the distressed Iwatoshi Head and his teammates.

"We'll just have to strike when they least expect it and take the girl while we can. With her in custody…we can make him do anything."

"Hmm, I suppose. Don't act too brashly though. We need to wait for the right moment."

The second figure stood several feet away from its partner, though one could still see the sizable difference in height the two had.

"Heh, just as long as I get to hit the brat for last time." The taller of the two grinned at his threat, holding tightly to the large blade strung over his shoulder.

"Fine, Kisame. You can take care of Hosha."

I~~~~I

Oops? So I was going to try and write a chapter for SAN but then I thought of this and accidentally wrote it instead. Hope you guys enjoy it anyways! Also don't expect too many updates too often. I joined Tennis so I have practice after school and don't get home till later. I'm going to look into a backpack that can hold my laptop so I can work on my stories more often but we shall see.

Pairings-

Sasuke-14

Ikate-4

Hatori-1

Itachi-3

Don't forget you can add anyone you think might fit within reason. Naruto will be meeting the rest of the Rookie Nine and even those not in Konoha can work out.