Chapter V

Naruto unsheathed her gunbai, and her Rinnegan came into fruition.

Once her Rinne Sharingan was activated, an oppressive force quickly swept the bridge. Tazuna fainted and dropped, while Team 7 and the ronin were struggling to clear their heads in the presence of this otherworldly power. Naruto started moving toward Kakashi. She made a hand sign. Ram. She said in her head, and tree branches rose from the ground to snatch Kakashi up, and he narrowly avoided them.

"Wood Release?" Sai said to himself. "I must tell Danzo about this."

Sai quickly drew on a scroll, and then shouted "Super Beast Imitating Drawing!" A large, black and white tiger made of ink jumped out of the scroll and went for Naruto. She saw this and quickly responded with ensnaring the beast in more wood branches, incapacitating it and making it melt back into a puddle of ink. She dashed toward Kakashi, giving out the intent for a straight punch to his jaw, but making him lock eyes with her at the last moment and capturing him in Genjutsu, leaving him incapacitated as well.

"Kakashi!" Sakura said. Haku took this as a good time to start attacking the Team 7 Genin along with Zabuza, so Haku caught all of Team 7 in Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, and pelting them with ice needles. Sasuke barely escaped the jutsu before it came into full manifestation, so it was just him versus Naruto.

"Give up, you demon filth! You went all of this way for nothing, just to be captured by us and used as a weapon again!" Sasuke sneered at Naruto.

Naruto replied, "The shinobi world will fall at my hands" in an indifferent tone of voice.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!" Sasuke went through a series of hand signs and blew a flame through a window he made with his fingers. Naruto quickly throws down a smoke bomb in response to this, and used the hectic nature of the exchange to use her space-time ninjutsu and appear behind Sasuke. She grabbed him by the hair and started absorbing his chakra.

"How did you.. get behind me so fast.." Sasuke managed to squeeze out as he could feel his life force leave him. "An otherworldly power." Naruto replied simply, "I won't take all of your chakra, you're my plaything." Once Naruto was finished with absorbing most of his chakra, she kicked him in his head and sent him flying to the edge of the bridge.

Now for Sakura and the new Genin. Naruto appeared in the dome of ice mirrors and stabbed one of the mirrors with her ash bones technique, making it begin to fail due to its nature of being made of chakra. She quickly followed that up with sending a kick to Sakura's face, and her blocking it and getting knocked back. She used the ebb in flow of the fight to attack her again, this time aiming to pick her up by her throat. Sakura responded to this by brandishing a kunai and stabbing Naruto in the stomach. Sai used this opportunity to draw up another beast scroll, and sending a tiger at Naruto's behind.

Zabuza and Haku killed Tazuna then fled, seeing that Naruto would be too much trouble for them.

Naruto slumped to the ground, seemingly incapacitated.

Sai and Sakura got together and sighed in relief. "That wasn't very difficult, Sakura." Sai noted. Sakura just nodded in response. The two Genin were shocked, however, when "Naruto" melted into pieces of wood and they felt pieces of bone on their backs.

"A Wood Clone.." Sakura said to herself. They both turned around to look at Naruto. "Goodbye." Naruto simply said as she thrust her palms into Sakura and Sai. Sai crumbled into ashes, while Sakura still narrowly avoided the strike.

"You're slippery, aren't you?" Naruto gave rhetoric to Sakura as she unsheathed her Gunbai. "Let's fight, me and you. We'll have a rematch in honor of our fight in the Academy."

Sakura, for the first time in her life, felt genuine terror. For her life and her teammates. She just saw her teammate, Sai, die in front of her. Will she risk her life and her teammate's lives to incapacitate Naruto so they can get to safety? Or will she spare herself and try again another time? Her mind was filled with questions, like a traffic jam on a highway.

"I'm taking that as a yes." Naruto strode toward Sakura with her gunbai in hand. Sakura brandished her kunai, nervously getting into her fighting stance and bracing for whatever Naruto may have in store.

She can teleport behind me, or ensnare me with her Wood Release. Maybe I can distract her? Sakura theorized. She threw down a smoke bomb and threw a kunai with a string attached to it past Naruto. Naruto quickly caught on and activated her Byakugan, seeing Sakura travel in the bridge using basic Earth ninjutsu, and what appeared to be a clone of Sakura in the smoke.

So she's trying to distract me with a clone being in the earth. Naruto concluded. She grabbed the kunai, and then shot it back toward the smoke, hitting what she thought was Sakura.

A clone!? Naruto was surprised. Sakura quickly came out of the ground behind Naruto, grabbing Sasuke and Kakashi and jumping across the unfinished bridge. Naruto quickly followed, shooting one of her bones at Sakura out of her palm and then sprinting after her. Sakura lost Naruto for a bit when she jumped into one of the trees, and Naruto kept up.

She didn't expect receiving a dropkick to the face by Kakashi, though.