Original Publish Date: 26th-October-2015

A/N: This is dedicated to Mesut Özil for proving himself to be the best playmaker in Europe this season. He's taken all the ridiculous shit people spew about him and shoved it down their throats by doing what he does best; playing beautiful football. He's a credit to himself and Arsenal. Well done Mesut, a deserved goal in yet another big game. Full Time: Arsenal 2-0 Bayern Munich.

Chapter 7 – Bounce

This ain't no game; I play it hard

Kicked around, cut, stitched and scarred

I'll take the hit but not the fall

I know no fear, still standing tall

You can call it karma, call it luck

Me, I just don't give a …

- Bounce, Bon Jovi

Hokage's Office, Konoha: 4465617468

"Who are you?"

There was silence in the office as soon as those words were spoken.

After a very pregnant pause, the mummified walking corpse in the chair finally replied, "My name is Shimura Danzō. I'm substituting for Sarutobi while he has his annual meeting with the Daimyō."

I was infinitely grateful for my mouths reliable ability to always say something stupid in tense situations. My mind was still running in circles, but atleast I had bought myself some time, and provided a (hopefully) reliable cover for my shock at seeing the warmonger in the chair. I moved to stand alongside Genma and Anko in front of the desk, tense but ready.

He gave all three of us the gimlet eye for a while, noting Anko's brazen exterior, Genma's usual easy-going slouch, and my alertness. He gave no sign of his thoughts; his features were a perfect mask. I was hyperaware of the seal on the back of my neck; I was eagerly waiting for him to try to use Kotoamatsukami on me. I would then have a legitimate reason to attack him, if not kill him outright. And then a terrifying thought struck me.

Did he already have the Hokage under his thrall?

Before I could ponder this thought any further, he spoke again, "Tokubetsu Jōnin Mitarashi, you were in charge of security for the festival last night. Have you completed your report regarding the attack on the jinchūriki?" His cold tone, and the way he ignominiously referred to Naruto pissed me off. I clenched my jaw, happy that the mask managed to cover that action.

Anko nodded and slid across a scroll. "Hai. We tested the dish he was feeding to the boy; it had enough poison to kill an elephant. Thankfully he is recovering, there is no major damage done to him. He will be out of the hospital in another two days."

"No doubt his fortitude comes from the demon inside him. Did he confirm that he wanted to kill the boy because of the Kyūbi?" I was very close to grinding my teeth in anger, but I forced myself not to react visibly. I was seething inside.

"Hai, and in the process he broke the Sandaime's law. I executed him as a traitor on the spot."

His eye shifted away from Anko and focused on me. "How did you identify the attempted murder of the jinchūriki?"

At times like this I am infinitely grateful to my mouth for speaking without letting the other person know what was actually on my mind, "Oh, you know… When someone is trying to force feed a child despite the fact that he is complaining of an aching stomach you tend to think there is something not right with the picture. Not to mention the way he was looking at the poor boy. I was beginning to fear for his virtue!" My voice was light and airy, and my tone that of an overenthusiastic housewife; both Genma and Anko turned to stare at me.

Danzō's face, what was visible of it, was as inscrutable as ever. "Tokubetsu Jōnin Nanashi; you exposed civilians to killing intent. Are you aware that this is a crime?"

My tone turned completely frosty; it even made Genma draw back, "When a child's life is in danger you don't stop to think about what laws you might break; you act. That is all I did." Anko just raised an eyebrow at the change in tone but otherwise didn't react.

Danzō then turned his attention to Genma, "Jōnin Shiranui. Did you witness the exchange that Tokubetsu Jōnin Nanashi alluded to?"

Genma shrugged, "I heard the kid complaining about his stomach, but I figured that he had overeaten at the festival, like most kids do. I didn't notice anything wrong until Nanashi let loose his killing intent. Once I saw him knock the chopsticks out of the kid's hand I realized what was going on. I thought about convincing Nanashi to take him to the hospital, but he was the one who had noticed something wrong, which is why I took the kid instead; I was sure he would be questioned. My role was mostly as a bystander."

His eye turned back to Anko, "Was the traitor a civilian of Konoha?" At Anko's affirmative nod he continued, "Where did a civilian get his hands on a toxin?"

"The lab has identified the toxin as being made from local plants. Our current working theory is that he gathered the plants and created the poison himself. We're looking at all of his known associates to see if he had help, but so far nothing has jumped out at us." That's right, she was in intelligence. This was her full time job.

After a few moments Danzō spoke again. "I see." His eye turned to me. "Tokubetsu Jōnin Nanashi. For your breaking of the law regarding killing intent you are hereby fined the sum of one C-rank mission. This will be deducted from your next mission pay-slip." A slap on the wrist; not an ideal outcome, but I could live with it. But Danzō wasn't finished, "For preventing the assassination of an important military asset a commendation will be placed in your file." Once more my irritation flared up but I managed to keep a straight face while nodding. "Your file says that you have been working in the capital."

I could feel Anko and Genma looking at me with undisguised interest, but I didn't take my eyes off the mummy. "It does."

He used the most basic of interrogation techniques on me and stared at me unblinkingly. Instead of folding and elaborating on my role, I matched his stare with one of my own. Recognizing that the tactic would get him nowhere he spoke, "Your assignment was to watch over the Twelve Ninja Guardians?"

"If you have the clearance to read my file then you know that the answer is yes." I put a note of warning in my voice. Fake cover or not, Anko and Genma were not authorized for this knowledge. My words were a subtle reminder as to that fact; as a matter of fact, I was behaving exactly as someone in my position should.

He didn't look cowed, but then it was impossible to know what he thought. He was harder to read than Hinata's dad, and that was saying something. Instead he kept pushing, "After you won the tournament, I did some digging. And I found nothing. No academy records, no mission history."

I smiled, showing my teeth, not that he could see them; still, he recognized what I was doing. "I would be extremely surprised if you did. In fact, it's an open challenge to everyone; try to figure out what I was doing before 5 months ago. I guarantee you, you will find absolutely nothing. I'm that good. If you do, I'll give up my ninja career."

That shut up the fossil. I wanted to ram one of my Rasengan variants down his throat, but I convinced myself that boasting was enough for the minute. Perhaps I would kill him at a later date; or maybe I would leave that to Itachi. Log knew he deserved it. Collaborating with Orochimaru to implant the Sharingan in his arms was unforgivable in my book; and I wasn't even an Uchiha.

Out of nowhere though, Danzō suddenly switched the topic to a mission.

"The three of you are hereby assigned a mission. Your fourth team member will be Gekkō Hayate. This is a B-rank retrieval mission. A scroll was recently stolen from Kumo detailing some of their high level techniques. You are to retrieve this scroll at all costs. The thieves were last spotted heading towards the west; presumably to Iwagakure. The probability of meeting enemy combatants is high."

All three of us were suddenly standing to attention, committing the mission details to memory. It was as if the previous conversation had not even taken place. We were shinobi. We had a mission. There was only one rule. Do, or die trying.

He put a scroll on the desk. Anko picked it up, confirming herself to be the team leader. Not that it meant much, since the entire aforementioned mission participants were Jōnin level, but the fact that she allowed herself to be held accountable for the mission results provided an interesting insight into her psyche.

As I watched Anko read through the scroll a thought suddenly struck me. There had been an ANBU member who had tailed me all the way to the Hokage tower. I would bet my left testicle that he would be shadowing us to throughout the mission; undoubtedly to provide Danzō with a report as to my capabilities. If he did so, that meant that Danzō had not placed the Sandaime under Kotamatsukami; otherwise he would simply ask the details from Sarutobi. Well. Atleast I now had a reliable indicator as to whether I should worry about the knowledge of the future becoming commonplace.

Dammit, I should have snatched the scroll from Danzō's hands; I could have place a temporary Hiraishin seal on him then.

Anyhow, the moment was gone. And now we had a mission, I took a quick glance at the mission details as Anko passed the scroll to me. It had a few extra details than what Danzō had told us, but it was mostly extraneous. Last seen, headed in direction etc. We had a mission. Scratch that, I had a mission. I hadn't had a mission in forever. Despite the fact that it was Danzō who had assigned it to me I felt an undercurrent of excitement. I hadn't had a proper mission in forever; I was dying to cut loose.

Once Genma read finished through the mission details, all three of us bowed our heads slightly (not nearly as deep as we would to the actual Hokage) and moved out. We met up with Hayate on the ground floor, and after introductions (in my case) and a short pause as he perused the mission scroll we all moved out. We dropped the scroll at the mission desk and made plans to meet at the gate in 30 minutes. I went straight to the gate (years of practice had made sure I was always mission-ready) and waited for my teammates. As soon as we were all there (Hayate was the last one there, probably saying good-bye to Yūgao-taichō) we moved out, with Hayate in the lead.

Back in my time, I had sparred quite a bit with Yūgao-taichō when I had wanted to get a feel for fighting a sword user. As is usual for shinobi relationships, the more one sparred with their opposite number the closer they got; and as a consequence she had finally told me about her deceased lover Hayate. As I followed directly behind Hayate I promised myself that he would be one of those I would save no matter what. Yūgao was not as close to me as, say Sakura-chan or Hinata, but she was one definitely of my precious people. Although by then anyone who helped me get stronger against Sasuke qualified as such.

Since we knew that the scroll had been stolen approximately 16 hours ago we moved to one of the most likely exfiltration points between the Kaminari no Kuni (Lightning Country) and Tsuchi no Kuni (Earth Country.) It was a tricky situation since there were three minor countries between the two major countries, one of which I had visited recently. Our best bet was intercepting them before they reached the border to Taki no Kuni, who were our allies. There would be hell to pay if we got them involved; they would insist on a piece of the pie, and we wanted to avoid that at all costs. If there was a Konoha mission involving 4 Jōnin level shinobi we sure as hell were not going to ask for an assist; allies or not. According to our intel we still had a day's travel to make it to Taki's border. It would be close, but hopefully we would make it in time.

As we made our way to the most likely exfiltration point, we took a night's rest. No more than 5 hours for the entire team; we all were coming off a rotation from the village, therefore according to mission parameters we all should be good to go for 48 hours non-stop. That we each managed over 3 hours of rest was to our credit; if I still had Kurama I could have pushed myself to 72 hours without a rest; unfortunately, I was no longer a jinchūriki. I took the first shift, allowing myself more than 3 hours of uninterrupted rest once my shift was over. When Genma shook me awake my eyes snapped open and I was ready for a fight; the fact that I was on a mission for Konoha still got me pumped up.

Once we reached the exfiltration point to everyone's amusement once I created a large bunch of Kage Bunshin. The amusement soon turned to raised eyebrows, and in Genma's case, an impressed nod. The reason was that the Kage Bunshin scampered around planting seal-traps on all of the likely routes the enemy would take. After a few moments of observing my unconventional means of setting traps they finally started moving to set their own. Anko summoned a few small snakes and scattered them, undoubtedly to warn her when the enemies were close. As they scattered she shot me a wary look, I just crinkled my eyes in a smile reminiscent of Kakashi. She was probably remembering the last time she had attempted to summon snakes in my presence. She scoffed inaudibly, jerking her head away, causing my annoying smile to turn into a smirk.

Genma and Hayate went for the more traditional wire-triggered traps, with kunai and exploding tags launching at the unsuspecting soul who triggered them. To my surprise however, they didn't do a very good job of hiding them. They were both Jōnin, and they should be much better at the art... Oh. That was clever. They had made the traps in locations that would drive the enemies to change their paths; only to run straight into my traps. I felt a rush of gratitude and camaraderie towards my teammates. They were banking on the fact that my 'surprises' would be more nasty than anything that they could cook up, even though they didn't know me and my fighting style very well, or know it at all in Hayate's case. Still, this was one reason I absolutely admired the Konoha Will of Fire, the teamwork that we espoused was the best in the Elemental Nations, bar none. At the heart of teamwork lay trust; you could not be an effective team if you did not trust your teammates to carry out their jobs. Still, the level of trust I had been shown was unprecedented, and it left me with a warm feeling.

It was at times like this that I really missed using Sage Mode. I could have easily detected the people who were headed our way and how close they were, along with the direction of approach; instead I was waiting in the trenches with no idea when the enemy would attack. Ugh. I hated being a normal ninja.

The four of us were spread out, but within visual contact of one another, with Anko and Hayate on the ends. I was closest to Anko, which is why I was the first to notice a snake slither up to Anko and hiss. She listened for a few moments, then looked up and caught my eye; then she made a few hand-signals. It was at this point that I realized that I didn't know what the hand signals stood for; I had neglected this part of mission readiness. The signs changed every once in a while, and I while I knew the ones from my time, I had no idea what these stood for. I put my palm on my face; I had no idea how to communicate my ineptitude with the hand signs, because that needed me to know the freaking hand signs in the first place!

Anko seemed to realize what my quandary was, and a massive grin came over her face. With exaggerated gestures she held up one hand with one finger; signifying one person, while with the other she mimed having bunny ears. She made the bunny figure hop a few spaces, all the while enjoying my scowl. Then she slowly held up three fingers, enjoying my twitching hands. The three gained some sort of...crown? cowl?... by the fingers of her second hand, and the movement of the three was more sharp and faster in comparison. Then she shot up her hand with her pointer finger extended, before grandly pointing to the direction our foes would approach from. Then she started raising fingers one by one until she reached five, and then exaggeratedly raised the other hand and slowly raising all the fingers again. Once all ten fingers were raised she pushed out her hands in my direction, a shit-eating grin on her face. Great. One runner, likely the thief, pursued by three enemies, and they would be here in ten minutes. Despite Anko's provocation and my subsequent twitching (I was pretty sure I had tic marks above my eye) it had got the message across.

But Mitarashi Anko was not done. Her smile grew wider as she nonchalantly pointed behind me. My embarrassment grew as I realized I was to pass the message on to the rest of the team. Fuck.

I turned around, mentally planning on how to avoid further embarrassing myself; I was most definitely NOT going to do what Anko had just done. As soon as I did I saw Genma grinning at me. He had caught our little exchange. On one hand, I was relieved that I would not have to make a fool of myself trying to get the message across. On the other...He raised his hand and shot me a two fingered salute. Dick. He then turned and repeated the signals Anko had used the first time around to Hayate, who was out of my line of sight.

I shook my head, trying to get rid of the lingering embarrassment. In less than ten minutes we would be facing an enemy group, all my focus was needed. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Genma signaling me; he mimed the bunny and pointed to himself. I nodded; he would be following and capturing the runner. I tilted my head in Anko's direction and made the first couple of hand signals they had used, nonverbally asking him how to pass the message on using the hand-signs. He made a few and I caught Anko's eye and repeated them. Her response was to clamp her hand over her mouth; her shaking shoulders let me know that she was laughing. Genma had pranked me into saying something embarrassing; I glared at him and shot him the one hand-sign that was universally understood.

Suddenly, deeper in the forest, a flock of birds suddenly took flight. Everyone's attention immediately snapped to the direction Anko had specified; the time for joking was over. Through my peripheral vision I caught the expressions of Anko and Genma, both were focused on the foliage. I took a few deep breaths, and didn't let myself tense; it was one of the ways to avoid the opponent subconsciously realizing you were there.

The thief shot into the clearing; I immediately snapped my fingers into a set of handseals, priming my traps for detonation. As soon as the thief broke through our line Genma was on him in a flash, throwing senbon at him and taking advantage of his distraction. Startled by his sudden appearance he lost his footing; but as soon as Genma reached him he kicked Genma away, using the movement to regain his balance and continue running. That was all I caught sight of, because our own battle was going to take place in a few minutes; we could not be distracted by Genma's. We just had to trust that he would come through.

After another couple of minutes a yell broke the silence. I smirked, judging by the location the enemy shinobi had tripped my quicksand seal. They were less than 30 seconds away; Anko looked to me and signaled attaching while they were distracted, but I shook my head emphatically. They had a few more surprises headed their way.

Indeed, after a minute which they presumably used to free themselves, there was another scream. This time there was telltale purple glow of electricity visible through the trees; immediately following which was the whoosh of fire, and hilariously one of Genma or Hayate's poorly hidden traps going off. There was audible cursing as the enemies were just out of sight; the downside to putting traps in their path was that they surely knew of our presence; but if they had taken the damage I thought they had it was a worthy trade off.

After a few moments two of the shinobi made their way into the clearing; and immediately had to dodge as my last trap in their way set off a sharp blade of wind. One of them was too slow to dodge and received a nasty cut along his arm which bled freely; before he could as much as look at it he was attacked by Hayate's sword. While he narrowly avoided being decapitated, I also saw Anko take on the other shinobi, who was the victim of the quicksand trap. I clenched my jaw but held my position in the trees; both Anko and Hayate were front line fighters, but I could double as a long range fighter, which is why it fell to me to take that role.

It was a good thing that I did, because after a minute of fighting between the two, Anko and Hayate were lined up. The final enemy took the chance, "Raiton: Rairyūdan no jutsu (Lightning Release: Lightning Dragon Technique)!"

"Fūton: Fūryūdan no jutsu (Wind Release: Wind Dragon Technique)!" I countered, intentionally overpowering my own technique even though I had the type advantage. My technique tore through the enemy kunoichi's and continued on its way to her; she abandoned the tree she had taken cover behind. To her shock the dragon pursued her, shredding another tree to splinters far more easily than a wood chipper; she launched a wordless Raiton current technique at it, causing it to finally die out. She immediately had to duck to avoid my fist making a very firm first impression on her face; but she was unprepared for the kick that sank into her ribs. That had made solid contact; she would definitely be feeling that for the rest of the battle, if not the rest of her life.

She wheezed, throwing a couple of kunai at me; I barely paid attention to them as they were blown away by raw Fūton chakra. In reply I shot off another seal-less ninjutsu, "Fūton: Jūha Shō (Wind Release: Beast Wave Palm)!" The slash of wind that shot out from my arm was lethal; anything that came into contact with it would be shredded. Knowing this the Kumo kunoichi jumped away, still gasping for breath. As she was in midair, I rook a quick peek back, to see if anyone could see me; but the others were obscured by the tree line. Immediately I threw my special kunai at the kunoichi, who twisted out of the way.

She stiffened when the next second I disappeared from her view my arms were around her in the parody of an embrace. "The Yellow Flash has been reborn" I whispered softly in her ear, continuing the caricature of a lover; and her throat was ripped apart in an explosion of muscle and sinew. Having complete control of the wind around my body was hard, but completely worth it for moments like this.

I dropped the kunoichi's corpse and quickly made my way back to help my teammates. As I reached the clearing I saw that both Hayate and Anko were double teaming the shinobi who had initially been Anko's opponent. A quick glance around the clearing revealed Hayate's former opponent had recently left the land of the living; even as I debated joining in, Anko finally scored a decisive hit, causing the man's guard to drop. "Sen'eijashu (Hidden Shadow Snake Hands)!" she called out, and her multitude of snakes viciously bit into the man, causing him to start seizing immediately. Once he stopped twitching Hayate confirmed the kill, ignoring the man's bulbously swollen eyes; a sure sign of poisoning.

"Is that all of them?" I asked Anko warily. I knew that Kumo shinobi tended to travels in groups of three, but it couldn't hurt to be sure.

Anko nodded, "Yeah. The snakes I sent out earlier didn't spot anyone else in their vicinity. I've dismissed them now."

Hayate spoke up, "Let's go back up Genma."

We moved to the edge of the clearing where we had been hiding in the trees and moved in the direction we had last seen Genma and the thief leave in. Barely a few minutes had passed when we found them; Genma had won his battle as well. He had evidently just found the scroll, and as soon as he had secured it we went about with disposing the body of the thief. He was an Iwa spy, so there was no love lost there. Once we had buried the body and made the ground look undisturbed (courtesy of Doton jutsus by Anko and Genma) we made our way back to the clearing where the rest of the fighting had taken place to repeat the trick.

Since Iwa had stolen the scroll in the first place, the blame would be placed squarely on their shoulders; which is why we had to make it look like Konoha had nothing to do with the stealing of the scroll. There was not much to clean up in the clearing itself; once we had divested the bodies of their valuables and buried them. It took longer to clean up the aftermath of my seal-traps. There was not much we could do about the shredded trees, other than bury the remains and move some moss on the stumps; the hardest thing to clear up had been the quicksand. The number of dirty looks I had received from both the Doton users had not been funny, since they ended up getting filthy; but they didn't complain since it had weakened the enemy shinobi.

Overall the cleanup took us nearly an hour, but we were finally removed all the signs that there had been a battle. Mission accomplished. The results could not have been more perfect if it had been scripted. We started walking back; we could take a little time after having pushed ourselves all the way to get there. The high at the end of a successful mission kicked in and we were soon talking among ourselves in a light-hearted mood.

"So how hard was it to catch the bunny?" asked Anko.

"Oh you know, he kept hopping around, so it was hard; but I've had a lot of practice at D-ranks." Genma replied with a smile.

"I'll take the rest of your mission pay then; I promise to leave you enough for a D-rank" I grumbled.

Hayate looked slightly confused, but Anko took great relish in revealing to him the intricacies of that particular conversation. Hayate was chuckling when Anko finally wheezed out, "And Genma told him to signal 'I drink bull's milk straight from the source'! And he had no idea!"

I was sure my ears were red, and I shot another glare at my so-called friend, who did not look the least bit contrite; in fact he was smirking. What an asshole. Hayate was laughing openly now. There was no coming back from that.

"Fuck you toothpick." I grumpily folded my arms; but even I had to admit that it was pretty funny. Soon enough the chuckles faded away and Hayate asked, "How long do you think before they send backup?"

"I would be surprised if they hadn't already."

I walked two more steps before I registered that the voice which had spoken hadn't belonged to any of us four. I spun around to see a Kumo kunoichi who had a hand on the shoulders of both Genma and Hayate. Before I could react she flooded both of them with Raiton chakra, causing them to spasm and their hair to frizz. I immediately snapped three Kage Bunshin into wordless existence; two of them immediately used Kawarimi (Replacement Technique) with Genma and Hayate while the third launched himself at her, Fūton chakra coating his fist. The kunoichi had done the damage however, and merely leant backward allowing the fist to pass over her. She fired a tendril of Raiton chakra to it's now exposed midsection, causing it to dispel; but she immediately had to avoid Anko's sleeve snakes. One of the snakes managed to tear into the fabric of her leggings; whether it had managed to bite her was not clear.

While Anko pressed the attack I created two more Kage Bunshin and sent them to support Anko's attack. I quickly took a look at the two downed Jōnin, releasing a breath when I saw that both were alive. They would not be waking up any time soon though. I created two more Kage Bunshin and winced; now that I wasn't a jinchūriki I couldn't spam them like I had used to in my youth. Each one took a little more out of me than before. Years of fighting had made sure that I didn't use them in large numbers anymore, but they still took more out of me than they used to. They took the downed Jōnin on their backs and started heading away from the scene of the battle; looking for a place to hide the prone bodies of the Jōnin.

Fuck. We had been ambushed. Four Jōnin level shinobi and not one of us managed to detect her sneaking up on us and taking out two of our number. I quickly analyzed what I could about her. She was an excellent tracker, most likely a sensor, so traps were out of the question. She had mastered the use of Raiton chakra, using it without handseals or words; this would make her an extremely formidable opponent. Given that she had spoken to make us aware of her presence meant that she was extremely confident of beating us. Fuck. She was likely a borderline-S-rank ninja, most likely around Kakashi's level. You know what the worst part was?

I wasn't sure I could take her.

But Anko was still kicking, and I snapped out of my analysis and rushed to help her. As she popped the second of my Kage Bunshin and moved to strike Anko I cocked my fist back, pumping it with Fūton chakra. "Kazeken (Wind Fist)!" I yelled, snapping my fist forward. The chakra fist shot forward with impressive speed; the kunoichi couldn't dodge it so she took a glancing blow. This allowed her to block Anko's attempts to take ruthless advantage before kicking Anko and jumping away in the same move; fuck, she was going to be a tough opponent.

As soon as she landed two more of my Kage Bunshin shimmered into existence on either side of her. They both spun 180 degrees, simultaneously yelling out, "Fūton: Shinkūha (Wind Release: Vacuum Wave)!" Speaking the name of the technique ensured that more power was released, as the name was a Yang component of the technique. Two large blades of wind were coming towards her from either side; they were large enough that she couldn't dodge. She was caught with nowhere to go, but she proved that my assessment of her as a borderline S-rank kunoichi was right as she, too, spun in place. "Raiton: Kesshō Tama (Lightning Release: Plasma Ball)!" A dome of dense lightning (similar to the Hyūga's Kaiten) sprung into existence around her, and to my surprise it was actually fighting back my wind technique. But I had not yet taken Anko into account. "Katon: Karyūdan no Jutsu!" she yelled, shooting the same dragon flame technique she had used on me back in the tournament. Her fire dragon met my wind technique in an explosion of flames and immediately overwhelmed the defensive Raiton technique, laying waste to everything that was inside the dome; which, as it turned out, was diddly squat.

Both Anko and I jumped into the air in the same moment, realizing that she was underground. She had evidently decided that I was the larger threat, because not a second later she jumped out through the ground, lightning wrapped around her hands. I shot off two wordless Kazeken, one from each fist, and she flared the lightning on her hands to intercept the dual techniques; but this time my wind won the battle. I grinned as she got cuts across both her fists; now I knew how dense my Fūton chakra was supposed to be. She scowled and ignoring the blood and pain she used handseals for the first time in the fight. "Raiton: Gian (Lightning Release: False Darkness)!"

Shit. Gian was a horrifically fast technique, even amongst the generally fast Raiton techniques. I put my arms in front of my body in an X, coating them with dense Fūton chakra; but I needn't have bothered. Anko had not been idle; she had wrapped ninja wire through the rings of two kunai and thrown them; the other ends of the wires were around two other kunai which were buried in the ground, grounding them thoroughly. The Raiton technique was neatly diverted, barely a flicker of lightning stayed its original course where it was ripped apart by my elementally superior Fūton. With a feral smile I growled out, "Fūton: Fūryūdan no jutsu (Wind Release: Wind Dragon Technique)!" Since I already had the chakra built up for a defensive technique it immediately shot in the offensive technique instead.

There was no time for the kunoichi to launch a technique, so she did exactly what I had done a few seconds ago and channeled as much Raiton chakra as she could into her arms and hope it was enough. I had locked my hands in the Tori (Bird) hand-seal, allowing me to control the dragon. She screamed in pain as it tore through the weaker Raiton chakra and allowed it to throw her to the ground. She disappeared once more through the ground and my technique dissipated, but I was still wary. I jumped on a nearby tree to make sure I couldn't be caught by surprise. Anko too jumped on a different tree not too far away. "Are they okay?" she called out, asking about our knocked out colleagues. I nodded, "I have clones watching over them. They'll live." Her sigh of relief was audible.

She still hadn't taken her eye off the surroundings, expecting an attack any second. "I never expected Kumo to send someone like her. We're in deep shit."

"Who is she?" My own vigilance was constant as my eyes roved over the landscape. Anko snorted.

"Too prissy to pick up a fucking Bingo Book shitstain? She's known as Kumo's Thunder Empress, Enrai Setsuka. She's marked as an A rank kunoichi. She has an extremely strong affinity towards lightning; it's said that she can direct thunderstorms. Don't know if that part is bullshit or not, but I wouldn't put it past her."

I nodded. Redirecting lightning storms was fucking hard, but it could be done; I could attest to that. She had to have a minor Kekkei Genkai which allowed extreme control of lightning. However… Hm. Interesting. I could use this. "Summon a medium sized snake. I need you to give me an opening when I'm close to her."

She raised an eyebrow. "Going to use one of your Fūinjutsu tricks?" I gave a nasty smile underneath my mask; I had no idea how she saw it, but she did. She gave a matching smile. "Heh. Fine. But you're buying me dango later." I snorted, but didn't argue. Anko went through the necessary handseals and summoned the snake like I had requested. I ruthlessly crushed my well-drilled instinct to cut in half; this wasn't one of Orochimaru's.

As soon as the tell-tale glow of our enemy made its way above ground all three of us scattered in different directions. There was no point in providing a singular target for our enemy; but she had anticipated this. She had come out with a Raiton: Kage Bunshin (Lightning Release: Shadow Clone) alongside her; I hung back waiting for one of the two to attack me. I was almost certain that the real one had marked me as the more dangerous of the two and would therefore try to take me out herself. The only way to test that theory was when she attacked me; which one of the two proceeded to do. The snake Anko had summoned hissed as it moved closer to assist me; I molded my chakra as I prepared myself for round two.

I was immediately convinced it was the real one who had attacked me; the technique she shot at me proved it. "Raiton: Jibashi (Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder)!" Holy shit, the amount of chakra she put into it was enough to power a city block! I grit my teeth, I was done reacting to her; it was time to take the fight to her, "Fūton: Shinkūkyōha (Wind Release: Vacuum Blast)!" Several crescent shaped blades made purely of jagged wind shot out and obliterated her technique before continuing on their way to her. She widened her eyes at the A-rank technique and started to spin, but I wasn't done. "FŪTON: TATSUMAKI (WIND RELEASE: TORNADO)!" I screamed, putting as much chakra as I dared into the technique.

As the name of the technique implied, it formed a large tornado that started sucking up everything in the nearby vicinity and obliterating it in a twister. It reached my wind blades and absorbed them, swelling with the chakra provided and making it scream as it tore the nearby foliage on its way to the Thunder Empress. I needed to use chakra to stick myself to the tree I was on; whereas my opponent screamed as she poured everything she had into the Kesshō Tama (Plasma Ball) technique from earlier. It was a battle of two S-rank techniques; one defensive, one offensive. It was because of the type advantage that my tornado finally tore apart the plasma like density of the lightning; as soon as I rushed towards the downed Enrai Setsuka to apply the finishing blow she screamed as she was liquefied into molten lightning that scorched the earth nearby. Shit. She was the Kage Bunshin.

I hopped on the snake that had proven to be superfluous so far, "Take us to Anko" I ordered it. It hissed and shot forward with impressive speed, curving around trees gracefully, with a speed I definitely could not have managed. Meanwhile, I was busy compressing wind chakra in a ball in my mouth, the moment I saw the enemy I let it fly, "Fūton: Atsugai (Wind Release: Pressure Damage)!"

She was pushed away from Anko; apparently she had just landed a clean hit on my comrade. I kept up the technique until I was sure she had taken quite a bit of damage. She wouldn't be able to use her trick of using dense Raiton chakra against me. In fact, it was time I informed her about this fact. Since she had caught us by surprise I had never managed to mess with her head; it was about time that I fixed that little deficiency. "You know why my favourite element is wind?" I called to Enrai as I landed next to Anko. She looked pissed, but locked eyes with me. I smirked, "It's so very versatile. It can push. It can cut. It can shred and it can compress. And if you know what you're doing," I leaned forward, baring my teeth, "you can even suffocate with it." A giant sucking sound was heard, and Enrai's eyes widened once more.

But even she had had enough of holding back. For the first time that evening I noticed that she had green eyes to go with her dark hair as they lit up with a massive amount of chakra. "Raiton: Raimei (Lightning Release: Thunderstorm)!"

Fuck. That was an S-rank technique. I started to channel Fūton chakra, but was suddenly shocked at how low my reserves were. I was not a jinchūriki anymore; I couldn't throw around S-rank techniques like confetti without consequences. This required a spontaneous re-think; but the hissing of the snake that had brought me here negated the need to pull something out of my ass. As I put an arm around Anko's waist and jumped with her on to the snake I realized that a handle of a kunai was sticking out of her abdomen. Fucking hell, she had been stabbed by the Kumo bitch.

The roar of lightning crashing down put a stop to any more thinking, suddenly I was more concerned with avoiding the lightning bolts falling from the sky around us. I sneaked a look back at the so called 'Thunder Empress' and was rewarded by seeing one of the lightning bolts falling from the sky hit the point where she was standing with her hands locked in the Tatsu (Dragon) handseal. Before I could even properly form the thought that she had hurt herself I saw the bolt fly off in a different direction and cauterize a nearby tree. Shit. She had created an entirely new clearing in the forest; it was far wider in diameter than the one I had created with my own Tatsumaki.

Somehow we made it out without being hit by any of the lightning bolts. I made Anko sit with her back upright against a tree and told the snake to guard her. She was pale and sweaty; I didn't know if the kunai had been poisoned or not. I wasn't about to pull it out and risk her bleeding out just to make sure.

Fuck. Low on chakra, no backup, no Sage Mode or Kyūbi chakra. It was hard to know how to win in this sort of situation, but I had no choice. Otherwise she would kill Anko and that would be followed by the deaths of Genma and Hayate. I took a moment to try and reach out for the ambient Senchakra hoping against hope, desperately praying… it was no use. It refused to enter my body. Fuck.

Well, on the other hand, none of my teammates were nearby. I could use the Hiraishin; I had used it stupidly earlier in the day. This time it was in a life-or-death situation, I think it was unavoidable. I did have enough chakra to fire off a Rasengan variant, but I would be left with nothing afterward. I had wasted too much chakra; the Sandaime had been right when he had told me to train more. I swore that if I made it back I would train every single day until I couldn't move.

But that was only if I survived. I finally came in sight of Enrai; she smirked. "All alone now, little leaf. How long will you take to wilt I wonder?"

"You'll crinkle long before I begin to wrinkle." I shot back. I blinked. Had I just rapped?

Even Enrai seemed bemused. "Great. Even when I'm not in the village I have to hear bad rapping."

I snorted. "Someone of your age just doesn't know how to appreciate today's art." Here's a little nugget of wisdom, if you ever want to piss off a woman under the age of 40, go after her age. It's guaranteed to work.

She bared her teeth, releasing more killing intent than she had throughout the fight so far. "I'm going to cook you until you rot, you filthy Log hugger."

"Great. I just had to fight the old heathen. Now I have to kill you, the Log's scriptures demand it. Seriously though, you know those wrinkles around your eyes are supposed to look like crow's feet, not crows being electrocuted. What do you do, use lightning chakra while playing with yourself?"

Her glare intensified, as did her killing intent, but she didn't reply. It took me a moment, but when I realized… I snickered. "Hehehe. You naughty naughty cougar. I can't wait till I get back home and tell everyone; this will make for a great addition to your Bingo Book entry."

She had had enough by this point; she jumped forward with a roar, "I'm 29, and that was ONE TIME!" She threw a Raikyū (Lightning Ball) at me, vastly overpowering it in her rage. I dodged it, then dodged another. Good. Maybe my earlier strategy was still valid. I had noticed that while she used plenty of techniques, they didn't have too much oomph behind them. Even when she used it to coat her limbs, she didn't use it for too long; nor did she use it for enhancing her speed. In short, she was not as good as the Raikage, Ē. I just had to get her to waste enough chakra and get in a cheap shot.

Unfortunately after a minute of dodging she wised up to my strategy. She stopped and visibly calmed herself down, taking deep breaths. "Getting tired in your old age? Maybe you need to take your medicine? Do you even remember their names? Do you remember your own name for that matter?"

She bristled, but she stayed put, watching me. "You're out of chakra, aren't you" she finally stated.

I scoffed, "I have enough to deal with an old hag like you."

Her smile turned unpleasant "Aww, did someone blow his load too quick? Maybe you should have played with someone your own age before trying for an experienced woman like me."

I smirked, "You know something about younger men?" My right hand started chirping with a Raiton technique that was very well known throughout Konoha, "We're never far from a second wind." I started to run forward with the Chidori chirping around my arm and I flicked my special kunai right at her. The second she dodged I flashed to kunai using the Hiraishin and slammed my hand right through her left shoulder. "Chido-AAARRRGGHHHHH!" I screamed in pain, because she had disintegrated into lightning. I had been tricked by a fucking Kage Bunshin of all things; and I wasn't in the mood to appreciate the irony.

As I lay twitching on the ground, fighting exhaustion and unconsciousness, I saw the 'Thunder Empress' make her way to my defenseless body. I had next to no chakra, my teammates were all incapacitated, and there was no hope left. I saw her come closer and lean down next to my ear, "So it ends, little leaf. It's time for you to blow away in the wind."

Fuck. That. I tried to speak, but the words got stuck in my throat. I heard her ask amusedly, "Oh? You have some last words? Go ahead, speak them" she said magnanimously. I raised the index finger on my right hand and pointed it at her. "Raiton (Lightning Release) "- her eyes widened as she tried to dodge, but it was far too late – "Byakurai (White Lightning)!" She jumped back but the last thing I saw was the technique striking her in the middle of the sternum.

Then chakra exhaustion caught up with me and I knew no more.

Back In The Clearing: Enrai Setsuka

She had collapsed once the technique struck her; she felt a burst of lightning run up her spinal cord, but after that there was nothing. She took a breath and mentally catalogued her status: she was low on chakra, but other than a few cuts by that blond shinobi's Fūton techniques she was unharmed. Then she tried to move her left leg to maneuver herself into a standing position.

Instead she slapped herself in the face with her right hand.

For a second she was shocked. Had that just happened? But when she tried to move her right hand her right foot flopped around like a dead fish instead. What the hell was going on?

What she would never know was that her opponent had spent years studying under Tsunade of the Sannin. He had never had the control for medical ninjutsu, but he was smart enough to have reverse-engineered her Ranshinshō (Body Pathway Derangement) and re-created it as an external attack. As she did lay gasping upon the ground, a shadow fell over her, and she realized she had lost track of the kunoichi she had stabbed; the kunoichi who was now standing over her.

Anko glared at the twitching kunoichi below her. With her eyes locked on her opponent, Anko painfully pulled out the kunai in her gut; spurting out what seemed to be a liter of blood. "Here's your kunai back," she stabbed the kunai in Enrai Setsuka's heart, "Bitch!"

The light faded from the eyes of the 'Thunder Empress' and Anko stood gasping. She finally let herself collapse and started to use the basic medical ninjutsu to suture wounds that Orochimaru had taught her. She was out of chakra, she was approaching unconsciousness, her team was knocked out, and they weren't in friendly territory. She barely stopped herself from thinking that things could get worse, when she heard someone land in the clearing. She sighed. This was just not their day.

Author's Note: Happy birthday to me! Here's a treat for you guys on my birthday, to also celebrate Arsenal going joint-top of the League.

Err guys, could someone leave me a review ASAP? The review count is stuck at 69, and while I do enjoy the position, it's maybe not the most appropriate number to have in front of my story :)

As always, let me know what you liked, and what you didn't. If you find a mistake, PLEASE let me know immediately. So far I've replied to every review, so if you want to make a suggestion, don't hesitate!