Naoko continued her mad dash toward Mai regardless of the thousand of blades that sped towards her. A moment passed after Mai's escape, turning to look and see if she were being pursued. Naoko stared off toward Mai, falling to her knees, bleeding from the multitude of knives and shurikens protruding from her body. Eyes rolling to the back of her head as while plummeting to the forest floor below.

Mai smiled gleefully, patting herself on the back for having killed an Uchiha.

"YES, I got one! Oh, I'm so proud of myself!" Mai paused for a moment a thought crossing her mind. "No one's gonna believe I did this. . . unless I get some kind of proof.

Her eyes narrowed a devilish smile swam across her face. "I'll cut out her eyes. . . if I get her eyes that's all the proof I'll ever need!" Mai thought.

She hopped down from the treetops and towards the pin cushion that was Naoko. Lifting her head knife in hand, a flash of blinding light and smoke appeared, Naoko's body disappeared

"SHIT! She tricked me, dammit! I should've known better, but, it was so convincing." Mai thought nervously sweating as her heart began to pound, eyes frantically searching for a sign of her enemy.

"Shit, where is she, where is she!?" Mai anxiously asked herself

Mai's hands shook in fear as she waited for the Uchiha to pounce, but, after several minutes began to relax but remained cautious.

Exhaling in an effort to slow her heart she thought,"Where could she have gone?"

Mai had unwittingly led Naoko close enough to where her sharingan could see Nori high in the trees. Naoko burst up the tree, running parallel of the trunk through the branches. What looked like a beam of light flew under the branch to which Nori stood and shot through the trunk of the tree.

"The hell are you doing Mai !? You should be out there supporting Yuri!" said Nori annoyed.

Mai wore a look of confusion while standing on the tip of the same branch that Nori used to observe the battlefield from.

The Uchiha, she came this way. . I, . . I was sure I saw her, that's why I threw the knife like I did." Eyes moving from side to side a look of uncertainty on her face. Leaves slowly drifted from above, catching the eye of them both.

"Leaves -" Mai was unable to finish her sentence. Naoko almost appearing out of thin air, dropping her heel down on Mai's head. Jolting her through the branch, on which she stood snapping it in two. The collapsing tree limb sent Nori and Mai crashing into the branches. Mai had not lost consciousness, yet. In an attempt to save Nori and herself, she stabbed a knife into the trunk of the tree with all her might. Head pounding, blood ran down between her eyes, she could taste it on her tongue. Forced to breathe through her mouth due to a broken nose. Reaching for Nori, a sharp pain shot up around her shoulder: broken collar bone. Seizing his wrist as she fought through the pain, they both dangled on the tree.

Nori looked at her impatiently saying "Your an idiot!"

Mai was about to reply when Naoko flew past cutting at Nori's arm with her Kunai. Slicing his forearm, he couldn't grip teammates arm, Mai's eyes widened. In a rage she leapt after Naoko unleashing an array of edged weapons from a scroll she kept in her pouch. Mai's anger diminished the pain of he collar bone while she held onto the scroll as it unloaded it's content in a cone spray toward the forest floor. The pressure released from the scroll was enough to slow Mai's descent to the ground as she landed gently. Nori was not so lucky, Mai saw while running to aid him, Naoko was buried in a heap of bladed weapons. Mai attempted to console Nori, but, the clone vanished in her arms.

"WHAT!" GODAMMIT, NORI!" Mai shouted.

Feeling stupid, after having used so much of her chakra, the weapons pile vanished in a cloud of smoke, . . there nothing lay underneath, no blood, nothing.

The pain came flooding back. Mai took her good arm, grabbed hold of her thigh, tears swelling, gritting her teeth over the pain, thinking "YOU BITCH! YOU GOT ME TWICE!"

Rai and Yuri paused in their stances as they glared at each other.

"I'm going to end this now." said Yuri with a smirk.

A clone split from Yuri and rushed toward Rai. Yuri leapt a few feet behind it and began making hand seals. Rai moved faster than the clone as she jumped off it's shoulder spiraling, electrical energies twisting with her, she performed a spin kick that made a ring of electricity cutting down the nearby trees. Yuri back flipped away with a smile on her face, but, the eyes of Sakurai stared right into her's as the tips of their nose almost touched

"Fuck..." Yuri thought as a heart skipped a beat.

Yuri's body twisted and turned like a cat in mid- air in effort to avoid the of lightning ring that rippled above. Suddenly a plume of white dust puffed near her.

Yuri landed choking on the dust saying "The hell . . ?"

Once the dust settled Yuri saw Naoko and Rai, Smirking Yuri readied herself to take on both of them, but, unable to keep her footing, her body began to stiffen until she fell over. Paralyzed by Mai's poison.

"Stay down there for awhile, okay." said Naoko with a grin while walking away.

Naoko and Rai carried Batsu leaving as swiftly as possible after defeating Nori's team. Tired and in need of sleep and time for Batsu to recover, neither of which they were guaranteed to get. The morning time had past, the afternoon sky shined brightly in the sky. The forest began to heat up, in comparison to the previous day when it had been cooler.

Meanwhile in a separate part of the forest. . .

"So far we've managed to avoid the other teams, courtesy of great planning on my part of course." Naomi said with a smirk.

Toshi smiled weakly at Naomi's statement, all the while thinking to himself "I wonder about that, I'm sure Jun played a part in keeping the others away from us as well."

A short time past. . .

The two of them rested in the arms of a large tree, an odd silence crept in, as the wind blew in between the leaves.

Naomi felt a sharp pain and awoke to find her self tumbling down to the grassy floor of forest.

"Oww!" She groaned, vision hazy, confused and disoriented while peering upward at the tree.

A blood stained claw mark was on the trunk, a low roar could be heard coming from the trees. It was evening and it was quickly becoming difficult to see through the dense forest. Naomi dusted herself off feeling a wetness on the side of her hip, looking at it, it was blood.

"That explains everything." she thought to herself.

"Stay still Naomi!" yelled Toshi from above.

"Why?" she thought. Not seeing any immediate danger. Naomi decided not to heed Toshi's words. The roar of a wild animal rose from behind, as she stood. Startled and unable to see the creature, but, she could feel the ground rumble as it galloped toward her. Smelling the blood soaked claws as it closed in on her. Naomi's shoulder's relaxed, her eyes filled with blood gripping her hands into fist, less than a second had passed since the creature began toward Naomi, "WIND STYLE, WIND SHELL JUTSU!"

A gale picked up from every direction of the forest, before the animal could try to sink it's claws into Naomi once again. An orb of wind Toshi created surrounded her, repelling wind back at the tiger. It was then that it became visible, a large white tiger the likes of which Naomi nor Toshi had ever seen.

The tiger began to advance up the tree to find Toshi, becoming transparent once more.

"Toshi! It's coming!" Naomi yelled.

Toshi moved quickly, down toward the tiger saying "I know miss Naomi."

He picked up speed, making hand seals he summoned four clones. Toshi and the animal were on a large branch, becoming visible once more the wild cat towered over him like the very tree they stood upon. He charged fearlessly at the creature, one of his clones jumped from off his shoulder. It was quickly handed a swipe from the paw of the tiger, the remaining Toshi's avoided the following blows and climbed the back of the tiger. It turned and tumbled viciously an effort to throw Toshi off.

To no avail, he was determined and his clones carried his will. The tiger rolled off the branch as it tussled with Toshi and his three remaining clones.

The Toshi's pushed off the tiger and all took a deep breath, in unison they released a powerful gust, "WIND STYLE, WIND TUNNEL JUTSU!" . The current wrung the animal like a wet towel as it followed the path of the wind. Although only carried for a short distance the body hit the ground with a visceral splat, blood and chips of bone rose from the impact as the leaves fell daintily to the ground.

The three clones dispersed, "You alright miss Naomi?" Toshi asked as he offered her his hand.

"Th . . . ,thank you Toshi." Naomi hesitated in saying while looking away from Toshi, her face red while he held hips bringing her down from the wind sphere as it dispersed.

He laughed a little to himself, this moment of triumph was cut short when they both felt the eyes of someone high in the trees.

"Yoh!" shouted Jun as she made her way down.

With a sigh of relief, Naomi looked at Jun with disdain "And, where were you when your leader was in trouble?"

Jun shook her head already annoyed at Naomi.

"When I heard you thanking Toshi I had a assumed that maybe you'd learned something about humility." said Jun.

Naomi smirked rubbing her hand across her chin saying "What do I need to be humble about again? If I had wanted to I could have strung that cat up all by myself."

Naomi walked a few steps away from Jun crossed her arms and continued while talking over her shoulder now.

"Toshi just happened to get to it before me is all."

Jun balled her hand into a fist, eyes glaring at the back of Naomi's head.

"You're nothing, without us. I just want you to admit it!" demanded Jun.

Naomi frowned at Jun's words turning to say "Is that what you believe? If you need me to I could show you otherwise, . . . educate you even."

Author's note's: Hi all a few things worth mentioning I've been on a hiatus for far too long, but I'm back! I intend to update everyday so stay posted. Now onto business Uchiha, Ai has had her named altered, her full name being Naoko Ai Uchiha, In the story she will now jus be called Naoko Uchiha due in part to confusion between the whole Rai and Ai thing. Also in upcoming chapters I've tried something new we'll see if you all like it. I'm in need of an editor as well, I'm no grammatical beast I need help lol. Anyway enjoy, please leave comments and follow my story have a nice day.