Hey, so Guest, when the mission started, only Hikari got promoted. The others remained Gennin until they retook the exam. Since Tsunade has seen Hikari fight and know her well enought to know she can be promoted.

XXX

The next morning, Kirito opened his eyes and felt a weight on his left shoulder. The swordsman turned and saw the familiar chesnut-brown hair.

Kirito blinked, he was pretty sure he went to sleep alone last night. Over the year, Asuna, Sinon and Suguha would sometimes sneak into his bed since Hikari would do that before she left.

The man also suspected that the girls had somewhat of an agreement that they would take turns, but didn't bring it up since he enjoyed their presence.

Kirito stared at the peaceful face of Asuna as she breathed quietly. The young man enjoyed times like this, since they were always busy, the girls with their missions and him with his shop, and now missions ever since Tsunade gave him his headband.

Kirito turned and looked at the clock by his nightstand and saw that he had an hour before he had to meet Sasuke for training.

During the past year, after Sasuke picked up using his chokuto, the two swordsmen would train together. To Sasuke, Kirito was the closest thing he had to a best friend. Kiba and Shino were a bit wary of him, Shikamaru and Chouji both were too lazy, Lee was just plain weird and Neji, well, the two never saw eye to eye anyways. The other guys in the village either hated him or just didn't bother to befriend him.

To Kirito, he had quite a number of male friends. He was fine with Kiba, Shino, Shikamaru, Chouji, Lee and Neji, but they were all busy most of the time, other than that, his male friends were mostly older men like Klein and Agil. However, Sasuke was just like him, in a way. They both had a certain drive to get stronger, most of the guys in the village didn't like them for certain reasons, and they trained at the same level, though Kirito started off being the stronger one.

The blacksmith turned and gently nudged Asuna, "Hey."

The girl groaned and whined, "Five more minutes, Kirito-kun..."

Kirito chuckled and nudged her again, "Asuna-chan, wake up, I need to get ready for training."

The girl opened her eyes and pouted, "Fine..."

She groggily sat up and rubbed her eyes, "Why did Hokage-sama give you that headband? Ever since she gave you that headband, you always wake up early to train. You even leave most of the work in the shop to Klein-san."

Kirito laughed slightly, "Well, I have to keep up with you girls. Plus, Klein can forge decent weapons now, besides, I don't get as many custom orders as I did before, and I don't pay Klein to do nothing."

Asuna sighed and nodded, "Fine."

Kirito chuckled, "Come on, I'll prepare breakfast."

The girl nodded before they went to clean up and Kirito quickly prepared breakfast.

Soon, after Kirito prepared the food, which consisted of rice, miso soup and eggs, the blacksmith quickly ate his fill and went training. Unfortunately, none of the other girls were awake yet, so only Asuna ate with Kirito.

A while after Kirito left, Suguha, Sinon and Hikari woke up. The blonde rubbed her eyes as she yawned, "Morning..."

Asuna smiled, "Good morning."

Sinon and Suguha both nodded and replied, "Good morning..."

Asuna then said, "Go wash up, breakfast is ready."

The three girls nodded and quickly went to clean up before they sat down at the table.

As they ate, Sinon asked, "So, where's Kirito-kun?"

Asuna replied, "He already went out to train with Sasuke."

Hikari blinked, "Did you just say Sasuke?"

Asuna nodded, "Yeah, well, a lot changed last year, those two are good friends now."

Suguha nodded smiling, "You can say Sasuke's Kirito-kun's best male friend."

Hikari smiled awkwardly, "I never thought I'd hear Sasuke's name in the same sentence with the word 'friend', unless its talking about him having none. A lot can change in a year. "

Sinon just shook her head, "Well, I suppose it might have something to do with you beating him up a year ago. Plus, sealing up the cursed mark helped."

Hikari nodded, "I guess you're right."

Suguha then said, "Hey, if we don't hurry, the food's gonna get cold."

The girls quickly realized that and went back to eating, Asuna giggling as she shook her head at the sight.

Meanwhile, Kirito reached the training grounds to see Sasuke doing warmups alone. The Uchiha spotted him and greeted, "Hey, Kirito."

Kirito waved, "Hey, Sasuke. You alone?"

Sasuke nodded, "Yeah, Kakashi said he'd skip today's training, something about the latest volume released or something."

Kirito sighed as he started to do the warmups, "Icha-icha no doubt. Seriously, I have no idea why he'd buy them from the stores when he can just ask Jiraiya to send him a copy everytime a new volume releases."

Sasuke chuckled, "Don't tell him that, it might just make it worse."

Kirito just laughed as they quickly finished the warmups. After that, the two swordsmen stood in front of each other, Sasuke holding his chokuto while Kirito held his two blades. Then the two charged and they clashed blades.

A while later, Kirito and Sasuke both laid on the grass. The Uchiha laughed, "Your Acceleration really is a life hack!"

Kirito chuckled, "You're one to talk, with your Sharingan, and don't get me started with your Mangekyou Sharingan."

Sasuke chuckled, "I guess everyone has their own special abilities."

Kirito nodded before he asked, "Speaking of which, you figured out the Mangekyou's abilities yet?"

In the previous year, during one of their sparring sessions with Kakashi, the two Sharingan users discovered that they both had Mangekyou Sharingan. They figured Kakashi probably activated it on his mission where he killed Rin, while Sasuke probably had it activated since he saw his family killed in front of him, but never did discover it since he was too young.

Sasuke sighed, "Well, Kakashi seems to be able to send stuff to some pocket dimension, something called Kamui. I can't do it, but I can summon these black flames, no idea what they do though."

Kirito nodded, "I see. Well, it'll reveal itself sooner or later."

Sasuke nodded, "Yeah, I just need to focus on getting stronger now."

Kirito nodded before he asked, "By the way, how's it going?"

Sasuke blinked, "What do you mean?"

Kirito said, "With Sakura, you know most of your fangirls now are all civilians. Hell, even Ino has moved on. But Sakura hasn't change much, well, I mean she's gotten rid of her fangirl tendencies, but she still likes you, hell, I'd even go as far as to say she loves you. "

Sasuke sighed, "I'm confused, seriously."

The Uchiha was seriously confused, he didn't know how to deal with Sakura. In the past, when she was a fangirl, all Sasuke needed to do was ignore her. But after she started learning under Tsunade, the Sannin had literally beat the fangirl out of her. And if Sasuke was to be honest, he didn't mind Sakura's presence, not anymore, but he didn't know if he liked her or not.

Kirito nodded, "I see, well, don't keep her waiting, girls will only wait for so long."

Sasuke nodded before they continued training.

Meanwhile, in an unknown location, ten figures, or rather silhouettes, stood on ten platforms, a giant face behind them. The man in the middle, with purple eyes with swirls, spoke, "So, we'll be officially starting to collect the bijuu. Deidara, Sasori, you two go collect the Ichibi."

Two figures nodded, one of them sighed, "Whatever..."

The first man nodded, "When they return with the Jinchurikii, I'll decide who goes for the Niibi after we extract the Ichibi."

The man then looked around, looking for any objections. Seeing none, he nodded, "Good. Itachi, Kisame, I'll need your chakra for the Shoten no Jutsu, if Zetsu's intel is correct, they will most likely seek help from Konoha."

The two Akatsuki members nodded and let the chakra flow to the man before the man nodded, "Good, you're all dismissed then."

In that instant, all of the silhouettes vanished, and the huge statue sunk into the ground.

The next day, back in Konoha, Tsunade was in her office facing a huge stack of completed paper worm. The woman let out a breath of relief, "Ah... Finally..."

As she carefully placed everything in a neat stack, she sat down, ready to enjoy her break as she brought out a bottle of sake, right when the office door slammed open, and unfortunately, at the same time causing all of the paper work to fly off her table and her bottle of sake to pour over quite a number of the completed paper work.

The only emotion in Tsunade's face was despair as all her hard work, the work she had spent the whole night to finish, all went to waste in one short moment. The man who had opened the door then realized his mistake, why Shizune told him to wait, but he had felt that it was too urgent and required immediate attention. Now he regretted it.

The Hokage turned her despairing yet furious gaze to the not-so-poor man, "You better have a very good reason for doing that, or I swear to all the gods and the previous Hokages in existence that I will castrate you and smack your face all the way to the next century."

The man gulped before he quickly said, "The Kazekage has been captured by the Akatsuki!"

Tsunade snapped out her funk and spoke, "Are you serious?"

The man nodded before Tsunade yelled, "Anbu! Get me team Kakashi and team Yugao NOW!"

The sound of wind swirling could be heard as the Anbu went to get the two teams.

In less than five minutes, the two teams arrived, Tsunade's Anbu going back to his hiding spot. The two teams of shinobi stood at attention as Tsunade spoke, "A few moments ago, I received information that the Kazekage has been captured by the Akatsuki. We all know who Gaara is, so I'll make this short. Your mission is to help retrieve the Kazekage, its an emergency, so leave immediately."

The two teams didn't object or say anything as they quickly left the office. Tsunade let out a breath as she slumped onto her chair, "I sure hope I'm not sending Hikari to the Akatsuki with this."

Jiraiya's voice came to her from the back, "Don't worry. If she goes all out, along with all of them, then the Akatsuki won't even be able to touch her. Have faith in them."

The Hokage just nodded as she made a few Shadow clones to deal with the ruined paperwork.

A while later, the two teams were rushing for Sunagakure. They had told Kirito about the mission, and while the blacksmith was less than eager to let Hikari go, since she was one of the Akatsuki's targets, he knew the girl, along with the three other girls, were all more than capable with keeping each other safe. So he just let it go.

Now, as the two teams leaped through the trees, Yugao said, "To think they're moving already."

Kakashi nodded, "Yeah, but then, I guess its really true, Jiraiya-sama's intel."

Hikari sighed, "And they're going for Gaara first, well, make sense since he has the Ichibi."

Asuna nodded, "True, it'd make sense to go according to the number of tails."

In Hikari's seal, the Kyuubi narrowed eyes as he thought, 'But the tails don't determine our strength, it just so happened that our power levels went in that order. But if they're going by tails... No, it should still be sealed in the moon.'

The Kyuubi decided to file it off for later, saving it until Hikari gains control over all his tails.

Back outside, the two teams quickly exited the forests and sped through the desert without much difficulty, which wasn't a strange thing, with a team consisting of girls who were essentially a skilled Anbu squad and another team capable of destroying an army.

Soon, they arrived at the border of Sunagakure and saw Temari already waiting for them. The fan user was obviously worried and stressed out, and no one could blame her since it was her brother who got captured.

Temari spoke tiredly, "Hey, thanks for coming on such a short notice."

Hikari nodded, "Of course, so, can you tell us about the ones who got Gaara?"

Temari nodded, "Yeah, we'll talk in the office."

No one disagreed. It was extremely hot out at the desert, so it wasn't exactly a preferred choice for a meeting.

As Temari led the two teams of Konoha shinobi towards the Kazekage tower, Asuna, Suguha and Sinon, who'd never been to Sunagakure, found that structure-wise, the place was similar to Konoha, if you took away the heat and the sandy colour of the buildings anyways.

Soon, they reached the office and Temari opened the door to reveal two elderly people, one old woman and old man, waiting for them. As soon as they entered, the old woman's eyes widened as she hissed, "Hatake Sakumo!"

The woman charged Kakashi, drawing a kunai and swinging it at the man. But before she could do anything, a dozen chains wrapped around the woman and held her in place.

Hikari said calmly, "Chiyo-san, what are you doing?"

The woman paled at that voice and turned to see Hikari staring at her, not amused. During Hikari's previous visit to Sunagkure, she had met Chiyo when she was with the Sand siblings.

The Uzumaki had made her opinions regarding the seal Chiyo put on Gaara, and the old woman had developed a healthy amount of respect and fear for the young lady.

Ebizo, Temari, Gaara and Kankuro would have found the scene hilarious, but they were all scared shitless by the amount of killing intent Hikari exerted.

Back to the present, Chiyo replied nervously, "He is Hatake Sakumo(?)"

Ebizo sighed, "No, he isn't Konoha's White Fang, a relative maybe."

Chiyo blinked before she realised Kakashi wasn't his father. The old lady laughed embarrassedly, "Oh, my bad... Tee hee..."

The others just sweatdropped at her response before Ebizo spoke, "Thank you for coming on such a short notice."

The Konoha ninja nodded before Temari asked the old woman, "Chiyo-sama, how is Kankuro?"

The old lady sighed and shook her head, "I've never seen anything like it. We'd need someone like Tsunade if we even want a chance at saving him, as much as I hate to admit."

Temari nodded somberly. Those words drew Sakura's attention, the pinkette asked, "What's wrong?"

Temari looked at her, "When Gaara was taken, Kankuro chased after the two Akatsuki members before we could send a squad. When the squad found Kankuro, he was poisoned, and we had Chiyo-sama, whose our best medic, look at him."

Hikari huffed, "That's not saying a lot since its this old hag we're talking about."

Asuna asked, a bit confused, the feeling shared by most of the Konoha ninja, "I'm confused, Hikari-chan, what do you mean?"

Hikari turned and said, "You remember Gaara's old seal that held the Ichibi back? This old hag is the one who did it, and she did a bad job. No that would just insult the word bad..."

As the girl thought of another word, Sakura sighed and looked at Chiyo, "Let me look at him."

Chiyo stared at Sakura and said sceptically, "You?"

Sakura nodded, "Tsunade-sama is my teacher, I may be able to help her. Besides, if what Hikari says is correct, then maybe you're not good enough."

Chiyo just grumbled as Ebizo nodded, "Of course, having someone else looking at his condition may help. Sister, bring her to look at Kankuro, please."

The old lady sighed and nodded as she lead the young medic to the room where Kankuro was. Kakashi then looked at Ebizo, "So, can you tell us who took the Kazekage?"

Temari answered, "Deidara, the Mad Bomber, and Sasori of the Red Sands. They attacked us at night, trying to catch us off guard, Gaara engaged them and he got captured."

Yugao asked, "Do you know where they went?"

Sinon nodded, "Yeah, if we have a scent, my cats can track them."

Kakashi's reflex was to argue that his dogs would do better, but he quickly reigned it in since the situation was dire.

Temari shook her head, "We don't have anything that'd link us to those two, but if we follow Gaara's scent, we can catch up to them."

Suguha nodded, "Makes sense."

Hikari grinned, "Then what are we waiting for?"

Sasuke sighed, "Sakura's not done yet, once she gets back, I suppose we'll move out."

Kakashi nodded, "Yeah, stay calm, Hikari. Rushing off now won't do anything."

The blonde sighed before Sinon summoned several cats and Kakashi summoned his eight dogs. Sinon and Kakashi stared at each other for a while before they nodded.

Kakashi looked at Temari, "You have anything with Gaara's scent?"

Meanwhile, in Kankuro's ward, Sakura and Chiyo entered the room to see the man on the bed, obviously in pain. Sakura thought, 'Huh, this is the first time seeing him without makeup. Well, he's definitely Gaara's brother.'

The young woman nodded to herself, "Okay, I'll run a diagnosis first, I know you've done it, but I just wanna make sure."

Chiyo nodded, it was normal to ignore other people's work and just redo it yourself, plus she was quite curious, since it wasn't every day Tsunade took on an apprentice.

Sakura activated the Shosen jutsu and let her chakra flow into Kankuro's body. As soon as she did that, she found the poison. Sakura couldn't blame them for being unable to identify it, according to Tsunade, the poison was really hard to make and hard to detect, plus the ingredients needed were also incredibly rare.

Tsunade only knew about it because it was one of the poisons she herself had to face during a surgery. Fortunately for Kankuro, the current Hokage had made Sakura learn about it, and now Sakura could extract it from the man.

Carefully pinpointing the exact locations of the poison, Sakura made a chakra scalpel and sliced open Kankuro's skin. Then, using her chakra, she slowly drew out most of the poison, forming a bubble of chakra which contained the poison.

The process took 5 minutes, and after containing the poison, Sakura let out a breath, "Okay, I've removed most of the poison, now we just need an antidote to clear it off."

She turned and saw Chiyo's astonished face. The old woman asked, "W-what was that?"

Sakura blinked, "Hmm? You mean the poison?"

Chiyo quickly shook her head and grabbed Sakura's shoulders, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?! How did you extract the toxin?"

The pinkette blinked, "Erm, that's the basic poison extraction technique?"

Chiyo gaped, "What? I've never heard of it!"

Sakura smiled forcedfully, if she remembered correctly, and she did, Tsunade had said that jutsu was one of basic medical ninjutsu that every medic needed to know. Maybe Hikari wasn't wrong when she mentioned about Chiyo's incompetence.

The pinkette spoke calmly, "It's something Tsunade-sama taught me. But anyways, I need several herbs to make an antidote, do you have any places that have herbs?"

Chiyo calmed down and asked, "What do you need?"

Sakura grabbed a pen and paper and scribbled several names and gave them to Chiyo, and as soon as the woman saw them, her eyes widened in surprise. The woman nodded, "Yes, we have these. I'll go get them for you."

In a moment, Chiyo returned with the herbs Sakura needed and the young woman went to work. In less than five minutes, Sakura had finished the antidotes, since the antidote was actually simple to make, you just needed to know what you needed.

As soon as she finished, Sakura took a bowl of the antidote and walked to Kankuro. The pinkette nodded to the nurses and they quickly helped pull Kankuro to an upright position.

The brother of the Kazekage weakly opened his eyes and saw Sakura, "S-sakura?"

The young woman nodded, "Hey, I've got the antidote, drink it."

She placed the bowl to his lips and Kankuro quickly downed the bowl of medicine. As soon as he finished, Sakura took the bowl away as he commented, "Damn, its bitter."

The Konoha medic chuckled, "Of course."

Kankuro cleared his throat as the antidote did its work, "Thanks, Sakura."

The medic grinned, "Sure, so, what happened?"

Kankuro frowned as he remembered what happened, "Sasori, he caught me off guard before I could use all my puppets, and I let them get away."

Sakura nodded, "I'll get the others, you stay put."

The man nodded before Sakura quickly exited the room to get the others from the office. As soon as the woman left, Chiyo stared at Kankuro, after meeting Hikari, and after her little lesson, the old woman had come to see her mistakes, and she knew very well she had wronged the three siblings.

A year ago, if anyone told her to apologise, Chiyo would have ignored them, or plain out retort with a rude comment. But apparently meeting the Kyuubi Jinchurikii changed her a lot, especially when she was an Uzumaki.

Chiyo spoke, "Kankuro, I am sorry, for sealing the Ichibi into your brother."

The man blinked in shock, "Chiyo-sama?"

The old woman chuckled, "I am getting old, after meeting that little fiery blonde, that daughter of Namikaze, well, you know what happened. But I never did apologize for doing that to you and your siblings. Now because of my grandson, Gaara is captured, and you're injured. If that girl didn't come, you would be dead."

Kankuro nodded, "I know."

Chiyo sighed, "Rest, boy, leave retrieving Gaara to the Konoha ninja."

The man just nodded before the door opened as the Konoha ninja, Ebizo and Temari entered the room.

Kankuro greeted, "Hey."

Temari quickly went to his side, "Are you okay, Kankuro?"

The man grinned at his sister, "I'm fine now."

Sakura spoke, "I've completely removed the poison, all he needs now is rest."

Temari nodded, "Thanks, Sakura."

Kakashi then spoke, "So, what did you get from them?"

Kankuro nodded, "They were heading North, probably for Kiba no Kuni."

Just as he said that, a cat and a dog (Pakkun), appeared in the room, both glaring at each other.

The cat said, "Sinon-sama, we've checked the entire area where the Kazekage's scent lingered. It seems the trail leads to a forest right outside Kaze no Kuni."

Pakkun nodded, "Yeah, we're ready to go."

Sinon nodded, "Thanks, Haru."

Kakashi also nodded at Pakkun, "Good job, Pakkun."

Yugao looked at the others, "Then we better move quick."

Before they could move though, Kankuro spoke, "Wait, Temari, my Karasu, I managed to tear off a piece of their clothing, I know you can use Gaara's scent to track them, but just in case."

Temari nodded and quickly went to get the cloth from Kankuro's puppets. Kakashi looked at the man, impressed, "Even when you lost, you still turned things in your favour, like a true Sand ninja."

Kankuro chuckled, "Well, I am a sand ninja after all. Not as much as Gaara is, but still one."

The group laughed a bit at the pun before Kankuro looked at Hikari, "Hikari, I know I'm asking a lot, but please, help my brother again."

The girl stared at him before she nodded, "Of course, Kankuro, Gaara is also like a brother to me after all."

Kankuro nodded his thanks before the group left the room. As soon as they left, Kankuro sighed and laid on his bed.

Then he noticed the absence of one old lady, "Huh? Where's Chiyo-sama?"

Ebizo blinked, "Hmm, I was sure she was standing beside me a while ago."

Meanwhile, in a room, Chiyo opened a box, revealing a box that had the kanji for 'white'. The old woman thought, 'Its time I put an end to this, don't you think, my cute grandson?'

The old woman took the scroll and was about to leave when another scroll in the box caught her attention. The elder of Sunagakure thought a while before she grabbed the scroll and left the room.

A while later, as the group of Konoha shinobi, along with Temari prepared to leave the village, Chiyo's voice stopped them, "Wait."

They turned to see the old woman. Temari asked, "Chiyo-sama?"

The old lady looked at the sister of the Kazekage, "Temari, stay in the village. If by chance anyone attacks the village, we'll need you here, I'll go in your place to retrieve Gaara."

Temari was about to protest before Chiyo spoke again, "Besides, its time I saw my cute grandson. And don't treat me like an antique, I can still move and fight."

The two stared at each other before Temari sighed and nodded, "Fine."

Chiyo nodded, "Good. Now, let's move. Its time to pay my cute little grandson a visit."

XXX

Done. So, this is the official start of the Kazekage Rescue Arc, or in my terms, the 'Ichibi arc'. Review please. Until the next chapter.