- I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter. Thanks for reading and sticking with me and this story!-

Himawari, Sasuke and Shikadai approached the hideout with upmost caution. Himawari was constantly scanning the area around them to make sure they wouldn't be ambushed and Sasuke was using his rinnigan to see if he could pick up any traces of chakra that Himawari might miss.

"Incoming!" Himawari hissed. Sasuke was already grabbing his sword and Shikadai took out his fan.

Three enemy shinobi approached them, but Himawari had a feeling they were holding something back. The fact that she could not discover what it was, worried her. If it was more forces, she should have been able to pick up on them by now, as well as Sasuke.

"Show yourself!" one of the enemy shinobi said. "We know you're there!"

The three of them looked at each other, going over their plan in silence before knotting in agreement. Sasuke jumped out of his hiding place first, following the plan and attacking the person who had spoken and who appeared to be their leader. When one of the other two jumped in to help, Shikadai blasted her away with a powerful gash of wind. Finally Himawari also revealed herself and took her gentle fist stance, facing of against the final opponent.

Suddenly, her opponent took out a scroll a showed her a devilish smile. Himawari now knew why she couldn't shake the feeling that something else was coming and they were overlooking something crucial. The man performed some sort of summoning jutsu and hundreds of puppets appeared.

No. Not puppets. People.

"Sasuke! They're under some kind of genjutstu! Their chakra is disrupted!" Himawari yelled while doing her best to dodge the barrage of attacks. Shikadai's opponent turned out to be a puppet user and she summoned her puppets, going in full attack mode. Shikadai was using his wind in an attempt to keep as many puppets and people away from the three of them. Sasuke was occupied with his opponent, that turned out to be an insanely talented water style user. Most of his attacks barely had any effect on the strange man.

"Himawari!" Sasuke yelled, while barely dodging a water bullet. "You must attack the guy controlling these people, that will take them all out at once. If you go at them one by one, than you'll exhaust your chakra before you can finish them all of!"

Shikadai slammed a puppet that came dangerously close to her. Himawari tried to make her way to the genjutsu user, but he was entirely covered by all of his human puppets. Himawari was barraged from all directions with different kinds of attacks, and striking the tenketsu's of all these innocent people was taking up a tremendous amount of chakra. If this continued the way it was going right now, not even she would have enough chakra to deal with the situation. She needed to do something. Himawari summoned a clone and it teleported away to a kunai she left at the edge of the battlefield. It should remain unbothered there, while her actual body continued making its way towards the enemy shinobi. There was no sign of Shikadai and Sasuke, who had completely disappeared in the chaos of the battle.

Come 'on. How long was it going to take. Himawari was getting anxious. She knew she didn't have senjutsu fully covered yet, but she had hoped that in the midst of battle, she would learn how to speed up the chakra gathering process. Finally, the markings announcing her entrance into sage mode appeared around her eyes. She was now able to sense more clearly where she needed to go, as well as being able to keep track of Sasuke and Shikadai, without having to focus her Byakugan on them for that. She maneuvered swiftly around the controlled people, narrowly avoiding an attack from the girl, who threw poisonous knifes at her. Shikadai positioned himself between her and the girl, blowing away every weapon she threw at the two of them.

The viciousness of the attack confirmed Himawari suspicion that her opponent barely had any skill apart from his genjutsu. And with her chakra control, it would be insanely difficult for someone to trap her in a genjutsu long enough to injure her. Even Sarada was never able to do that. She fixated her Byakugan on the man, closing in on him. He desperately tried throwing everything he had at her and his comrades, knowing that he was their best chance at winning this, were trying to protect her. Sasuke was using his Susanoo to stop the attack coming from the waterstyle use, as well as taking care of most of the controlled people, freeing them form the genjutsu with his sharingan.

Finally, Himawari reached the genjutsu user and she felt a last, desperate attempt from the to put her under a powerful genjutsu. With her gutsiness alone, she broke free and landed a final, devastating blow.

She looked at Shikadai and Sasuke with a smile on her face, knowing that they had won this battle. But she was wrong. She was so wrong. Shikadai had just saved Sasuke from a sneak attack, as he was being overtaken by fatigue, after the prolonged use of his Susanoo and visual powers, leaving his back open for an attack from the girl. She saw it happen, right in front of her eyes, but she knew she would be too late.