Standard Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or Naruto.

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xXx-Chapter 12-xXx

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Rin was pacing their room angrily while Ino sat on her bed and looked on. She had never thought in a million years that Rin would ever yell at their father like she had, and she had never thought she would see her father truly get angry at one of them either.

"I'll find him." Rin shouts, already releasing her hold on her sensor ability and trying to locate Naruto, but to her surprise she was having some difficulty.

"No." Their father says firmly.

Rin stops short and even Ino is surprised by this.

"What! Why!?" Rin asks angrily, "I can locate him no problem? Just give me a minute, or better yet, let me go look for him."

Inoichi shakes his head. "Until I know more I don't want either of you involved with this."

Rin glares at him, "What's there to know, he's our friend and he's in some kind of trouble, I don't know why you're so afraid right now but it's stupid. Let me find him and-"

"I said no!" He shouts, and both Rin and Ino flinch. He takes a moment to try and calm himself. "You are not to get involved," He says in a forced calm. "Naruto is… there are things about him that you don't know, that you don't understand, it may end up being nothing but I'm not going to have you in danger if it is."

"Danger, you fucking let us become ninja, who the hell are you to tell us that something is dangerous!?" Rin shouts back and their father flinches as if he's been slapped. "My friend is in trouble and you want me to just sit around and wait for people who might hurt him to find him! Screw that!"

Rin moves towards the door but their father steps in front of her. "Rin! You will stay here, you will not go out there and you will leave finding Naruto to us. He has essentially committed treason tonight, he needs to be found, but it needs to be done by qualified shinobi forces, if you want to help him you'll tell me his usual hang out spots." He says.

Rin glares at their father before looking away from him.

"Rin…" Ino scolds her softly, "Daddy… check the north side park as well as Ichiraku's Ramen stand, he may not be there but he's close to the family that runs it, they may know something."

"Thank you Ino… Rin," He sighs, "I know you're upset but… I'm just trying to look out for you. There are things you don't know that… it's just too dangerous for you to look for him. Please try to understand."

Rin doesn't say anything and she pointedly refuses to look at him.

After their father had left Rin had begun to pace the room. She knew that her sister was upset and Ino was worried too, but everything would be okay. "Rin, you crossed the line with daddy tonight." She says softly.

Rin stops her pacing and closes her eyes tightly, a flash of pain crossing her face. "He was afraid of Naruto, not of what Naruto might do or what might happen to him, but he was afraid of Naruto himself, because apparently there are things about him we don't understand." She says softly, her voice slightly cracking.

"Rin…"

Rin looks up at her and Ino can see that her sister is forcing back tears. "Well guess what, I know all I need to know about him, he's my friend, nothing else matters." Rin gets a resolute look in her eyes, before going over to the window and opening it. "I'm going after him." And with that Rin jumps out the widow and into the night.

"Rin get back here! Daddy said not to go anywhere!"

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xXx-Scene Break-xXx

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This was fantastic, Mizuki-sensei was so cool for doing this for him. Now that he had the scroll he just needed to get to the spot that Mizuki-sensei had told him about and learn one technique from it before Mizuki-sensei met him there, and if he did that, if he was able to do that then…

"Oi, Naruto." Mizuki-sensei says smiling as he taps him on the shoulder.

Naruto pauses from following after Rin, Ino, and Sakura. "Oh, hey Mizuki-sensei, what's up?"

"Hey, I just wanted to congratulate you on passing, that's all. We had to rush you out fairly quickly because we still had others that we needed to test but now that it's over I wanted to do it properly."

Naruto scratches the back of his head and chuckles, "Heh-heh, thanks Mizuki-sensei."

"No, I mean it, teaching you has been an… interesting experience, but one that I'm glad that I had, I think you'll go far one day Naruto."

"Really!? Thanks… too bad Iruka-sensei doesn't seem to feel the same way…" He grumbles remembering how the other man had wanted to fail him.

Mizuki-sensei chuckles. "Don't judge Iruka-sensei too harshly, he actually thinks very highly of you, he was just worried for you is all. He let that concern cloud his judgment but it wasn't done out of malice. Actually he sees a lot of himself in you."

"Really?" Naruto asks, his eyes widen with surprise. He looked up to Iruka-sensei and so it had hurt his feelings when the other man had tried to fail him.

"Really." Mizuki-sensei says with a laugh, "Now, you'd better go to your friends, after all, this might very well be the last you see any of them for a long time."

That stops Naruto up short. "W-what? What do you mean?"

Mizuki-sensei scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "Well it's just that all three of them are at the top of the class, I mean they are three of the most exceptional students I've ever seen come through the program, of course they're going to be placed together after the academy, it only makes sense. And I mean no offense to you Naruto, you've worked hard to get where you are but… they're in a completely different league from you right now, your scores were good enough to pass, but to be placed with them well... You'll be placed with people who are more at your level, so you probably won't see them for a long time."

"What… no… I-I guess I never really thought of that… But… I really wanted us to continue on, together…" Naruto felt sick inside. He hadn't really thought of it until now but of course he wouldn't be placed with his friends.

"Well maybe… no, better not." Mizuki-sensei says distractedly.

"No, what? Tell me?"

"Well there may be a way for you to be placed on the same team as them, but no just forget about it."

"No! Please tell me Mizuki-sensei, please, I'll do whatever it takes to be placed with them, believe it!"

Mizuki-sensei chuckles, "Alright you can't tell anyone, I don't want to get in trouble for playing favorites after all."

"I promise, I won't tell anyone anything, tell me how to be put on their team!?"

"There is a special extra-credit exam you can take that could boost your overall score up to where theirs are, but it'll be hard and you'll have to keep it a secret."

"I'll do it, no problem, just tell me what it is!"

"Heh, you're all fired up, alright, meet me on the roof in fifteen minutes."

He couldn't fail, he had to learn this technique, that way he could stay with his friends. When he arrives at the agreed upon spot that Mizuki-sensei told him about he gets right to work.

"Alright! I'm going to have this jutsu down in no time flat, believe it!" He shouts as he eagerly opens up the large scroll that he had taken from the Old Man's office and looks at the very first technique. "What!? Not another clone jutsu!"

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xXx-Scene Break-xXx

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"Naruto!"

Naruto's head shoots up, he had been nodding off finally having learned the first technique on the scroll and was feeling a little tired. "Rin? What are you doing here?"

"Thank god," She says as she runs up to him and wrapping him in a tight hug.

"Rin? What's going on, are you okay?" Naruto asks confused, he'd seen the look of fear on her face morph into absolute relief as she had run up to him.

However she doesn't answer him when she pulls away instead asking her own questions. "Are you okay, you're not hurt are you?"

Naruto shakes his head, "No, of course not, I'm fine but Rin what are you doing here, you can't be here?"

"Me? What are you doing here, what the hell Naruto, what's going on here and what are you doing way out here on your own and with that scroll? Do you have any idea how worried I was about you?"

Naruto looks at his friend, a little embarrassed. "I'm fine Rin, in fact everything is great!" He finishes excitedly, "I did it, I captured the scroll and learned a jutsu from it, isn't that awesome!?"

Rin looks at him confused and then he remembers that she doesn't know about the exam. "Oh yeah, right, well you see it's extra credit. If I capture this scroll and learn a technique from it, all without getting caught, then that would boost my scores up high enough that I could be placed on the same team as you and the others. Isn't that great, I did it, we're going to be a team!" He says happily.

Rin's face softens, "Oh Naruto… I'm really proud of you for being able to learn a new technique so fast, and… I want to be on the same squad as you as well, honestly I completely forgot about that… but Naruto, this is serious. Everyone thinks you stole this scroll and have gone rogue, they're saying you committed treason." Rin says softly.

"What!?" Naruto shouts, "No, no way! I would never betray Konoha, it's my home! No, no, no, it's a test, an exam for extra credit, that's all. They just need to talk to Mizuki-sensei, he'll clear this up."

"Mizuki-sensei?"

"Yeah, he told me if I captured this scroll and could learn one jutsu from it, he would then meet me here and he could make sure that I was on the same team as you, Ino, and Sakura. This is all just a big misunderstanding that's all- Rin?"

Rin had stopped listening to him about half way through and was looking off into the distance. "Shit," she mutters under her breath. "Naruto give me a kunai, I left my equipment at home." She orders him.

"What, why?"

"Just do it and whatever you do don't give that scroll to anyone!" She says urgently.

As Naruto is reaching for a kunai to give her she suddenly jumps in front of him. "Damn it! Naruto, stay behind me." She orders him as she gets into a fighting stance.

He was about to ask her what was wrong when he sees a figure come flying through the trees and slam into the ground near them, he was covered in laceration and bruises and had a couple of kunai sticking out of him. He was pale and breathing heavily and was struggling to get to his hands and knees. But the worst thing of all was the giant gash on his back that was bleeding profusely. The man looked to be seconds away from death. It takes him a second but Naruto eventually recognizes that the person is Iruka-sensei.

"Iruka-sensei!" He shouts out, dropping the kunai. He tries to rush to his teacher's aide but Rin holds an arm out blocking him.

"Rin-"

"Stay back you two!" Iruka-sensei shouts, before he starts hacking and coughing up blood. "Mizuki- he- he's-"

"A traitor, I know." Rin says calmly. "And you may as well come out you bastard because you can't hide from me."

"What… a traitor?" Naruto was completely confused now.

A sinister laugh fills the small clearing they were in. "You really are some kind of genius, aren't you?" Mizuki-sensei suddenly appears across the clearing from them. "Though you can't be too smart, you came here didn't you, and now you're going to share the same fate as these two."

"You two run, get out of here!" Iruka-sensei screams at them, the fear for his students' lives evident in his voice. "I'll hold him off!"

"No offense sensei, but you're in no condition to do anything and if I leave you'll be dead in a matter of seconds and he'll be able to catch up to us no problem." Rin closes her eyes and takes a shaky breath but when she opens them she seems perfectly calm. "Naruto, return to the village and find my father, tell him that Mizuki is a traitor and that Iruka-sensei and I intercepted him." Rin orders.

Naruto is looking around wildly at the three other people in the clearing, he was having trouble comprehending all of this. Why were Rin and Iruka-sensei calling Mizuki-sensei a traitor, this was all just a big misunderstanding. "M-Mizuki-sensei… what are you doing? Tell them, tell them that this is all just a big mistake. That this is just a make-up test. I- I- I'll take the scroll back… I mean, did I grab the wrong one? I thought that it was right but maybe… I grabbed the wrong one by accident."

"Naruto…" Iruka-sensei says softly, his eyes full of pity.

And even Rin is giving him a look that's soft and full of sadness.

Mizuki-sensei just laughs but it's not the kind, if somewhat teasing, laugh that he associated with the other man, this one was cruel and vicious. "No, you didn't grab the wrong scroll Naruto. In fact you exceeded my every expectation, and if this really were a test, then you would have indeed passed."

"What…?"

"You simpleton, don't worry about it, just hand over the scroll and you can all go home."

"No!" Iruka-sensei shouts.

"Don't do it Naruto, run back to the village and get my father." Rin says once again, this time more firmly.

"Naruto's not going anywhere!" Mizuki shouts as he reaches behind his back where he grabs a giant shuriken and wings it towards Naruto. Rin grabs Naruto by his jacket and yanks them both to the ground to avoid it, from there she quickly gets up on one knee and holds up the tiger seal and seven small fire balls appear around her, Naruto recognizes it as Rin's Phoenix Flower Jutsu, and then they shoot towards Mizuki, who manages to dodge some of them and take cover from the rest.

"Naruto go!" She shouts at him, as she grabs the kunai he had dropped and charges in.

"Rin no!" Iruka-sensei shouts, trying to get to his feet but he stumbles and falls back to the ground.

Naruto doesn't run however, he can't run, he's paralyzed with fear. He can feel it radiating off of Mizuki, a strong desire to kill them all. All he can do is watch as his best friend and his teacher fight, and all he can think is that this is all his fault.

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xXx-Scene Break-xXx

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Quinn was forever grateful that she had mastered the Substitution Jutsu, because that was the only reason she was still alive right now. Mizuki was fast, faster than she had anticipated a chūnin to be anyway, and it was clear that the man was more skilled than he had ever let on. However her ability to almost instantly pick and switch with her targets, without the use of hand seals, was making it a more even fight than it should have been. He was constantly on the offense though, striking at her with everything he had while she was just scraping by on a barely adequate defense. Ducking and weaving, blocking and taking a lesser hit to avoid a fatal one, and substituting away when she could.

He thrusts his kunai towards her, aiming to slice her neck open, she quickly sends her chakra out and just a fraction of a second before the knife can hit her she activates the Substitution Jutsu and is pulled to safety, from their she charges at him again, her own kunai in hand. She would love to be able to put some real distance between them and use her fire jutsu to fight this guy but with Naruto still there and Iruka-sensei injured she was limited in her movements, forced to keep herself between Mizuki and them. And if she tried to use her fire jutsu anyway, the area was too small and she ran the risk of hitting one of them. She was essentially fighting with the metaphorical hand tied behind her back. She couldn't go all out without putting Naruto and Iruka-sensei at risk.

She jumps and rolls to the left as he slashes at her again and then thinking she sees an opening flings her kunai at him. However he is easily able to dodge, she is then forced to summersault backwards when he brings his foot down on her for a drop kick, it barely misses her and the force of the kick sends debris everywhere.

However this attack once again left him open and from her current position, if she aimed up at him, she wouldn't run the risk of hitting Naruto or Iruka. She holds up the tiger seal and spits out a fire ball at him, but he drops down low, the flame missing him completely and he uses the momentum of his drop to swing himself into a round house kick that catches her across the face.

Quinn goes flying across the ground rolling and tumbling, she gathers chakra into her hands and grasps at the ground, sliding but managing catch and stabilize herself. A shadow from the moonlight passes overhead and when she looks up she sees Mizuki jumping high above her, grabbing another one of his giant shuriken and flinging it at her.

Quinn watches as the spinning blade travels towards her at an incredible speed, she could substitute out of the way of course but that would keep her on the defensive and if she wanted any hope of winning this she needed to go on the offensive. She holds both of her hands forward, all of her fingers pointed at the giant shuriken, she then gathers chakra into all of her finger tips and uses the Chakra String jutsu to latch onto it, she then yanks the spinning blade whipping it around her and redirecting the attack back towards Mizuki.

She then wastes zero time in attaching a chakra string to the still air-born Mizuki, who contorts his body out of the path of the redirected shuriken and harm's way. She once more holds up the seal of the tiger, and before she releases the Dragon Fire Jutsu, she begins to convert the chakra of the chakra string from normal chakra into fire chakra. She then releases the jutsu which takes on the appearance of a dragon's head and runs along the string straight towards the traitor.

That was the secret of being able to use the Dragon Fire Jutsu with the Chakra String Jutsu, a second before you released the technique, you begin to convert the chakra string into fire chakra. Normally doing this would cause the chakra string to destabilize and break after a few seconds but because it was consumed by the concentrated flame of the Dragon Fire Jutsu the instability didn't matter. And the Dragon Fire Jutsu now shared a chakra affinity with the string which had been converted to fire chakra so it didn't completely overwhelm and destroy it allowing the jutsu to follow the string to her target. Doing this required incredible control and perfect timing and was one of the things she was most proud of herself for figuring out.

The Dragon Fire Jutsu was her second most powerful technique, her most powerful being way too uncontrollable for her current situation. The Dragon Fire Jutsu was fairly unpredictable on its own, anyway. It needed to be guided to its target, it was too unstable to just launch. If you didn't know what you were doing and how to use it you were as likely to hit a friend with this technique or even blowing yourself up as you were of hitting the enemy. Controlling it meant one of two things, it meant using it in extremely short distances, short enough that the user might get caught in the blast or it meant using ninja wire to give the flames a path to follow, which took a lot of time and preparation to do, especially if it was during a battle. Her combination with the Chakra String Jutsu meant that she could use the Dragon Fire Jutsu at almost any range and with very little preparation, she just needed to be able to see and connect her chakra string to her target.

Unfortunately, Mizuki had made chūnin for a reason and he was able to substitute out of danger just in time, so all her jutsu did was explode against and incinerate a log. She could sense where he landed exactly, not that he was actively trying to hide from her, but her abilities made it impossible for him to do so. However he was fast and she barely had time to roll out of the way as his fist came crashing down where her head had been. She takes a quick step back to dodge another one of Mizuki's kicks and then does a backwards cartwheel to dodge a second kick and then holds her arm up to block and redirect a third kick aimed at her head. The force behind it was incredible and she could feel the bones in her arm crack under the pressure but it was better than taking the blow to her head.

Mizuki then jabs towards her with a kunai, but instead of dodging she decides to take a chance and try something. She redirects the path of the blade so that it stabs into her shoulder, making it just a flesh wound instead of something serious. It still hurt like hell though and she gasps in pain when it hits, but she stays focused and she then wraps her own arm around the one holding the kunai, and then using chakra to enhance her grip, she holds him in place. She then grabs his other arm with her free hand, so that the two of them are locked in a grapple. He's stronger than she is but she only needs a couple of seconds to make this work.

"What do you think you're trying to accomplish, you little bitch?" He snarls, pissed off that he was having so much trouble with some little fresh from the academy brat. He knew she was talented, he'd helped to teach her after all, but this was ridiculous.

Quinn however ignores, him and she begins the process of converting her chakra from normal chakra into fire chakra, she doesn't need complete conversion, which is good because she still hadn't been able to pull that off, she just needed enough to be able to perform a fire jutsu without hand seals. At this range she couldn't miss, she just needed the time.

"Do you have any idea what it is that you're defending!?" He snarls at her.

She can sense Naruto's confusion as well as Iruka-sensei's distress and fear spike at this.

"NO MIZUKI, DON'T SAY ANYTHING!" Iruka-sensei shouts, struggling to his feet and managing to stand for all of two seconds before collapsing again. In his mind he was cursing himself and the other man to the deepest pits of hell. Mizuki for being a traitor and himself for allowing himself to be ambushed and injured in the first place.

Quinn scoffs, that's right, keep him talking, she just needed more time. Note to self, in future fights get her enemies to monologue.

"Yeah, I'm defending my friend." She answers him with a glare. Poor Naruto was frozen with fear and confusion and he still hadn't moved from his spot. Just keep him talking, that's all she had to do, she just needed a little more time. Ignore what he's saying and just keep him talking.

Mizuki outright laughs at that and viciously twists the kunai in her shoulder, causing her to cry out in pain, but it doesn't quite manage to break her concentration and it only makes her hold on to him tighter. "He isn't your friend, he's a monster. Do you hear that Naruto!? You're a monster, a demon!" Mizuki shouts over her shoulder at the boy. Naruto flinches.

"Shut up Mizuki!" Iruka screams, "Don't say anything, it's forbidden!"

"You think I care, this girl is about to die, and I want her to know why." He mocks them.

"Is it because you're a traitorous slime-ball?" Quinn grunts out distractedly, keep him talking, she was almost there.

"It's because that boy there is really the nine-tailed fox demon that almost destroyed this village twelve years ago, you're going to die defending a demon!" He shouts gleefully.

"No!" Iruka-sensei shouts and she can hear Naruto's horrified gasp and can literally sense the turmoil build rapidly inside of him when he hears this.

"No." Quinn says calmly before gasping out in pain as once more Mizuki twist the kunai.

"Yes," He laughs, "That boy is in-fact the nine-tailed demon fox, given a human form. He attacked and almost destroyed this village. And you, you stupid little bitch, are going to die defending a monster. How does it feel to know that the person that you thought was your friend is actually a demon!?"

"Th-that's not true… is it?" Naruto asks meekly, "Am… am I really a monster?"

"You're wrong." Quinn grunts out, wincing as once more Mizuki twists the blade.

"No, no I'm not, ask anyone who was there, ask Iruka or your father, or the even the Hokage, they'll all tell you the same thing. Naruto is a demon and he deserves to die, but I will admit I find your denial of the whole thing is quite funny, if not a little pathetic!" Mizuki cackles, clearly enjoying the impact that his words were having on Naruto and Iruka.

Quinn finally loses her patience with the man. "Let me clarify you bastard, I'm not in denial, I'm saying flat out that you're wrong!" She snarls at him. She could feel the pain that his words were inflicting on her friend and she had had enough.

"Do you think I'm stupid or just completely incompetent? I've been friends with Naruto how many years now? And during that time, all of those hours and days, weeks and months, years of training and laughing and growing together. Did you honestly think that not once in that entire time that a sensor type as powerful as me never picked up on his second chakra source!?" She yells at him.

Mizuki's eyes widen in shock but Quinn wasn't done yet. "Did you honestly think that, or did you just assume that once I had sensed it that I wouldn't look up everything that I could about it? That I didn't check up on bloodlines or artifacts or something that might provide an answer as to why a little boy, who not only has more chakra inside him than anyone else, but also a secondary source that is completely different than his own!? Did you think I'd never heard of the term Jinchūriki, the power of human sacrifice!?"

"You- you knew!" Mizuki says shocked, and she can sense the total surprise of the other two as well.

"Of course I knew," she scoffs, looking at the man in front of her utter contempt, "It's the worst kept secret in the village, and I can say with absolute certainty that not only are you wrong about Naruto as well as being a traitor, but you're completely incompetent as a ninja too." She spits out at him. "Because if you had done even five minutes worth of research into it you would know that Naruto isn't a demon, he's a container, a jail that holds the beast at bay. He's a hero who protects us all!"

Quinn takes in a shuddering breath, finally having converted enough chakra to make her attack. "And that's not all, even if you were right, even if he were a demon, which he's not, it wouldn't matter to me because he's still Naruto, he's still my friend and I am still going to kill you for hurting him! Fire Style: Grand Fireball Jutsu!" She screams, fighting through the pain and bringing the technique into focus, releasing it right into Mizuki's face.

Mizuki shrieks in agony as the flames consume him completely from the shoulders up. He releases the hold he has on her and kicks her away as hard as he can, with enough force to break her own grip on him and send her flying through the air where she crashes into a tree hard, knocking the wind out of her as she falls to the ground.

Mizuki's horrified screams fill the air as he desperately tries to put the flames out, but when he finally manages to do so his face is a melted and charred mess, completely unrecognizable from before. His hair has been incinerated completely off and his entire head is covered in multiple second and third degree burns and bits of his charcoaled skull show through where some of the flesh had been seared completely off.

"Gahh…" He breaths in and out heavily, the scent of burning flesh assaulting the clearing. "Yu… you.. I.. ghaaa, I'll kill yuo!" He screams as he channels what's left of his chakra through his body to keep himself together. Surviving on the force of his hatred alone. The wounds were fatal but he would be damned if he wasn't going to kill her before they did.

He charges at her with an inhuman speed and kicks her up off the ground and into the air where he grabs her throat and slams her into the tree, squeezing with everything he has, trying to crush her throat. He can feel himself fading, he needs to act fast. However before he can do anything else he feels a force slam into the side of his head, it breaks his grip on her and it sends him sprawling across the ground.

Naruto is now standing between the two of them, his chakra whirling around him in a blue blaze. "Don't you touch her!" He snarls.

Mizuki struggles to his hands and knees, doing his best to glare at the boy as much as his burnt and disfigured face would allow. "Grrah… yu… brat… demon…" he chokes out, and with a final haggard breath, Mizuki collapses and dies.

"Rin! Iruka-sensei!" Naruto cries out a second later, unsure of what to do next.

Quinn takes a shaky breath, trying to stay calm and not freak out that she had just killed someone. She tries to sit up and as she does she could feel it, she had cracked a couple of ribs from the impact, combine that with her throat feeling like it was swollen and closed up, and breathing was becoming more difficult. Naruto drops to her side and helps her lean up against the tree.

"L-let me help you with that." He says, his voice shaking, as he reaches for the kunai still lodged in her shoulder, the kunai hadn't initially hit anything too vital, but with Mizuki having twisted the blade a couple of time it had torn up her shoulder pretty badly and probably had nicked an artery by this point and if she didn't get it looked at soon she would probably die of blood loss, ironically the kunai was acting as a cork of sorts for her, stemming the worst of the bleeding. But she knew she didn't have a lot of time.

She shakes her head. "No… go get help, Iruka-sensei is fading fast..." She could sense his chakra signature slowly fading away.

Naruto's head snaps over to where the man is, "Ah, Iruka-sensei!"

"Hurry Naruto… we'll be okay… but you have to hurry." She could feel herself fading, the adrenaline from the fight was wearing off and she was losing consciousness, as the blood loss and other injuries were finally catching up to her.

"I'm so sorry Rin." Naruto starts to cry.

"What for…? You're safe, that's… that's what… matters…" She manages to say before slipping into unconsciousness.

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Author's Note. So this was a difficult chapter to write, one reason is writing combat is hard for me. I can visualize what it looks like and what happens just fine, but actually translating that into writing is difficult. I hope I improve as time goes on, but yeah, I really struggled with writing the fight. I'm also not entirely thrilled with how close to the anime this chapter is, I mean, it's a little different in that Mizuki actually dies in this fight but still the point of an AU, which this is, is to see what could have happened in place of what did. If I just follow the anime and manga there's really no point in reading this, you can just go watch the anime and manga. However, for this event I chose to stick closer to the anime for a couple of reasons. One, Naruto without Shadow Clone Jutsu just isn't Naruto and this was an easy way to give it to him. Two, I needed something that would drive home to Naruto and eventually the others that the world they are entering isn't a game. I mean, yes, in this story they do take their training a lot more seriously, but this kind of drives it home for them. It becomes a less abstract notion to him and the others.

I had Quinn/Rin fight Mizuki instead of Naruto for a couple of reasons as well. The main reason being that Quinn/Rin's entire motivation for becoming a ninja is to protect her friends. She's not going to let Naruto fight if she's there to protect him. The other main reason is because in the anime, at Naruto's first exposure to real combat he freezes. When the Demon Brother's attacked Tazuna at the beginning of the Wave arc, Naruto freezes while Sasuke and Sakura don't. This was Naruto's moment of hesitation, his moment of regret through which he finds his resolve. It's difficult at times, trying to determine what to change and what keep the same. By Quinn/Rin's very existence, some things just have to change, but deciding what and why can be hard. Her existence, her actions, affect the world around her, but she isn't the center of the universe, there are some things that she doesn't affect at all while other events are completely different. Exploring her effect on the Naruto-verse is a lot of fun, but can be challenging. I want to keep this a familiar world but in that same breath, if some things don't change then as I said above, there's no point in reading this.

Whatever the case, if you actually managed to read through my above babbling I truly do hope you all enjoyed this chapter and have enjoyed the story so far. I would also like to take a second and thank everyone who has taken the time to read this story of mine, it's a strange fic, I know that, Glee and Naruto don't exactly mesh, but it's been fun to write so far and I'm glad there are people out there who are enjoying it.