The clone shadowing Team Eight frowned as the memories of the clone following Team Seven washed over it. 'This isn't good.' he thought sensing the fighting ahead. 'One of them up ahead has a very strong chakra, if that's who I think it is I'm going to have to be extremely careful. There'll be no chance of the original appearing on the scene to save the day if I go down.'

He flickered ahead of the genin, and crept onto the lee of a branch overlooking a small clearing. Gaara was confronting a team of Rain ninja several years older than him. His siblings were guarding his flanks, in a triangle formation.

'Damn! I should have objected when they decided to investigate this battle,' he castigated himself, even though he knew he'd already interfered in their test more than his orders strictly allowed. It was why he had let them go on after all, 'without knowing that it was Gaara up ahead I had no reason to object.'

Haku cocked his head, Team Eight was approaching the scene. They were pretty stealthy for genin, but that wasn't saying much. You didn't have to have any special talent to detect them when you were at his level, and he was pretty sure the Kazekage's kids were closer to him in that area than they were to Team Eight. 'Ah, she knows,' he thought, watching Temari's eyes slide slightly towards their hiding place.

'I have to get these kids out of here,' Haku decided. 'Gaara's going to massacre these Rain ninja, and his bloodlust could easily run out of control. If it's her or them, his sister will definitely redirect him in their direction.'

He silently flickered into being behind them. Hinata started, and the other two spun around at the cue.

"You!" Kiba hissed, more quietly than Haku would have imagined the boy could be.

"Run." Haku ordered them. "That redhead is going to bathe in the blood of that Rain team, and once he gets going he doesn't like to stop." Hinata's face was a dawning mask of horror and it wasn't just his words that inspired it. A short strangled scream let loose, along with a sound akin to a pumpkin splattering against the bottom of a deep canyon. The genin flinched at that, and a brief look at Hinata's expression out of the corners of their eyes was enough to convince the boys. They fled.

'Now to run interference,' the clone sighed, stepping out of the bushes as Gaara finished off the other two Rain ninja, watering the ground with a shower of blood and sand. Temari turned toward him, holding her great iron fan in a forward guarding position. Her mouth dropped open when he said "If you still need to spill blood Gaara, then let it be mine."

"Dude's cracked and gone suicidal!" Kankuro gaped in surprise.

Gaara cocked his head, eyes wild, baring his teeth in an over large grin. "You wish to feed mother?" he asked. "If your life is so worthless, then I'll erase your existence and prove my own."

Haku smiled a condescending little grin, the kind he knew would make someone with control issues rage. "You're welcome to try, but I didn't say I'd make it easy for you." And with the that he condensed an ice mirror from the humid air and stepped into it to the Sand team's surprise.

"Fool." Gaara sneered, "a little pane of glass won't save you." He made a seal, and then thrust his right arm forward and a torrent of sand followed it, crashing down on the mirror like a wave. The mirror didn't crack and it wouldn't have mattered even if it did. Haku was already hurling a kunai with an exploding tag at Gaara's back from the mirror that he'd just created behind the jinchuriki and transported to. Most of Gaara's sand was on the other side of the clearing, but there was enough left around him to snap into a wall. A thin wall that burst inward like a pricked bubble with the force of the explosion that sent Gaara rolling across the ground in an ungainly heap.

"What the hell!?" Kankuro yelled in shock, jumping back from the blast and setting down his puppet. Temari was more proactive, using her iron fan to unleash a blast of wind that deflected a hail of senbon that Haku had unleashed in the hope that the jinchuriki's sand shield would be too slow to block, given the boy's rapid displacement.

'Too late for that now,' Haku thought in disappointment. The full might of Gaara's sand was swirling around him now and he was pulling up more sand from the earth as he staggered to his feet, looking disgustingly hale, the few fine cracks in his sand armor already smoothing out.

"You're strong!" Gaara shouted, voicing cracking and unbalanced. "I'm gonna break you and prove I'm alive." Then he pointed menacingly at his sister. "You! Don't interfere if you know what's good for you."

Her face was tight with worry, her normally harsh voice softened "I'm sorry Gaara, but you're my little brother, I can't just stand by and let you get hurt."

Gaara's arm shook at her, and his jaw clenched, eyes looking crazier than ever but Temari didn't budge. Finally he tore his gaze away from her and looked back at Haku, "time to die!" he proclaimed.

"If you want a real challenge, follow me to the river." Haku answered and took off in a blur of speed.

With a shout that transformed into a growling roar, Haku heard Gaara take off after him. "He's fast, faster than I expected," Haku realized with annoyance. "Not as fast as me, but with these sand tendrils whipping by, he doesn't have to be," he thought as he leaped for a higher branch, the one he'd just left splintered into pieces by a tentacle of sand as thick as his waist and as strong as iron.

Haku rolled to his left and then jumped down another level to avoid being perforated by shards of wood from another exploding branch. 'That was close, he's speeding up.' Haku thought with concern, 'Shukaku's chakra must be supercharging his physical capabilities.' He saw a blue ribbon sparkling up a head through the leaves and pushed his speed to the limit. He burst from the trees, jumping down onto the surface of the river with a smile.

Gaara and his sand followed. A churning river of fine gritty soil flowing out from between the trees, looking like a mountain stream in full flood. With a wave of his hand Haku sent a great wave of water crashing down on grasping tentacles of sand, turning them to mud. Not to be detoured, Gaara lifted his arms and sand shuriken exploded from the bank of the river, howling towards him at tremendous speed.

Haku rose a thick wall of water to shield himself and most of the projectiles were stopped. However the sand near the river was mixed with stones washed ashore from upstream, and some of the shuriken had rocks embedded in them. With more weight adding to their kinetic energy they broke through his barrier with momentum to spare. He rolled to his right missing all but one that tagged him on the left shoulder. Slowed by the water wall, it was hard enough to bruise, but not do much else. It was hard enough to dispel a shadow clone that had used up most of its chakra though, and he disappeared with a puff of smoke.

Team Seven regrouped a little over a kilometer from the site of their climatic battle with Orochimaru. They were sheltering in a hollow underneath the thick interwoven roots of one of the great trees. The sun was setting and the forest was cast in deep shadows. Shifting, blue black shades that seemed to threaten anyone that looked at them, even Sasuke. Hair tousled, handsome face scratched, he looked fierce even as he lounged by the opening of the tree, sharp eyes on the lookout. Coal black, they seemed to be aware of everything around them, both out there and in here.

Naruto was laid out on the soft loam beneath, breathing steady as Haku checked him over for broken bones and internal bleeding. Sakura watched it all with worry in her heart. A worry that just a few months ago she would have been shocked at by its intensity. 'He's not Sasuke, but somehow Naruto's become important,' she realized. 'If it wasn't for him Orochimaru would have dealt Sasuke a fate worse than death…and that's if Zabuza hadn't already killed us back in the Land of Wave.'

"Is…is he going to be ok?" she asked hesitantly. Haku rocked back on his heels and looked over at her, not quite as beautiful as he'd been when she'd first saw him earlier today. The right side of his jaw was covered in a mottled purple blue bruise, and he moved with an obvious stiffness that spoke of some kind of back injury. Blood stained his right sleeve and she could see a bandage wrapped around his upper arm, just below the shoulder, through a cut in the cloth.

"He looks like he's going to be ok to me. There doesn't seem to be any swelling or signs that he's bleeding internally. Still he's going to need to be checked out by an expert once you get to the tower." Then he paused, "If he doesn't wake in the morning you should take him in, automatic failure or not. This exam isn't worth his life."

Sakura nodded at that, and was surprised when Sasuke interrupted with a snort. "Pft, Naruto isn't going to die from something like that. The stronger the chakra the more tightly a body clings to life, and I'll give the dumbass his due, he's got the strongest I've seen."

Sakura's mouth opened in surprise, 'I don't think I've ever heard Sasuke praise Naruto like that!' she thought in amazement. Sasuke had never really acknowledged Naruto's power in any real way before, and now he was saying Naruto was the best at something. 'It's weird to hear him say that, but it's good too, maybe they'll stop their constant fighting now that they both respect each other,' she thought hopefully.

Haku smiled at that, "I'm sure you're right, but it doesn't hurt to make contingency plans." Sasuke grunted and left it at that, apparently conceding the point. Haku turned back to Sakura, "You know, you've got a lot of potential for this kind of thing," he said waving his hand in Naruto's direction. "More than me anyways, I just know some first aid, and while my chakra control is quite good, I wouldn't call it amazing."

Her confusion must have been clear on her face because he went on to elaborate. "With precise chakra control like yours, you could be one of the next great masters of medical ninjutsu. The same could be said of you and your potential with genjutsu. Master those two arts and you'd be one of the world's most formidable kunoichis."

Sakura flushed in embarrassment, 'I certainly don't feel formidable after that battle.' She dropped her eyes in shame. "I couldn't do anything," she said quietly. "Sasuke and Naruto both managed to fight far beyond my level and even they…" she trailed off not wanting to disparage Sasuke out loud.

"There's no shame in hanging back in support, especially when your teammates are heavy hitters like these two, but one does have to contribute from that position," Haku said pointedly. "If you're as smart as they say you are you should be able to leverage your chakra control into becoming a great advantage. You have to work for it though and believe in yourself. Don't let yourself get down just because you think the boys are leaving you behind."

It sounded good, like the advice that Kakashi sensei had given her before. 'But somehow it seems more realistic when coming from a someone on the outside. Kakashi sensei has to say things like that to me, it's part of his job.'

"Good advice," Sasuke said, echoing Sakura's own thoughts. "But how do you know so much about us? Aside from that fight we barely interacted with each other earlier today, and that's when we first met." Sasuke asked with growing suspicion. "In fact how did you happen to arrive just in the nick of time to save us?" His hand was drifting towards the kunai holster on his left.

Sakura shifted into a position where she could spring into action, though she felt it couldn't really be necessary. "But he did save us Sasuke," she said trying to diffuse the sudden tension.

"I can understand your suspicion. It will serve you well in your career as shinobi." Haku said calmly, sitting still with his hands in the open, clearly making an effort to prevent things from escalating. "I know about you because I was given a mission by the Hokage to protect you and the other rookies from assassins."

"What?" Sakura gasped in shock, incredibly disturbed. "How can we have assassins after us? We're just genin!"

"Did you know this was going to happen?" Sasuke demanded.

"Well we certainly didn't expect Orochimaru to turn up." Haku answered him with an apologetic smile. "But someone like me, who's technical a genin despite being much stronger than that…yes we thought it was a good possibility." Then he turned to Sakura, "As for why, every rookie with the exception of you is not only the scion of a prominent clan, but they are all descended directly from the clan head. The two on this team are for all intents and purposes clan heads themselves."

Sakura goggled at the older boy. "Naruto's the last member of a prominent clan!? There's just no way!" she blurted out in surprise.

Sasuke on the other simply cocked his head and looked at their prone teammate, seeming to weigh him with his eyes, clearly considering what Haku had just said. "All that chakra had to come from somewhere," he finally said. "And it makes Lord Jiraiya being his godfather make more sense.

'Oh, I almost forgot about that revelation,' Sakura realized in embarrassment. 'Still it's all so strange, who would have guessed that Naruto would turn out to be so mysterious.' "Why didn't anyone know?" she asked in bewilderment.

"The history taught at the academy is…simplified and sanitized." Haku answered her after a pause. "No one really learns much about the past until they become a shinobi, and then only if they look for the truth."

'That's great.' Sakura thought in annoyance. 'Why even bother teaching it in the academy then? All that study time wasted…' she grumbled to herself.

"Alright, I can see why other villages might want to exploit this exam to take us out and hurt the Leaf," Sasuke said. "But that doesn't answer how you managed to arrive just in time to help us when we were attacked by Orochimaru. How did you manage to keep an eye on us as well as your own team, and Team Eight on top of that?"

'That's a good question. I certainly didn't sense him following us,' Sakura thought with alarm. 'The fact that he must have managed it somehow is definitely not good, especially since Sasuke didn't manage to sense him either.'

"Shadow clones," Haku answered in a tone that made it clear he thought the answer obvious. "I made two during the beginning of this test with orders to tail Team Seven and Team Eight respectively and to dispel if you got in trouble." He shrugged. "The one following you did, I got its memories and rushed over here through my mirrors to save you."

"Wait a minute," Sakura objected. "Naruto's never mentioned anything like that and he uses Shadow Clones all the time!" It just didn't seem possible to her. 'Surely even Naruto couldn't miss something like that! He's dumb, but he's not that dumb!' she thought charitably.

"I don't think he's ever used them for recon that I've seen," Sasuke said with a frown. "Just fights… and there've been some freewheeling ones up in the trees where visuals are limited and where he's reacted a little too quick to things he couldn't have seen." He shook his head in dark amusement, "This dumbass lets his blood get so riled up when fighting he never even noticed. He probably just wrote it off as his sixth sense giving him a premonition."

'Well, maybe he is that dumb.' Sakura thought, staring at Naruto in exasperation.

"I guess that explains why he didn't have a screen of shadow clones out doing recon earlier, I was wondering about that." Haku said with mild astonishment. Then he went still for a second, eyes darting to the right. "Looks like we've got company."

'Dammit! Why can't we catch a break!' Sakura raged to herself, while Sasuke merely grunted and became somehow looser, looking even more on the verge of springing into violent action than he usually did.

Haku's hand reached out and touched the ground in front of him, frosting it over and forming a small mirror of ice there. A second mirror must have formed off in the distance behind the intruders, since Sakura could see an image of the three Sound Ninja who were participating in the exam. They seemed unaware they were being spied on, as they themselves spied on Team Seven through the brush.

"What should we do?" Sakura asked in a hushed tone. "I don't know anything about their village. Do you?"

Haku shook his head, "No." Then he got down on his elbows and put his ear to the mirror, listening for just a few moments, before his eyes widened and he raised back up. "They're attacking at daybreak on the orders of Orochimaru."

"I'll take care of them," Sasuke said in that darkly cool fashion of his. " You two keep an eye on Naruto."

'And my eyes on Haku?' Sakura wondered. 'What does he expect me to do in the unlikely event he's up to something?'

"Three enemies, abilities unknown, you shouldn't go in alone." Haku said skeptically.

"They're unlikely to be near your level if Orochimaru thought it necessary to enter this exam himself," Sasuke replied. "And even if they are, for my own growth I need to be able to do this. In that fight with Orochimaru I activated my Sharingan for the first time. Whatever abilities they have won't be able to stand against that."

'CHA! Sasuke's amazing!' Sakura cheered inwardly.

"Rash, too rash." Haku shook his head in disapproval. "That's going to get you killed long before you track down your brother, and even if it doesn't, you won't survive finding him."

"What the hell do you know about my brother!?" Sasuke growled taking a step forward, fists clenched and trembling. Sakura shivered with a mix of fear and desire, 'he's so intense!'

Haku looked at him askance from the corner of his eyes, somehow seeming to keep his attention on Sasuke and his little mirror at the same time. "I've learned a lot working for my master Jiraiya. Itachi isn't the lone wolf you'd expect. He travels with a rogue ninja from Kiri just as strong as he and they supposedly work for an organization filled with a dozen more missing nin just as strong. Who they are… and what their goals are, nobody knows for sure; but even if you surpass Itachi and match Uchiha Madara himself in strength, going up against them alone is suicide."

Face pale, black eyes wide, Sasuke looked stunned by the news. "That's…that's impossible," he stammered out. "Itachi working with a partner? For a whole organization? It can't be. He's just too psychotic and unstable."

Haku shrugged, "He's hardly inconspicuous and his partner even less so. There might not be anyone in the world as recognizable at a glance as Hoshigaki Kisame. He's two meters tall with blue skin, and has gills and teeth like a shark."

'Ugh, gross! That's makes Zabuza seem normal in comparison.' Sakura grimaced. 'All he had was the teeth and shaved eyebrows.'

Sasuke on the other hand didn't seem to be taking the news so well. He was running his hands through his black locks like he wanted to tear them out. He gritted his teeth and shook his head slowly, "if it's suicidal so be it, as long I succeed."

"Which you're not likely to." Haku commented, dismissing his mirror with a sweep of his hand. Sakura supposed he didn't want to push his luck and give the Sound ninja a chance to detect it.

Sasuke glared at him, snarl warping his face. "Would you have me do nothing," he demanded.

"No, I know that's not an option for you." Haku seemed vexed by the admission. "What you could do is look beyond yourself and avail yourself of the assets available to you as your brother has done.

"What assets? I'm all the clan has left." Sasuke said, a plaintive note entering his voice.

"Hatake Kakashi is the third strongest shinobi of the Leaf after Jiraiya and the Hokage himself." Haku spoke slowly as if speaking to a small child. "Naruto's potential equals your own and I've already gone over the path Sakura can take towards power. Eventually you'll have a team that can take on any two ninja alive, you just need to give it time. Just three or four years," he appealed. "Itachi's young, he's not going anywhere. Train, research, plot and plan, have a few kids so that the Uchiha clan doesn't die with you if you fail." He turned to look at Sakura, "Not with you. You're too young, it would damage your health and career."

Sakura was ablaze with righteous indignation, 'We'll see about that! No one's going to have Sasuke's babies but me! Yeah!' she thought emphatically.

Sasuke held his face in the palm of his hand, fingernails digging into his forehead, grimacing in pained frustration.

"Don't play his game Sasuke, especially when he's not willing to play by his own rules. If he can accept aid then so can you, especially if it's just to deal with his allies." Haku said.

Sasuke let out a long suffering sigh, letting his hand slide off his face. "I'd hoped that I wouldn't have to put other people at risk…but it looks like he's going to deny me that luxury." He laughed bitterly, "Why should I be surprised, he's denied me every other."

Sakura's heart went out to him. "I'm here for you Sasuke," she said, her mouth dry. "Don't ever forget that."

He rolled his eyes in response. "If you want to be here for me follow Haku's advice and train until you're worthy to be there." He turned dismissively back to the older boy. "Let's come at them from two sides. I'll rush their position and you ambush them from the back through a mirror."

'Jackass!' Sakura seethed. 'How can you stomp on a maiden's heart like that. I'll prove I'm the only one worthy of your love!'

"Sounds good," Haku replied with a nod. "The dark favors us I think. Your eyes will have no problem with it and I'm sure I have much more experience fighting in it than they." It was twilight now and only a dim glow could be seen on the horizon through the trees. Their eyes met for a moment and then Sasuke was gone, blurring into action.

Sakura yearned to let her eyes follow him, but she kept them on Haku. 'It's the right thing to do,' she told herself. She could hear Sasuke shouting for the enemy to "Come out and fight me!" and hear the rush of flames, and see the shadows lit by their glow thrown into the roots of their tree. The very air vibrated as if it had been plucked like the string of a giant electric guitar, a harsh keening sound on the edge of conscious recognition. Then mist condensed out of thin air and froze over in a flash, solidifying into a blue sheet of ice in the blink of an eye. Haku leaped into it and was gone, and the mirror dissolved back into the water from which it came, splattering the ground and leaving it damp. A girl screamed and Sakura spun to look out the opening of the hollow into the darkness, but all that followed was silence.

Eventually there was movement and Sasuke flowed out of the shadows, Haku following him, a sound ninja thrown over each shoulder, a girl over the left and a boy on the right. Sakura gave a start as she realized they didn't seem to be breathing.

"Are they dead?" she asked in confusion.

Haku shook his head, "I put them in a state of false death. It'll leave them weak and ripe for interrogation." He put the girl down and made a sign with one hand, summoning another of his mirrors. "I'm gonna drop these two off with my contact on the border of the forest fence. I'll be back in a couple of minutes." And with that he picked the girl back up and was gone.

Sakura looked away from the crumbling mirror, "the other one?" she asked, wondering about the ninja with the bandaged face.

"Taken care off." Sasuke said in a cold detached voice, looking off in the distance at the Gods' only knew what.

Sakura suppressed a shudder as a chill ran up her spine. 'Just like that, it's so easy for him. Will it ever be that easy for me?' She wondered. 'Do I want it to be?' She knew what her textbooks would say, but she'd long since learned that they had little relation to reality.

The silence between them quickly grew awkward. It was embarrassing. 'I'm embarrassing,' she thought with shame, cheeks reddening as she recalled the casual way he'd put her down and dismissed her before this latest fight. "Sasuke…" she stuttered, something desperate in her voice causing him to turn and look at her with those knowing eyes of his. "I…I promise that I will train…I will follow his advice." Her voice became more sure and firm. "And I won't have to hide behind you and Naruto for protection anymore. I'll catch up to you two and never fall behind again."

Sasuke's face was still. It was obvious he was hiding a reaction, and Sakura knew just what it was, 'he doesn't believe me, or if he does he doesn't believe in me.' she thought in despair. He opened his mouth, "Good," he said and left it at that, turning away to look back at the night. 'It's better than nothing, certainly better than knocking me down. I'll prove him wrong.' She thought with certainty. 'I'm going to become a great kunoichi, and prove to Sasuke that I'm the right woman for him!'

Before the silence could once more become oppressive, Haku arrived, flowing out of a mirror that as always, solidified faster than anyone would expect. Sasuke turned to him, "So, you can take people through those?" he asked.

"I can," Haku nodded, "but unless you have my bloodline I don't recommend it. It's cold enough that it shocked those two into consciousness. Of course, they were too out of it to offer any resistance, but they should have slept for at least half a day. Still, I don't think I took them through enough mirrors to give them frostbite, so they should be alright," he said. Then paused and added, "If they talk to Morino that is."

That last bit put conversation on a damper, as they all seemed to recall his scarred head and the tortures that those two Sound ninjas could end up on the receiving end of. "I'll take first watch," Sakura said, breaking the impasse. She felt exhausted, but knew that the boys had done far more than her.

Sasuke grunted in affirmation, while Haku replied "Good idea." Then he continued, "It looks like you guys should be alright, so I'm going to head on out and rejoin my own team. I wish you three luck on finishing the exam." Then he made yet another mirror and stepped through the watery glass and was gone.

Sakura sighed in annoyance, "He didn't even given me a chance to say goodbye!" But looking at Sasuke's glower she thought, 'Maybe he didn't want to give Sasuke time to think of doing anything rash.' She shook her head at their foolishness, and started looking over the area in preparation for her night's watch. 'Maybe I can set up a few traps while I'm at it…'

Haku arrived back at the place he'd left his team earlier in the day and quickly picked up their trail. His clone had left him subtle signs that he and Jiraiya used to communicate directions. In little over an hour he'd found them camped out in a little dip in the ground, obscured by boulders thrusting up out of the earth.

His clone and Ino were both still up, while Shikamaru snoozed away. "Haku! What happened to you!" she gasped in horror, taking in his bruised face. "Are you alright?" she asked, running her hands over him in a far too familiar manner.

"I'm fine Ino," he answered, pushing her arms away and dispelling his clone, its memories flowing into him. "You got a scroll!" he said in surprise.

"Yeah!" Ino crowed. "We rescued a pathetic Grass kunoichi from a giant bear and took her scroll as payment. It was an Earth scroll, just what we needed." Then she cocked her head in confusion, "How did you know?"

"The clone, I get it's memories when it dispels. That's how I knew Orochimaru was in the forest of death," he explained. "He was after Sasuke."

"Is he alright!?" Ino demanded, face going pale with worry.

"I managed to get there in time," he replied. "He smacked us around pretty good, but he likes to play with his food and I managed to stall him enough for Jiraiya sensei to arrive and drive him off."

"Thank the Gods," Ino said in relief. Then she paused, "the rest of them are ok too, right? Sakura and Naruto?" Her face colored, and she seemed a little embarrassed she'd forgotten them. Knowing her, she was probably concerned more about Sakura than Naruto, they seemed to have a long history.

"Sakura's fine and Naruto should be up and about in the morning," he answered warmly.

"That's great to hear." Ino said earnestly. "After all I don't want to win Sasuke by default, I need to prove to Sakura that I'm better than her." Somehow, it just didn't sound convincing to Haku. 'She cares,' he thought with a smile.

"I've had a long day," he told her as he sat down, and tried to find a good position to sleep in. "You take this watch, and Shikamaru the second. I'll take the third." He'd barely registered the yes before he was out.

Shikamaru didn't wake him for the third watch. "It's a drag, but I decided you needed the sleep more than me," he'd said when asked why. After that it would have been a relatively simple matter to make for the tower, but they stayed out for a couple more days. Haku needed to rest, and then send out more clones to look after Teams Seven and Eight, while Ino wanted to observe or take out more of the competition. In the end it all came to naught, the first day seeming to have used up this exam's quota for the extreme and unusual. An ocean of blood had been spilled that day, and little more could be drawn from the stone. With everything seeming under control, Team Ten entered the Tower on the fourth night and fell gratefully into soft beds.