Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter 2

A group of men barring the entrance to the staircase were bored, chatting away as they waited for some action. They talked about Konoha's part in the world and the part they themselves would play. They spoke of great aspirations and of their families, or of new techniques they wanted to learn and the wealth and power that would be theirs if they toppled Konohagakure. There were four of them, so when Fox first heard their voices, he had already stooped down into a low crawl where his chest almost brushed against the floor each time he moved. The men who guarded the Fox's intended path had no idea that he was coming upon them. When finally he was ready, the fox wrapped his arms around the neck of one of his victims while his clones followed suit for the other three. Four necks were snapped as four strangled cries broke out; four bodies were then quickly squirrelled away into the dark corners of the room where even the lights overhead held no authority.

He entered the underground base with his two squads of clones at a pace suitable for a fox. The corridors were dark and winding--concrete passages that were dank from being pressure washed often. Obviously, its last wash was probably sometime before the attack to the base, but he could still feel the moisture in the air together with the scent of dirt and grass after a storm shower. His nose picked up on that and more, including the foul odor of left over, rotting food and blood. His foxy nose could even pick up the scent of old decrepit death, and the thought popped in his head that the bodies were probably not moved very much after the men and women from the village were killed. He only caught glimpses of the corpses strewn about the hallway; he never had to turn his head to see the blood that caked the walls or feel it under his shinobi's sandals. It was everywhere.

"There's needles in some of these bodies... poison plus sheer volume of puncture wounds probably got them, since the aim is sort of off." One of his clones said.

"It's nothing like that boy with Zabusa. One shot was good enough for him."

"Haku... It's been so long. You remember that?" Fox asked his clone.

"Sure. I remember everything that you remember." He said.

Fox didn't bother to nod, he only stooped lower as his speed picked up.

The clones followed behind him in an arrow formation as he ran passed room after room. Each of them checked a room on their side of the arrowhead, but found only supply rooms and makeshift sleeping quarters for new recruits when the regular quarters were used in full capacity, so they continued on. They were heading toward the armory, where the brothers should have broken through to after entering the ground-level floor of the 'Post' just like he diagramed outside.

Those brothers, they had a special group kekkai genkai, which would only work when the three of them were together--which immediately lead to them being placed in a three man cell. It was a very unusual power that they had stumbled on together. It was the reason why they were called 'Jonin-faced Chunin'. Their father wasn't anything special, but their mother was a powerful shinobi who once claimed the hidden leaf as her village, though he had a feeling that she was either born or living around the time of the first hokage. Fox didn't know much more about her, but he knew that she had a part to play in the original disbursement of the demons that lead to their coincidental placement throughout the continent. In theory, that meant that she had a part to play for the Kyubi's appearance in Konoha eighteen years ago. She may still be alive. He wasn't sure.

Now orphans, the brothers wanted to find their mother as well, but not for the same reasons that Fox had. Fox needed to know some things about the Kyubi; secret things that he didn't understand and the great fox wasn't willing to part with.

The fox sighed gently as he pressed his back against the wall next to the large door frame that lead into the armory. Already he could smell blood and the scent of foreign men, as well as a lingering taste in his nostrils of alcohol.

Then, while taking a rumbling from up above as a cue, the fox gingerly peered through the large frame to see how many shinobi were there, staring at the shuddering ceiling, waiting for the brothers to collapse the roof.

One hiding in the far corner, seven in the middle, eight others heading this way. That doesn't include the people I can't see from here. I don't have enough back up to take out the group in one blow, but I should still be able to do it stealthily.

The fox took a deep breath and looked up to analyze the distance between the top of the frame and the ceiling. As this whole segment of the base began to shake because of the powerful earth jutsu that the brothers were using, Naruto could hear shouts of orders being given amongst his enemies.

Nodding his head, two other clones followed him as he ran straight up the wall and crawled over the short space over the door frame to get onto the other side. When all three of him landed in position, they all pressed up against the wall and waited, kunai drawn.

He watched quietly with his lips sealed and his eyes trained on the heels of his targets. One could tell quite a bit from the amount of tension that was on the heel of an opponent. His favorite thing to see was the flat-footed run, a sign that the target was getting careless either because he was more relaxed than usual, or the target was scared.

After the third shinobi had passed through and the fourth finally noticed one of the groups, the Fox group lunged out from both sides and struck their knives through the front of their throats, quickly collapsing the esophagus and completely destroying the jugular and carotid blood vessels. The stretched position of these blood vessels often reacted terribly for medic-nin or any other medical professionals when treating this sort of attack. They sat underneath the platysma muscle that kept the neck packaged firmly in place while still giving way somewhat to allow a little less than a crescent motion so that one could turn his or her neck back and forth. Sitting there, however, in a vertical position allowed for the elasticity of the vessels together with gravity to hide away the cut vessels under the muscle, which meant that most people never survived a slit throat. The few that have thanks to powerful chakra techniques or freezing methods often suffer brain damage due to lack of oxygen to the brain.

Fox learned exhaustive amounts of information during his four month training stint for ANBU. They didn't give him much time to pass the tests, but he was at an age where everything clicked. He was absorbing every bit of information thrown at him and asking for more. He learned by doing, by hearing, by seeing, by thinking about it later--it was incredible, he realized, how much he could learn when so much focus was on him. It wasn't like the academy at all. He 'graduated' near the top of his shinobi class in the ANBU academy.

The last two shinobi that were not killed in the first two seconds after their initial lunge were held captive after new remote-activated explosive tags were attached to their foreheads and kunai were brought up to their throats. Within eight seconds, the path was clear, and anyone looking in their direction would barely be able to see the gleam of light off of the blood on the floor by the entrance to the armory.

No one was, though, because now they had a new threat beyond the collapsing roof to deal with. A large monster made of chakra and a small dark blue orb resting in its center crashed through the ceiling wielding a giant rock pillar on the end of a samurai-sword's handle, with a shield made of fire in the shape of bull's head. Every time the creature swung his pillar and struck down one of theshinobi, the pillar broke up more and more until only rubble was left.

Two shinobi moved up close and caught the brothers' attention while their allies moved back and began complex hand seal formations. Fox recognized the sequence and frowned. He needed to trust the brothers' abilities and move on. They were supposed to catch up to him later, otherwise they would risk the hostage getting executed. He growled and left one team to help break down the numbers, leaving his own slightly handicapped.

He and one of his clones quickly used wraps secured in their pouches to cover their captives' eyes and both kicked them into the room at the same time. As soon as they stumbled close enough to a crowd of their allies, Naruto activated the seals and turned to leave as two large explosions engulfed half of the room. He darted down the hall like light, appearing at the end of it just in time to turn his head slightly to the right and look back. The last he saw of the brothers before he turned a corner far away from the armory was the pillar of rock shattered by a lightning jutsu that he had seen coming, and a powerful roar like that of a lion in place of their fused three voices as the trio slammed their chakra body, shield first, into one of the stronger shinobi as his clones attempted to take care of the ranged fighters in the midst of all of the destruction.

He reached behind him and started molding chakra in each hand while running at the same speed. The two clones left over with him helped shape the chakra into Rasengan spheres as they neared a wall that they needed to go through to cause confusion in the ranks of the shinobi that had taken over the base.

When the wall collapsed and the ceiling shook, the men inside started moving quickly as they geared themselves back into a state of awareness one possesses while out on the battlefield. When they saw a man in a clear mask running solo with two bunshin behind him some of the men broke out into fits of laughter.

Fox stepped in cautiously, but allowed his clones to do the eye-sweeping of the room.

A man wearing blue and holding two small fans and several other pairs on his back stepped up to face the white-faced ANBU. He had thick, dark hair and blue eyes, and the odd suit that he was wearing billowed up near his calves, and continued on toward his ankles much like tights do.

"I'll handle this. Watch out for any stray spray." He grinned, wasting no time and turning his body and swinging both fans upwards in one swift motion. Hundreds of small needles shot out from within the folds of the fans as they opened up. The fox stood still as the needles raced toward him. He could be sure that they were poisoned, regardless of this shinobi's rank. The clone mentioned before that there were needles in some of the bodies, but he was confident that the rain-type attack was as inaccurate as always.

Just as the needles were about to dot his body like the night sky dotted in infinity with bright stars sitting in suspension two straight swords came out from behind his back and spun in counter rotations, effectively defending the group of foxes much to the man's chagrin. The needles ricocheted off and dug into the floor around the foxes. They hit at nearly the same speed, and the sheer volume of needles used in the attack brought up smoke from debris broken off of the floor around them that seemed to swirl up high into the air and then drape over the center of the room.

"Think you're bad-ass, huh? Leaving it all up to your kage bunshin--what a cocky son of a bitch. Let's see you dodge this.." He leaned backward and removed the top two fans at his shoulders. Where each fan sat hanging, an extra arm grew out and took hold of it at the same time; taking all of his arms and rolling his shoulders he hunched back forward on the balls of his feet as he flaunted his ability. "You like!?-- there's so many needles that there'll be ten in between each of your teeth!"

Fox's eyebrows lifted up underneath his mask, but he stood his ground. There wasn't any point in losing his cool over an attack like that. He moved his hands together to form a hand seal as he waited for it.

The fan shinobi held out his arms in a very complicated manner as he readied himself to throw the needles toward the fox. The rest of his allies standing around, waiting for the outcome started yelling when they noticed that somehow a white-faced clone had managed to sneak into place behind them in the smoke brought up from the first attack.

When the man felt some arms quickly latching onto his side just above his waist, he looked down to see half a grinning face as the clone's mask was pushed aside slightly and a small roll of remote-activated explosive tags hanging out of his mouth. His eyes widened when the clone's arms reached up and grabbed as many of the shinobi's extra arms as possible and pulled back while holding the exploding seals in between his teeth. Fox molded chakra and activated the seals.

The clone closed his eyes and furrowed his brow and the spider-armed man let out a scream, but it was engulfed by an explosion so large that it knocked several of the other ninja in the room off of their feet. The other clone, who stepped out from behind Fox as the explosion occurred, swung both swords in his hands to deflect the light spray of needles that were flung in their direction by the explosion and sheathed one of them as the second disappeared into a plume of smoke while sitting in his hand.

A memory of the explosion from a different perspective came to him, and the fox immediately started running forward, and then used chakra to throw him into a wild burst of speed that allowed him to move on toward the hallway that lead up to the war room past the destruction that had occured in the barracks.

As the smoke cleared and the rest of the shinobi that weren't already dead brought themselves back up to their feet, ready to chase after the ANBU in the blank mask, a giant pillar slammed down fiercely on the corpse of one of their fallen allies. There was a sea of shaking lips and wide eyes in the room as they gazed upon the brothers. The mighty beast made of chakra with a weapon made of rock and a shield made of fire took a few steps forward, swinging the pillar violently, roaring like a beast not of this world.

They all ran screaming.

A flood of shinobi trying to escape the terrible dominion of the large pillar and the wrath of the chakra monster as it chased them down a long hallway that lead directly to the entrance, and the only other one besides the one that had been made by the brothers earlier. As they climbed the stairs and exited the front of the Post, they hesitated for a second when they saw another hallway made of swirling flames and an uncertain end before them.

The heat from afar was already painful, and they knew that before the ring of fire was there, there used to be grass and a few shrubs straight away from the exit. Now the ground was torched, and it did not look like a direction that they wanted to take.

Behind them, the beast was forcing its way through the narrow staircase, destroying the railing and almost crashing the entire floor down, but he would certainly manage to get through, they could already see his giant arms reaching out and the claws on the end of them.

They started running, nearly single-file into the pit of hell as they tried to escape from the monster that wanted to grind them up with the pillar and cook them with his shield to make shinobi burgers.

When they finally broke through the flames and climbed over a hill, the ground suddenly separated into two giant lips made of the very Earth herself that gently suckled them into her mouth. They even felt as if they were being thrown about along a firm, grassy tongue and pressed into the sides of rock teeth and soft dirt gums. In the pitch black darkness within the mouth of the dirt, they noticed that there were several eerie glowing lights surround them. They fluttered around like bugs, and crawled all over them, and soon, they realized that these were the Aburame clan's kikai bugs, and that they were trapped.

Only a few of them dared to move close enough to the teeth, but when they did they could see the three shinobi standing in front of them alongside the monster.

From the side, the Beetle's jaw could be seen moving as she shifted the mouth prison, but she stayed quiet as to not let their prisoners escape, for their prison maintained its shape so long as her jaw did as well. The tortoise stood with his arms crossed in front of the flaming pathway that slowly faded away in the background and Eagle cradled a few of those glow in the dark kikai bugs that had been bred with the sole intention of freaking their enemies out--aside from their glutenous hunger for chakra. The brothers split back up into three and each were grinning madly behind their masks.

"Looks like we did our part. He said there shouldn't be that many more, and that he could take them, but..." Eagle said.

"He's missing four clones now," said one of the brothers.

"So he's practically on his own. I guess he's not the only ANBU with a mask like his for no reason, right? We can trust him." Another brother pitched in.

"On his own?" Tortoise smirked and turned to head back into the tower. "If there's one thing you learn from fighting with a beast like Uzumaki..."

The woman in the beetle mask gave the tortoise a glare.

"--it's that he's never on his own."

One of the brothers moved closer, "Because, we're like... with him in spirit and stuff?"

Eagle gawked at the little one--Beetle snickered, and a girlish chorused screech came from prisoners within the large set of lips protruding out of the ground a few meters away. Tortoise shook his head, grumbling. "Damn fool."

"He's just a kid, you know." Eagle pointed out.

"OK, Lion... like I was saying, the Fox is never alone on the battlefield, because he is a master of a technique called Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."

"The shadow clone technique, I know that..." The youngest of the three in a lion's mask mumbled.

Tortoise ignored his pouting and got to the point. "I remember the first time that we fought together against that group of samurai from the west."

"Samurai?" Another of the trio asked, this one wearing a mouse mask.

"That's right, samurai. But these demons were far superior in numbers and their ability rivaled even that of the Hyuga clan head. We were definitely in trouble then."

"What did you do?" Mouse asked.

"Nothing."

"Nothing...?"

"Nothing."

The two boys were struck silent, while the third wearing a badger's mask had still yet to talk. They couldn't stand the anticipation, and the tortoise had yet to divulge the information they so desperately needed.

Tortoise narrowed his eyes, remembering the cries on the battlefield as explosive tags were launched on kunai to attack the powerful invaders. It was an army of samurai, and their armor seemed impenetrable. Only their strongest jutsus were able to damage their armor. They wielded devilish katana that not only absorbed chakra but also expelled it, which meant that they had to time their attacks and work together to both distract, attack and defend. The energies radiating from those unearthly attackers was evil, but that didn't stop Konoha's shinobi. The leaf shinobi were proud, and had faced much greater evils before, such as the Kyubi no Kitsune and Pein. They fought for a long time, and Tortoise happened to be one of the mercenaries hired for the battle, but even fighting alongside other great shinobi like the former Rookie 9 and Team Gai, there was very little hope in sight. When Hyuga Hiashi was struck down, the whole leaf fleet came to a miserable hault, and practically begged to have their souls withdrawn as payment for their cowardice. One of his most vivid memories was that of the ferocity displayed that gained Bear the ANBU title after that fight.

"I couldn't do a damn thing, and neither could Bear or any of the other regular leaf-nin fighting that night. It wasn't until Fox stepped in and asked for us to buy him some time. I thought he was such an arrogant bastard then. Still think he's one now." Tortoise mused.

"Did Uzumaki eliminate them?" The badger finally spoke up.

"Yeah. All of them."

"All..."

"Once he told us he was ready, it took him six hours to defeat them all, but not once did he allow any more of his comrades to fall. The rest of us left alive the following morning thanks to him."

"How did he do it?!" Lion demanded.

Mouse said, "That was before we were chunin, right? Tell us!"

"He called on his shadow clones and a chakra even darker and more sinister than those samurai. I blinked some sweat out of my eye and suddenly there was a mighty flood of clones that dismantled the samurai armor piece by piece. He did it all with his bare hands."

"You're romanticizing the story," Beetle mumbled between gritted teeth.

"No I'm not. You were there, what happened to your head, woman?"

Beetle kept silent.

"Hm. Either way, he's not going to leave me out of all of the fun. And I'll be there to make sure that he doesn't go soft on Bear."

The three brothers were exhausted, and after looking toward the Beetle's shaking head they took a vote and decided that it was best that they just sit and rest. Eagle, however, got the go ahead and nodded back. He ran up after the tortoise and then followed him in behind him.

"I hope Fox and Bear come back out okay..."

"Me too."

Deep inside of the base, past the long hallway and the destruction caused by the roll of explosive tags, Fox stood at the end of another hall at a door. He looked around briefly before stepping in before his clone. A trap set and a giant slab landed on top of the clone behind him, effectively crushing and expelling him and the technique respectively. The fox frowned, but started walking a little deeper into the already dark room to where he thought he saw someone sitting on a chair in front of him. It seemed like there was no leaving this place the way he came.

A light turned on, forcing his eyesight to adjust, and he saw Bear sitting on a steel chair, tied down with bulks of fine threads that looked suspiciously like hair wrapped intricately around her throat and slender waist, as well as each one of her joints and finally a few times to the chair. He looked around, noting that there was no one around him, and figured that this was a ploy to attack him, but wanted to come close to his comrade anyways, to see if she was breathing.

He took a step closer.

Nothing.

Another step, and yet again, nothing.

He continued until he stood over her, looking down upon Bear. He held his breath as he removed the mask.

"You've made it this far--Uzumaki Naruto? Are you here to kill me?"

Fox narrowed his eyes, but finished pulling the mask away from her face.

He stared down into the pearl-white eyes of the heir and soon-to-be-pronounced leader and head of the Hyuga clan...

"You're safe now, Hyuga-taichou."

... Hyuga Hinata.

Author's note: I figured this was a pretty good place to stop, plus I need to go to work seven minutes ago! :) Thanks for reading, and please review! Next one should be longer.