A/N: Sorry that I have taken longer to update then I usually do, but first I had some computer programming projects that kept me from writing, and after that, I bought Suikoden V and have been spending lots of time on that, because while I want to keep my readers happy, I also really love the Suikoden series, and in all fairness, the Suikoden series was around first. That being said, I would also like to ask; does anyone else think that most of the stories being posted lately really suck? I mean honestly, I read about 1 or 2 out of every 50 updates or new stories, because the rest sound really stupid or generic. Anyway, on with the story.

Shadow Fox

As the three sound genin rushed through the forest, Naruto could not help but wonder what they were doing. After they had all woken up, Zaku had called Kin aside and talked to her for a little while, before they both returned and told Naruto that they had something else that they needed to do. Every time that he asked them what they were all going to do, they would just reply that it was nothing that he needed to worry about. He knew that they were hiding something from him, he wondered what it was, but figured that if it were important, then they would tell him.

Naruto pondered these things as they ran through the trees, careful to avoid any other teams that they might run across. A sense of dread was coming to Naruto as they continued to run through the forest. Meanwhile, Kin was both confused and torn over this turn of events.

'Why are we not allowed to tell Naruto about this mission, is he somehow tied to our target? I want to tell him so that he can be prepared for whatever may come, but I can't. Naruto, please be able to forgive us for whatever may happen, I don't know what I would do if you can't forgive me.'

Zaku was thinking along similar lines. He knew that if they were not allowed to tell Naruto, then it is probably something that he won't like doing. He didn't want to put his first real friend in a situation like that, but he was a ninja of the sound and the mission came first before friendship. He, like Kin, also just hoped that his friend would be able to forgive them for whatever happened.

As they ran through the forest, they could suddenly see three figures in the distance. Naruto saw that his two teammates were beginning to slow down and figured that these three had something to do with what his teammates needed to do. As they dropped down into the clearing, Naruto looked forward and could now tell who these three figures were and froze; they were his old teammates, Sakura and Sasuke, along with their new teammate Hokuro. He saw that Hokuro was unconscious as was Sasuke, but Sasuke looked like he was in pain as opposed to Hokuro. Only Sakura seemed to lack injury as she stood between her two teammates and the sound genin. That sense of dread welling up inside of Naruto was now increasing, and it would not lessen as he listened to the exchange between Sakura and his teammates.

"What do you three want, my teammates are unconscious and we have no scroll anymore, so just leave us alone." Sakura asked the three of them.

Zaku gave a menacing chuckle at the girl's words. He wasn't really fond of killing this "Sasuke" character, feeling that there was probably a tie between him and Naruto, but he was hoping to scare her into not putting up a fight, so that casualties would be minimal, and thus any pain dealt to Naruto would be minimal.

"We are here because we were ordered by Orochimaru-sama to kill Uchiha Sasuke, so move aside unless you want to die too."

Naruto couldn't move and was having a difficult time breathing. He had a feeling that he wouldn't like what his teammates had to do, but he didn't think that his teammates had to do something like this. Zaku told Sakura that they were ordered by Orochimaru to kill him, but why did Orochimaru want them to kill Sasuke, it just didn't make any sense.

"I don't know what that snake freak has against Sasuke but I won't let you hurt Sasuke-kun." Sakura replied to the threat as she pulled out a kunai and lowered herself into a fighting stance.

Kin had been watching Sakura as she spoke and couldn't help but feel that she had known about her in some way. She had felt that way ever since they had seen here in that alleyway with the sand genin. She was sure that she had never met the girl before, but she still felt that she knew of her somehow. She began to truly look her over to see if she could figure this out when her gaze stayed upon her hair. Pink hair, it was something that should have been blaringly obvious, but she had not really paid much attention before. Suddenly, something clicked in her head.

Flashback

"I always had such a big crush on her, but she was always swooning over our other teammate. Every time I tried to be nice to her, she would yell at me or hit me for annoying her. She would do the same thing if I insulted or fought with our teammate. I guess I never really stood much of a chance."

"What did she look like?"

"Well, she was a bit taller than me, probably around your height. She had emerald eyes and pink hair. She tended to yell a lot and sometimes get very violent."

"Sounds like an annoying, bright colored girly girl to me."

End Flashback

"You…It's you." Kin said through gritted teeth.

Sakura looked at the girl strangely. She was sure that she had never seen this girl before, so why did this girl seem to know her and seem to be so angry at the sight of her. Her musings were cut short, however, when she felt the force of the blow to her stomach from the butt of a scythe. She looked up and saw that it was that girl who had attacked her, and it didn't seem like her assault was going to stop there.

As Sakura had doubled over in pain, Kin swept Sakura's legs out from under her, causing Sakura to fall to the ground. Kin was no longer thinking about ninja moves or technique; she only wanted to cause this girl pain. As Sakura hit the ground, Kin followed after her, throwing punch after punch directed at her face, Sakura could do little more than try to hold her arms up to try and block some of the blows to her face. Kin was relentless in her attack as she began screaming at Sakura.

"You, I hate girls like you; stupid fan girl types. You are weak but you don't even try to get stronger, thinking only of some boy, always relying on your teammates to do all of the work and to save your ass if things go wrong. I hate you, you are useless, weak, but most of all, I hate you because you hurt him, you hurt him you stupid bitch, you hurt…" Her screaming was cut short as she felt someone grab her wrist. She jerked her head back to find a face wrapped in bandages; one very sad looking eye staring back at her.

"Why are you stopping me?" She screamed at him.

"Kin, would you just shut up! Do you even realize what you were saying, what you almost said?" Zaku replied.

Kin thought through everything that she had just said to the girl and gasped, realizing that she almost gave away what had happened to Naruto. She mumbled a soft apology as she backed off of the girl.

Sakura was beginning to stand once more, not in the best of conditions after the beating that she received. She was confused by the words that this girl was screaming at her. She had not caught much, but she could make out the last bit of what she was yelling at her. Who was it that she hurt? She didn't really know many people outside of Konoha, and she certainly didn't know anyone from the sound village. There was only one person that she could remember hurting that wasn't in Konoha, and he…wait, she didn't know where he was, could it be that this girl knew where he was, what had happened to him.

"Wait, this person you said that I hurt, do you know where he is, do you know anything about Nar…" Her sentence was never completed as a swift chop to back of her neck knocked her out. She had forgotten to pay attention to a certain bandaged ninja that he snuck up behind her.

"I'm sorry about this Sakura-chan" Naruto whispered once he was sure that she could no longer hear him, "But I can't let you find out, not right now." Naruto lowered his head down, knowing that things were only going to get worse, for his teammates were still ordered to kill Sasuke. With his head lowered, he never noticed the flying kick directed at his head until it was too late. He was sent flying back until he crashed into a tree.

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!" Naruto looked up to see the boy with the large eyebrows and green jumpsuit.

'Dammit, how many distractions are we going to have.' Zaku thought to himself

'…eyebrows.' Thought Kin.

"How could you all do that to the lovely Sakura-chan, I will stop you in order to protect her, prepare to face the wrath of the beautiful green beast of Konoha!" The boy yelled enthusiastically.

"Yeah, whatever, just take her and go. Our job is only to kill the Uchiha anyway." Zaku answered with a snort.

"I can not let you do that either, I will not abandon a fellow leaf shinobi, so I shall stop you all right now."

With that, the boy rushed forward and delivered a blow to Zaku's stomach, causing him to double over in pain. He then turned his attention to Naruto.

"You, you are the one who hurt Sakura-san, and for that, I, Rock Lee, shall now hurt you." The boy now rushed at Naruto, readying himself for another strike.

Naruto saw the blow coming and fell back into his fighting stance as Kyo, who had been hiding in the shadows up to this point, began to form a barrier in front of Naruto to stop the initial blow. However, the boy slid to the side of the barrier, almost to quickly to see as he came around the barrier wall and dealt a blow to Naruto's chest, knocking him back a bit. Lee attempted to sweep Naruto's legs out from under him, but this was avoided by Naruto, who jumped over his leg and lashed out with a swift kick to his head.

Lee staggered for a second at the attack before he regained his composure and began his assault again. He lashed out with a right handed punch, but Naruto turned so that his side faced Lee and at the last possible second, Naruto simply leaned back just enough to avoid the punch, leaving a small opening in Lee's defense. As Lee's arm was outstretched just above Naruto's chest, Naruto let his weight fall back as he brought his knee up to hit Lee square in the gut. Before Naruto fell on the ground from letting his weight fall back, he brought his hands up and propelled himself off of the ground and back flipped back into his stance.

Lee was surprised. He had spent a great deal of time studying taijutsu, but this was a form that he had never seen or heard of. It seemed that this guy was trying to bend around his attacks to leave an opening in his guard through which he could attack. This boy was truly skilled. There was no other choice, he would have to use that move, even though Gai-sensei told him not to use it. He began his charge at this bandaged boy again, this time he made no motion to attack until the last minute, so that his strike could not be predicted and bent around. At the latest possible moment, he dropped down and sent a kick upwards into Naruto's jaw, sending him up into the air. Lee then appeared behind him as he unwrapped his bandages and they began to wrap around Naruto. Naruto remembered seeing him use this move on Sasuke, and he began to worry about what he was going to do. By this point, all but his head were wrapped in bandages as Lee grabbed him as they both began to plummet downward headfirst, spinning as they approached the ground. Naruto saw everything around him and he caught a glimpse of Zaku. It appeared that he was beginning to get up. This gave Naruto an idea, it was going to hurt, but he didn't really have many other options. As he approached the ground, he yelled out to Kyo.

"Kyo, make a shadow hole on the ground."

Kyo complied as the shadows on the ground began to pool into one large hole. Lee had intended to push off from the boy when he felt the beginning of an impact between his opponent and the ground, but the impact that he expected never came as they began to sink into the hole of shadows. Everything was dark for a moment before he saw light approaching once again. The two of them shot back up out of the hole that they had fallen into and as they neared the max height from the force with which they were shot out, their spinning began to slow down. Naruto was facing towards Zaku with Lee still holding on behind him.

"Zaku, use your Zankuuha now!" Naruto yelled out towards his teammate. Zaku wasn't to sure about this, but he figured that Naruto knew what he was doing, so he brought his hands up into the air as he yelled "Zankuuha!"

The air blast slammed into Naruto who was then sent flying back very quickly. Lee had no time to react and release his hold as the two of them soon smashed into a tree. Since Lee was behind Naruto, he had been sandwiched between the force from hitting the tree, and the force of being hit by Naruto. The attack had hurt Naruto, but the effect was much worse on Lee.

The two of them fell back down towards the ground. Kin ran over to cut away all of the bandages that Naruto was wrapped in while Lee struggled to get to his feet. He stumbled over towards Sakura, who was just beginning to regain consciousness. She looked up at him with a confused expression, wondering what he was doing here.

"I am sorry Sakura-san, it looks like I failed to protect you." Lee told her before he fell down, unable to remain conscious.

Sakura looked over at her three attackers to try and gauge what all had happened. It looked as though Lee had not managed to cause any lasting damage to any of them. The bandaged boy seemed a bit worse for the wear, but still able to fight. She felt bad that Lee had done all of this to protect her. She would be sure to thank him for all of this once he regained consciousness, that is, if they are all still alive. Sakura felt that there was some question that she meant to ask these three, but she could not remember what it was. That was not important right now, she needed to fight these three, to try and protect Sasuke.

She stood up and fell into her fighting stance again, prepared to fight to protect Sasuke from these sound ninja. She knew that if the three of them managed to beat Lee while sustaining no lasting damage, she didn't stand much of a chance of beating the three of them. She readied herself for their attack when she suddenly saw a large ball rolling towards the three sound genin. The three of them jumped back to avoid the large ball when they could suddenly no longer move freely.

"Kagemane…successful." Came a lazy voice from behind them.

Sakura looked to see that Shikamaru was behind them and was apparently keeping them from moving. She could only assume that the large rolling ball was Chouji, but where was Ino?

"The three of you art trapped in my kagemane jutsu, you are no longer able to move on your own." Shikamaru told them from behind. He was surprised however, when he heard one of the chuckling. He looked over and noticed that it was the one with the bandages that seemed to be laughing.

"Like you are going to stop me with a technique like this." Naruto said as he began to melt away into the shadows. He was really glad that he had learned how to do this without hand seals. He could have used Kyo to get him out, but he preferred to hide Kyo so that he could hold an element of surprise in any situation.

Shikamaru stared wide eyed as the enemy began to escape his kagemane so easily. This was the one who was using all of those shadow techniques back at the first part of the exam. But he thought that his family were the only ones who could use shadow techniques. How was this guy able to use them, and without hand seals no less. He didn't know where the boy was now and he was a bit worried because he couldn't fight the boy and hold his teammates at the same time. Ino and Chouji had better make a move soon or else he would be in serious trouble. He then looked over and saw Ino's body slump over in the bushes, then he heard the girl from the sound team speak up.

"Alright Shikamaru, I've got control over her now, release the kagemane." Ino told Shikamaru from Kin's body.

Shikamaru complied and released the jutsu on her when she began to speak again.

"Hey you, guy with the bandages, you better come on out and stop this attack, or else I'll kill your teammate here." She yelled out into the forest as she brought a kunai up to her throat. Both she and Shikamaru looked around to try and see if the bandaged guy was going to show himself when suddenly Shikamaru felt a kunai press against his throat. Behind him was Naruto, who had one hand holding a kunai to Shikamaru's throat and the other holding onto his chain whip, which was wrapped around Chouji's neck. Apparently he had chosen to first deal with Chouji before he showed himself to the two of them.

"You get out of her body unless you want to lose both of your teammates." Naruto answered in a calm and collected tone.

Ino was a bit panicked at this point. Her having control of the girl was their main bargaining chip, but now that was gone. She knew that she couldn't really kill the girl without killing herself, and if she waited too long to respond, she might end up losing both of her teammates, and it wouldn't be long after that before they killed her, Sakura and Sasuke. She did the only thing she could do and released the jutsu, returning to her own body. Naruto then removed the kunai from Shikamaru's neck, only to deliver a swift chop to his neck, rendering him unconscious.

With Shikamaru unconscious, his hold on Kin and Zaku was broken, so Zaku quickly turned towards Chouji and launched a zankuuha blast at him while Naruto released the chain whip from around his neck. The blast sent Chouji into a nearby tree, rendering him unconscious as well.

Meanwhile, Ino and Sakura were busy fending off an angry Kin. She still had a lot of anger to work off from earlier when her attack on Sakura was interrupted. Both Ino and Sakura were using kunai to try to block the assault of Kin's scythe as blow after blow was thrown at the two girls. Kin then began to throw some senbon needles at the two girls which they easily dodged. They never noticed the strings and bells attached to the needles. Their vision was soon filled with images of multiple copies of Kin, and neither of them knew which one was the real thing. The real Kin had, unnoticed by Sakura and Ino, jumped back and began to form some hand seals. She suddenly disappeared into the ground, only to pop out of the ground behind the two girls, grabbing each of them by their hair.

"You stupid fan girl types and your vanity, you probably care more about your hair then you do about becoming strong kunoichi. Now look where your vanity has gotten you, your both trapped by your precious hair." Kin said to them, making sure that she was careful with her words this time.

Sakura and Ino were getting rather angry with this girl; who was she to judge them like that, she didn't even know them. Besides, she had long hair too, where did she get off criticizing them. They both took the kunai in their hand and sliced off a portion of their long hair in order to escape her hold on their hair. They began to ready themselves for battle again when they were both suddenly hit by a zankuuha blast. The two of them struggled to their feet, knowing that they had no other choice then to fight. Suddenly, they felt a very strong power behind them. They turned around and found Sasuke, covered in strange dark purple markings and emitting a very ominous chakra. Sasuke looked at the two of them as he began to speak.

"Sakura, who did this to you?" (yep, that's obviously a sign of love right there…but this is not rant time, so I digress.)

Sasuke caught her eyes glancing over towards Kin and he began to charge towards her. He threw a punch at her, only it wasn't her that it hit. Naruto had made his way over and took the blow for her. The punch hurt a fair amount, but Sasuke was by no means a taijutsu expert, so it wasn't anything that would stop Naruto right then. Sasuke didn't seem very happy to have anybody get in the way of his attack, so he turned his attention towards Naruto as he began to form some hand seals. Naruto recognized those hand seals as the hand seals for his grand fireball attack and he quickly brought up a wall of shadows to block the attack. The fireball slammed into the wall, but was unable to get past it, and the attack soon dissipated.

Zaku decided that this was an opening to attack and so he raised his arm and sent a zankuuha blast at Sasuke. Sasuke was knocked back a bit, but not enough to deter him from his rage. He suddenly appeared behind Zaku as he grabbed his arms, pulling them back at an unnatural angle as Zaku yelled in pain.

"Your rather proud of these arms of yours, aren't you. I guess that I will just have to break them, won't I." Sasuke said with a smirk.

He was soon forced to release his grip, however, when a fist of shadows popped out of the ground and hit him in the jaw. Sasuke was beginning to get annoyed that his fun kept getting interrupted by this bandaged guy. He lashed out with a punch towards Naruto, only to have it caught. Naruto lifted his head up and looked Sasuke in the eye.

Sasuke suddenly recoiled at the sight of the visible eye. Sakura was able to see the eye also and was frozen in shock at the sight. She hadn't paid attention before, but now that she saw them, those eyes were familiar to her. Those eyes that haunted her dreams ever since their owner had left. The two of them were so caught off guard at the sight of his eye that they hadn't noticed the two other sound ninja disappearing into the shadows with the help of Kyo. Naruto soon let go of Sasuke's fist and began to disappear into the shadows himself.

With the danger gone, Sasuke's anger was settling and he was beginning to regain control of himself, particularly after the shock of having seen that eye. The effects of the curse seal soon receded from him and he was soon back to normal. Both Sasuke and Sakura were fairly quiet that night. Those who had helped them had all regained consciousness and soon team 10 had left so that they could actually finish the exam. Lee's team had also come to pick up Lee and take him with them. Sasuke and Sakura left sitting around a small campfire along with their unconscious teammate. One thought was going through the minds of the two of them.

'His eyes, they were just like Naruto's.'

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A/N: And that is the end of this chapter. For the record for those of you reading, Sasuke and Sakura don't know that it is Naruto, they are just shocked by the similarity they see in the eye. Call it nostalgia if you will. Point is, still no one know who he is, and no questions about anyone recognizing him, because I am not giving away the plot, tough luck. Anyway, a few reviews and other questions to respond to.

To the unregistered reviewer who said that Naruto wielding a chain whip was kind of thuggish, realize that a chain whip and a chain are somewhat different. Blades and weights are attached to regular chains. A chain whip is not a regular chain, if you need to see a picture, go to weaponmasters(dot)com and look under the whips section.

To the unregistered reviewer who was complaining that I should blame the fanboys just as much as the fangirls, I say this. I insult the fangirls because…its fun, and because I can. I know that they are not to blame for everything, but these are only rants, not some kind of formal presentation. There will be bias and things of the like. Fangirls are just a fun and easy target, so I stick with that.

Isisoftheunderground: When I say that I have a review goal, that does not mean that I will not continue if I don't reach that amount. The goals are simply that, goals. I am actually rather against people who refuse to continue unless they receive a certain number of reviews, because if you are going to write a story, then whether it is popular or not, then you better try as hard as you can to finish it.

Anyway, on to the rant.

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The rant of the day will be the crossover fics.

Yes, now we step into territory that involves more of my readers, because I look through the profiles of my reviewers and see their favorite stories (so I know when you haven't put me on your favorite story list, so get to it) and see that some like crossovers, and many like Harry Potter. I happen to like neither, and in the interest of being unbiased, I'll now rant against these too.

Now this type of fic can't be blamed solely on the fangirls, as any random idiot can think that a crossover is a good idea. They think "Hey, you know what would be original, I should take these two shows/books/games that I like and just combine them into one story, that would be cool and original." Well I hate to break it to you, but it is not. One, because people always choose the same shows/books to combine with it (Inuyasha, Harry Potter, and now an increasing number of Full Metal Alchemist.) and Two, it is not cool, it is just combining two stories, there is nothing original about it, you are just putting one shows cast in another shows story where they don't even fit right.

First off, we have the Harry Potter crossovers. Now personally, I just don't like Harry Potter, and so I don't want to spend my time reading a crossover fic with Naruto, which I do like. Honestly, why would people combine Harry Potter characters with Naruto characters. Harry Potter characters are crappy wizards who can probably make a small lightning bolt if and only if they have their magic wand. Naruto characters can make giant dragons out of fire, in addition to various other ninja skills, all with the use of their bare hands. Seriously, it is no contest, putting the two together is just stupid.

Secondly, we have the Inuyasha crossovers. These idiots tend to think "Wait a second…Inuyasha is a half-demon…Naruto has a fox demon sealed inside of him…Shippo is a fox… HOLY HELL, THEIR THE EXACT SAME!" The fact of the matter is that they are rather different, one focusing on the battles between people using a ninja style, the other focusing on fights between demons in a more samurai like environment. The styles just don't mesh, that is how it goes.

The fact of the matter is, I am just not a supporter of crossovers because frequently it is someone just combining two stories thinking that makes it an original story when it is not. Each story should be left on its own, not involved with others that are completely different.

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And that's it for today, until the next chapter.