I'm baaaack! well, here is the next chapter. The pole thingie is still open, so PLEASE VOTE! In case you forget, the list is below...

The Jounin teachers quickly put themselves between their students and where the kunai had come from, weapons out. "Sakura, is Kyiara okay?" Kakashi asked tersely without turning.

Sakura was kneeling down next to Kyiara, hands cupped around the kunai since she hadn't been able to pull it out either, chakra glowing under her hands. "I can't heal her! There must be something on the blade to stop the wound from healing." Sakura looked worriedly up at her sensei. "If she losses any more blood she'll die, Kakashi-sensei! We have to get her to the hospital right away!"

"That's right, little girl. She will die. And it's about time, too."

Three Sound ninjas, two male and one female appeared a few yards in front of the jounin. The one who had spoken smiled. "With thought we had finished her off last week at the river. But apparently she was found by one of Konoha's mission groups and brought back to her home village. And I see she was welcomed back with open arms, despite what she is now."

"What do you mean by that?" Kurenai demanded.

The nin chuckled. "You mean you don't know? She has a curse seal and powers she shouldn't have. Isn't that plain enough for idiots like you to understand? Or does the Hokage of Konoha let shinobi who have been gone for many years back without asking any questions?"

If only they knew what was done to her before they realized who she was, Shikamaru thought as watched the Sound nins uneasily. There was something about these three that seemed odd… then he saw it. The one who was doing all the talking had Sharingan eyes, just like Kyiara did. At the same moment, he heard Kurenai gasp; she had seen it too, as had Asuma and Kakashi.

"Like my eyes, do you? She has them too, in case you didn't know that. But to us it doesn't matter what powers Orochimaru-sama gave her; we found her now and are going to kill her, just as we were ordered to, and there is nothing anyone can do for her."

"The poison on the kunai was created by Orochimaru-sama himself, using the blood samples he had from her to create a poison that would be too strong for her regenerative abilities as well as Tsunade's strong healing powers to overcome." the female nin told them. "Anyone with weaker powers than Tsunade is wasting their time trying to save her miserable life, just like Tsunade would be."

"Why does Orochimaru want her dead so bad?"

"Because she refused to become one of his subjects, that's why! He could care less about the curse seal belonging to someone who hates him, look at his former student, who lives in this village!" the other male nin said. "Even after giving her some many powers, she still refused to become one of his Sound nins. Heck, she refused even though she has more gifts than any other human can take and still be alive; she should be thankful to him for what he did to her! Even he could not handle having that many different kekkai genkai! It's her regenerative abilities that allowed Orochimaru do give her all those gifts, and nothing else. Sadly, regenerative kekkai genkai is the only chakra power that cannot be grafted to someone else's chakra; otherwise she would've been dead as soon as Orochimaru took that from her!"

Behind their teachers and Shikamaru, the younger genin were clustered around Kyiara and Sakura. Team Gai stood on guard, watching for more Sound nins. Slowly, Kyiara pushed herself into a sitting position. "You've done what the snake bastard wanted you to do, so leave the others alone!" she stopped, choking as she coughed up blood. Breathing heavily, she continued, "You were sent to kill me, not them, and you know I won't live much longer, so just go back to your master!"

The Sound nins laughed at her. "Why would we want to leave them alone, Kyiara-san? It would be so much fun to try Orochimaru's gifts to us out on them."

The female ninja had been about to speak when she cocked her head, as if listening to something. Her companions eyed her, as if waiting for her to say something. Finally she sighed. "We're wanted back at the base. Orochimaru-sama said to let these worms live for now." She smirked at Kyiara. "Orochimaru-sama sends his love, Kyiara!"

As suddenly as they had appeared, the Sound nins vanished.

With a sigh or relief Kyiara collapsed, Sakura and Kiba catching her before she hit the ground. Sakura hurriedly checked her vital signs…and found none.

Without looking up Sakura whispered, "She… she's dead."

Tsunade rubbed her temples, wondering what had ever made her accept the title and position of Hokage. "Why do I have to go through these papers right now?" she asked Shizune. "I should be organizing the advance fighting group and figuring out who, if anyone, should go with Naruto and Kyiara."

Shizune gave the Hokage a severe look. "You're almost done, Tsunade-sama. If you keep at it, you can have everything done in two hours. Then you can work on planning the mission for going after Orochimaru and Uchiha Sasuke."

Tsunade slammed her fists down on the desk, making it groan dangerously. A thin crack appeared on the top. "Another two hours?" she demanded. "You call that almost done, Shizune? I have better things to do than read reports on the increase or decrease of the rice crops!"

Shizune clasped her hands together behind her back. "I'm sorry, Tsunade-sama, but these things do need to be done. It's all part of being Hokage." She smiled slightly. "Set a good example for Naruto, since he's made it his goal to become Hokage after you."

Tsunade had to smile at the thought of the young and boisterous genin. Naruto would have less patience than she did for the amount of paperwork that went with this job. She could see him now, sitting at this very desk, the entire room filled from floor to ceiling with papers and reports he had to read and him throwing a fit, shouting that he would never be able to read all those reports.

Getting up and ignoring the disapproving look Shizune gave her retrieved a cup of sake. Sighing, she sat down and bent over the papers again, but someone knocked at the door.

"Come in," Tsunade said, sighing heavily. She just wanted to get done.

A two person ANBU team entered the room and bowed hastily. "Tsunade-sama, there's a situation out in one of the practice fields..."

"Well, what did you think, Kakashi-sensei?"

An alive and unwounded Kyiara stood behind them arms crossed. Everyone present (except for Kiba, Hinata and Shino, who had been informed of what her second illusion would be if asked to demonstrate for someone) looked from her to the body between Sakura and Kiba, eyes wide.

"That was all just an illusion?" Asuma demanded. "You getting wounded, the Sound nins, all of it?"

Kyiara nodded as the illusion body vanished.

"But how is that possible?" Sakura got to her feet. "My chakra told me that the person I was trying to heal was real, that the wound and blood was real, and that the poison was real. How did you manage to make it all so real?"

"Sakura-san, if people like Kakashi-sensei, Hinata and Neji couldn't see through the illusions with their kekkai genkai, what makes you think that your healing chakra could?" Kyiara replied. "Heck, even I, the person who creates the illusions can't see through them. If I made an 'attack' recording and it was played without my knowing it, I would fight it, not knowing that it was an illusion, let alone one that I had created."

Kakashi nodded thoughtfully. "This might turn out to be very useful."

"What on earth is going on here?"

They all turned to face a very angry Tsunade. Kakashi shrugged. "Kyiara was just giving us an example of her illusion chakra power."

Tsunade frowned. "It was more than that, Kakashi. I saw the ending of it, those three Sound nins and how you all reacted to it. Kyiara was showing all of you that you don't need to use pain and overly dramatic illusions to put fear into someone. She was also showing you that she can best both the Sharingan and Byakugan."

Kyiara blushed slightly at the rebuke. "Sorry, Hokage-sama. He did ask me to give him a demonstration, so I did."

"You didn't need to go that far." Neji muttered.

"Actually, it was sort of good that she did, both times." Gai corrected his student. "She showed us that she can control the actions of different illusionary people and happenings."

Shikamaru a gave a lop-sided grin. "Reminds me of the Sound nin girl I had to fight when we tried to retrieve Sasuke, except she did it with musical instrument and not her voice. I think her name was Tayuya."

"Orochimaru got this form of kekkai genkai from her younger sister, Lyra." Kyiara told him. Then she frowned. "Orochimaru killed Lyra; she was only six." Her eyes darkened with heavy anger. She turned away, headed for Konoha. Hinata, Shino and Kiba followed her. Tsunade dismissed the other genin, and the left, following a different path back to Konoha than Kyiara, Hinata, Kiba and Shino had taken.

After they were out of hearing Tsunade turned to the jounin teachers and Shikamaru. "Tell me what happened. And don't leave anything out."

The three caught up with Kyiara before she reached the gate leading into Konoha. Silently, they followed her to the top of the Hokage monument. Sitting on the very edge, Kyiara looked out over the village, Hinata, Kiba and Shino next to her.

"Kyiara-san, what was so special about that little girl?" Hinata asked after a moment of silence.

"You mean other than the fact that she was only six?" Kyiara asked, her voice lanced with anger. "Lyra was the only friend I ever had while I was imprisoned by Orochimaru. She was the one who brought me food and water once or twice a day when I first got there. At first she ignored me, just like Orochimaru told her to. But her curiosity won out, and she finally asked me my name, and where I was from. One day I told her how I had been captured and what Orochimaru had done to my teammates. For over a week she wouldn't talk to me, unable to believe that Orochimaru would do such a thing; then Orochimaru killed the young man who guarded my cell, just because he sneezed in front of him; Lyra saw the whole thing. After that, she lay plans to free me. I didn't know what she was planning until the day it was to happen; she offered the guard on duty the food and water that she normally gave to me. In the water was a sleeping potion." Kyiara clenched her hands into fists. "She used her kekkai genkai, using her voice to cast illusions, to get us out of there. What she didn't know was that Orochimaru had alarms all over the tunnels to sense when someone was using chakra. He was waiting for us outside with a bunch of his Sound nins. I was taken back to my cell. Later, I could hear her screams as he extracted the kekkai genkai DNA from around her heart."

Kyiara closed her eyes. Ever since that day, she had refused to cry for any reason; crying was showing weakness, and for Lyra's sake, she refused to she weakness outwardly. Lyra had glared with fearless hate at Orochimaru as he activated both Kyiara's curse seal and her own. That had been the last time Kyiara had seen Lyra. In her nightmares, she could still hear Lyra's screams of pain, and there was nothing she could do to help her.

Inside her heart Kyiara wept for the precious people she had lost because of Orochimaru. But the rest of her heart was icy with hate; she would kill the monster who had killed her teammates Oria and Luna, kill him for what he had done to Lyra, for fooling her brother's heart with the promise of seeing his little sister again. An emotionless mask is what she always wore, accidentally letting it slip occasionally before adjusting it back into place.

The four of them leapt to their feet simultaneously at the sound of someing nearing the top of the stairs. It was Tsunade.

"Shino, Kiba and Hinata, you are part of the feint attack which will attack Orochimaru's place from the rear." The three genin bowed. Tsunade turned her gaze onto Kyiara. "As you know, I want you and Naruto to be the ones to actually go after Orochimaru, Sasuke and Kabuto."

Kyiara nodded. "Will there be anyone with us, or just Naruto and I?"

Who do YOU think should be with Naruto and Kyiara? Let me know!

1.) Anko

2.) Shikamaru

3.) Kakashi

4.) Someone else...(say who)

5.) Just Naruto and Kyiara...they can take care of themselves...