Author's notes: Bit of a short chapter, this time. And not too exciting, but it's a lead-up to the following chapter, which may well be the final chapter of this fanfiction.
Stay tuned!

Disclaimer: If you think I own Naruto you are, pardon my English, a silly-sod.

The Kumogakure no Sato shinobi, representing the Raikage, sat formally in front of the Throne of Lightning and bowed until his forehead protector made contact with the floor. The new Lord of Thunder watched the display impassively, trying to guess how productive this conversation was likely to be. All it really came down to was a formality, but the man might be able to provide more information than he had previously thought.

'I bring sincerest greeting from the Raikage,' the man began, straightening back into a sitting position and rattling off the well-rehearsed line. The Lord of Thunder accepted the greetings with a gracious nod of his head, and the representative continued.

'The Raikage wishes to express his dismay and regrets over the recent death of Lord Mabou. He also wishes to assure you that the circumstances surrounding his death were only made possible by the lax security policies of the Fifth Raikage. The Sixth Raikage will allow no such breach of security to happen again.'

'I see.' The Lord of Thunder let the words hang for a moment, but the Kumogakure representative remained perfectly still, waiting for a formal response.

'Let me also assure the Sixth Raikage that I had no knowledge of the attack launched against his village. Upon learning of the actions taken by my predecessor, Lord Mabou, I immediately cut orders to the Kaminari Imperial Army's Second Regiment in order to ascertain who it was that led the assault.

'Five officers were identified as being hand-picked by Lord Mabou specifically for the attack. I am told that they were brave men who would not refuse the orders given to them, but also knew their orders were heinous. It seems that all five men, after completing their attack on Kumogakure no Sato, all committed Seppuku to atone for their crimes.

'I hope that will lay any concerns the Raikage may have about the Throne of Thunder's stance towards his village to rest.'

'Thank you, My Lord,' the representative bowed his head again. 'I believe that will allow the Raigake to find some solace.'

Framing Mabou had been one of the Lord of Thunder's better ideas, he thought. And it has been a simple matter to have Tsukasa intercept a few official communiques and forge the official seal. As for the Fifth Raikage, the man sitting before him couldn't possibly know if Hourai's coup d'etat had succeeded or not yet (just as the Lord of Thunder had no idea if the army captains he had mentioned were even dead yet or not. But arrangements had been made). What the Lord of Thunder had really wanted to know was, should Hourai fail and the Fifth Raikage survived, would this "representative" be executed as a traitor along with Hourai? Asking that during an official meeting would be unseemly, however. And the man hadn't seen any need to bring the subject up on his own.

The Lord of Thunder's thoughts, and official meeting, were interrupted by a commotion at the front of the hall. There had been a few people standing around there for some time, hoping to lick enough boots to gain themselves more political clout, but it seemed that a new arrival had just burst in. He seemed to be a tad battered, and a pair of guards were trying to shoo the man out before he had a chance to bleed on anything expensive.

The apparition seemed to take exception to this. A lazy kick sent one of the heavily armoured men toppling backwards with comical slowness, and the other was thrown aside with easy contempt. Now free from the temporary delay, the man started running up the long stairs towards the throne. Neither the Lord of Thunder, the other guards around the room, or the representative from Kumogakure attempted to stop him. When he finally reached the throne, he threw himself to the floor next to the Kumogakure shinobi in a tumble of bloody robes and bowed respectfully to the Lord of Thunder, his forehead pressed hard to the polished wood.

'My Lord!'

'...You look terrible,' the Lord of Thunder replied dryly, amusedly watching the Kumogakure representative discreetly shuffle away from the bloody mess he now found himself next to.

'Yes my lord!' the frantic man conceded before ploughing on. 'I have terrible news! Kimimaro has betrayed you!' This news did draw a shocked reaction from the Lord of Thunder.

'What?!' he demanded in a tone of total disbelief, standing suddenly and descending the stairs to stand in front of the man.

Completely hidden by the overly-long sleeves he habitually wore, a wide, horrible grin spread across Tsukasa's face.

The radio spat another hiss of static into Naruto's ear. 'AaaaaAAH! Why won't this thing work!'

Kimimaro understood his frustration, but he didn't think yelling at the device and waving it around would make it work any better. That being said, he wasn't too familiar with radios, so he could well have been wrong about that.

The radio stuttered some more static, a half-coherent word, then more static. 'DAAAAAAHH!'

Kimimaro also had other things to worry about. Like what direction they were running. They couldn't really do anything other than go back towards the place they had all split up to chase Daruma, and hope they managed to get in touch with one of the others.

Theoretically, the radio should have made that easier, but Naruto was having little luck reaching anyone else. Naruto growled at it and tapped at it furiously.

But Kimimaro was also thinking about the last encounter with Tsukasa, and the bad taste it left in his mouth.

'If you kill me, I've left instructions for Lord Raitengeki to be delivered a special letter. One that informs him that I've stumbled upon your plan to try and stop him him from claiming the Throne. And that all your friends in that filthy little peasant village are involved as well!'

Damn him. He'd probably tell Raitengeki a variation of that anyway- one that didn't include the town in the woods near his home, at least. Still, if the lives of all those people that had supported Kimimaro's lonely life could be saved, merely at the cost of letting Tsukasa stay alive, it was a price he was willing to pay.

'WHAAT? Shikamaru? Oi! Can you hear me?' Naruto was shouting into his audio pickup excitedly now. He must have gotten some kind of response. Naruto waited a few more seconds, until the radio put out another wave of static, before he started yelling again. In fact, he probably would have ripped the damn thing off and stomped on it if not for Shikamaru's sudden appearance.

He was heading in the opposite direction they were, and wore a deeply irritated expression. He was also dripping wet, which might have explained his irritation. When he saw Naruto and Kimimaro he immediately changed direction and waved for them to follow him. Kimimaro thought the direction might have been east.

'Naruto,' Shikamaru shouted over his shoulder before they quite managed to catch up to him. 'My radio's out-of-action, lend me yours.

'Huh? Uh, alright...' Naruto fumbled with the compact radio's clips for a moment before tossing it accurately to Shikamaru, who caught it deftly.

'Thanks, it got wet while I was dealing with some of Daruma's clones. I was trying to raise you the whole way here, but I couldn't tell if you got anything.' That certainly explained all the static and fragmentary words Naruto had been receiving.

'Anyway, it looks like Ino was the one who ended up chasing the real Daruma. Sakura and Chouji have gone on ahead. If we hurry, we might be able to catch them.'

Daruma spat irritably while he weighed his odds. From where he stood (knelt), they appeared to be decidedly not in his favour.

After tricking the blonde kunoichi into providing him with a weapon, she had turned the tables on him. Rather than just pelting him with more kunai (which is what he was hoping she would do), she had opted to use a little ninjutsu instead. And here "little" was a technical term.

Bunshin no Jutsu was the adolescent little brother of Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu, the clones created were insubstantial- literally illusions and nothing more. It did take a significantly lesser ammount of chakra to perform, however, so he was now staring down seven identical copies of the girl. Identical down to the minor injuries, ruffled hair, and apparently-injured arm (that was something to keep an eye out for, at least).

It soon became apparent what she wanted to do; surround him. This was, to say the least, the opposite of what Daruma wanted. Unfortunately, he had no practical way of stopping her, so he needed to focus on trying to counter whatever attack came his way. His only concern was that, while six of the clones were surrounding him, one of the was hanging back with a kunai at the ready. It was such a transparent decoy she was practically telling him that it was a clone. Still, it was so obvious that she might have been trying to pull a double-bluff on him... This was going to be tricky.

His first warning that trouble was about to start was a tiny, almost completely unnoticeable movement the clone furthest away. A minor change in posture that he barely noticed, but rang warning bells in the back of his mind. He couldn't help but flick his eyes in its direction briefly, and that was when the real attack started.

Even while distracted he noticed two clones in front of and on either side of him jump forward to attack. But what he also noticed was the clone directly to his left raise its arms to painfully form an indistinct shape between its hands. He didn't know what that was, but he was willing to bet it had something to do with the mind-control techniques the woman used. Which was bad.

He decided it would be in his best interest to try and avoid that if he could, and counter-attack if at all possible. Lifting his semi-lamed leg, he rolled completely through one of the insubstantial clones and swung his kunai at the one that had made the shape with its hands. When it too disappeared he knew he had made a serious error. With something like horror he swivelled his head around, which gave him a fantastic view of a foot swinging in to fill his vision.

Two seconds later, he knew his nose was broken.