A/N: Hello everyone! Was I missed? To all my female readers, happy late Valentine 's Day. Can I get a review as a gift? My gift to you is this new chapter. Please enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto……sadly

CHAPTER 7

Power and Vulnerability

The familiars that leapt towards them were not inbahts, yet they still had the same strange, rigid movements about them. Some appeared to be the blue amoebas that Shikamaru's group had seen in the ruins. There were also bright yellow monkeys that crackled with electricity. Salamanders crawled from the woods breathing fire on most everything they saw.

The eight ninja leapt into battle, weapons swung and shot with such speed that they may not have moved at all. Hinata stood back and fired her bow, the arrows splitting and hitting individual targets that were unlucky enough to be near Naruto. Naruto himself stayed back a bit farther than most of the others and acted as a wall to prevent any familiars from reaching Hinata.

This isn't good said Kasai.

"What isn't?" said Sakura.

These enemies have elements. We forgot to tell you all that you won't do well against your own element. Any other element you will do normal or maybe better damage to but your own element is all but invincible.

Sakura nodded and disengaged the salamander she was fighting in order to attack the amoebas, while Neji switched from amoebas to salamanders. Naruto lashed out at a lightning monkey with which he had been engaged with for a while and smirked with satisfaction as it vanished in a puff of yellow smoke. At this point he glanced back at Hinata only to find her swamped with enemies due to his neglectfulness of the other familiars. He rushed in and grabbed Hinata around the waist and leapt into the trees around the campsite, while Hinata, blushing from how Naruto grabbed her, kept firing with deadly accuracy at familiars that attacked her friends.

Naruto followed suit and wished away his weapon and created some of his lightning needles. He threw them and watched as salamanders and amoebas fell before his power. He was struck by a stray memory. It was one of a masked ninja with the symbol of the Kirikagure (Village of the Mist). Haku… Would you look at me now? Fighting like you did by flying through the air, throwing needles and protecting something important to me.

Naruto was woken from his reverie as a gasp was heard from Temari. Glancing down he saw Temari clutching her stomach and a lightning monkey drawing in to finish her off. As he was about to yell to Hinata to take it down, Shikamaru appeared from the monkey's shadow and with a snarl struck down the wretched familiar. He then proceeded to attack any enemy in a five foot radius, his eye wide and full of rage. The familiars backed off and fled to fight the less frightening opponents. Sakura rushed over and began her medical jutsu on Temari; however the once green light of healing chakra became gentle warm flames that healed twice as fast. Sasuke had moved over to help Shikamaru protect the two. Sasuke went through various hand signs and then held his hand to his mouth and exhaled. A frigid wind blew from his mouth freezing, slowing or flat out destroying the familiars in his way.

With the path that Sasuke cut through the enemies with his jutsu, three figures were visible through the trees. One was male and the other two appeared to be female. "You!" Shikamaru yelled at them and threw himself towards them. The three saw him rushing towards them and they turned tail and fled, leaving their summoned familiars to do battle. Tenten rushed after him since she was close and Hinata leapt from Naruto's grasp and dashed after the duo that was dashing after the trio.

Shikamaru was relentless in his pursuit. The familiar users were faster than he was and he struggled to even keep sight of them. He heard labored breath somewhere behind him and saw Tenten run up next to him.

"Baka! *huff puff* Don't run off on your own like that! There is no way you can take all three of them!" she yelled at him. Shikamaru just stared straight ahead. Tenten sighed. "Look," she said, "think of a plan like you always do and we'll –"

"I already have one," Shikamaru cut in with a stern voice.

"Well? What is it?"

"I take the lightning one and you take the fire and water ones."

Tenten just laughed and shook her head. "Works for me then!"

Shikamaru grabbed onto Tenten's shoulder and cried, "Agito!" Suddenly, the two were emerging from a shadow directly in front of the familiar summoners. The three were taken aback and stopped suddenly, their hoods being thrown off. Indeed one was male. His brown hair was cut short and spiky, almost like Naruto's. His eyes were a bright gold and the air around him seemed to crackle with power. One of the other two was a female, also as expected. Her hair tumbled from her hood as it flew off, falling down to waist length. Her eyes seemed as clear and blue as the ocean and, when they settled upon the two, they became full of malice as her face twisted into a mask of hatred.

The final summoner was not female. It wasn't even human. Once long ago, it might have had a human resemblance but, no longer. It had only one eye which sat upon the left side of its forehead. The eye was jet black aside from a red ring, signifying the iris. The rest of its face was constituted of a large circular hole with teeth all along the circumference, giving the appearance of an insect of some type. Its skin was a dark green, almost black in the lighting that the forest provided at nighttime. It opened its mouth and let out a vicious screech that chilled the marrow in the two ninja's bones.

The male stepped forward, arms wide open. "It appears that we've been cut off," he said with a sarcastic grin upon his face. That grin quickly turned into a snarl as he ripped off his cloak to reveal armor underneath it. "How I hate being interrupted!"

He swung his arms in the air and electricity flew from them, but did not vanish. The bolts wound themselves into whips which the male brandished saying, "Come ninja! Let me fry your bones!"

Shikamaru leapt up at the man and swung his scythe ruthlessly. He swung, slashed and parried every blow from the man. His face tore into a snarl as he switched the positions of his hands and reversed his swing, cutting into the man's chest plate.

In the meantime, Tenten had engaged the other two summoners. So far they had proven a handful. She changed her weapon into a pair of chakram (basically circular rims with sharp edges) and she struck and threw them at her opponents, only to catch them when they returned and send them back. The female summoner had torn her garments, revealing similar, lighter armor to the male summoner.

The creature was fast. No, fast is an understatement, Tenten thought.

Use the earth Tenten! Trap its feet and strike at that moment! Daichi advised. Tenten focused on the chakra from her new earth affinity at the ground. She seemed at one with it. The soil seemed… alive somehow. The rocks yelled at her to keep fighting, it even seemed that the worm fifty feet to her right, burrowing through the soil was telling her that if she didn't beat them before it arrived, then she would be in for it.

Daichi, Tenten said as she chucked her chakram at the creature again, did a worm just threaten me?

I suppose so. Creatures are very in tune with the earth seeing as how they spend most of their lives on it. You should be able to glean information from them. But now is not the time. Duck!

Tenten reacted just in time as the creature extended a dark green claw from inside its cloak and stabbed towards her. Had Daichi not spoken up, Tenten would have been impaled upon a tree.

Tenten took this chance to raise the earth under its feet and trap it there, then changing her chakram into a blade, she swung it at the creature's neck with deadly accuracy.

It bounced off with a ching.

Tenten stood shocked as the creature leapt out of its earthly bindings and turned to Tenten, eye full of hatred. The female summoner had snuck up behind her and had drawn her weapon, a simple, yet ornate dagger, and was poised to stab it into Tenten's neck.

The earth screamed and Tenten came to her senses in time to turn and parry the deadly edge of the dagger. She held her sword so as to block it and as the dagger point contacted the sword, Tenten spun her sword, using the dagger as a pivot point and cut tight through the woman's abdomen.

The women fell back, clutching her stomach and then she glared at Tenten and vanished in the same way Ferose had. Sitting there stunned, Tenten remembered the creature. She turned back to where it had been only to not see it. She assumed it had vanished like the woman.

It didn't

The creature leapt from a nearby tree landing on Tenten. It let out its screech again. At such a close range, Tenten could bear the noise and she blacked out. The creature raised its exposed claw and thrust downward at Tenten's exposed head.

Five white arrows struck into the creature's claw. It roared and howled with pain, glaring at the newcomer.

"Leave Tenten-chan alone!" Hinata yelled at it.

***

Shikamaru fell to his knees. His body was nearly numb from the current that ran through his scythe and slowly made its way back to him. He panted an struggled to his feet, holding tight to his right shoulder.

"It appears that the little interruption has had enough!" the man shrieked with pleasure. His tongue hung from his mouth, giving him a deranged look. "Well then! Let's put our little interruption to rest!" he yelled as he swung his whips at Shikamaru's neck.

A/N: Well how was that? I love getting your reviews so please, please, please! I want reviews!!!!!!!! Thank you for reading my chapters and liking my story I didn't think it would ever keep going this well ill be sure to keep working 