All right. The long-awaited chapter three, where you figure out the deal with Tsumeki. I won't hold you up; this is exciting shit. Get reading!

Naruto and Tsumeki couldn't walk next to each other during the caravan escort, and this bummed Naruto out. He understood why it was; they needed to be able to effectively guard the caravan, and that meant the ninjas couldn't stack up on any one part, lest bandits take advantage of the hole in their defenses. Occasionally, as the speed of the wagon Naruto was next to fluctuated, he'd catch a brief glimpse of Tsumeki on the other side. She'd notice him sometimes, and flash him a brilliant, white smile.

Naruto sighed. He knew missions were serious, and he knew what he was getting into when he had asked for the C-rank mission. That didn't change the fact that he really didn't enjoy not being able to talk to his best friend like he always did back home. Perhaps there was nothing to talk about, sure, but even aimless banter with Tsumeki had a great effect on Naruto's mood.

Other than being separated from his best friend, Naruto rather enjoyed the mission. At least for now, the trip was relatively peaceful. Every now and then, the silence would be shattered by a screaming horse, the loud cursing of one of the drivers, or the roaring laughter from several of the caravan's own guards.

Kakashi fell into step with Naruto. "Naruto," he whispered. "Keep an eye on the driver next to you. I was just up talking to Mr. Dogo, and on my way to the back of the line, he was looking shifty."

Naruto nodded. "Kakashi?"

"Hm?"

"What exactly should I be looking for?"

"Anything you would do if you were trying to communicate with bandits." With that, Kakashi turned around, headed for his spot at the back of the caravan.

"Well, that's helpful," Naruto grumbled sarcastically.

He looked at the driver for a moment before turning his gaze upwards. How would I talk to the bandits? Naruto thought. Well, for an attack signal, I'd use some sort of bird call. But wait, no, that's way too obvious. Something less common...Maybe a loud exclamation? Something inconspicuous? His mind went to the swearing that he had been hearing from irritated drivers up and down the caravan. Had that all been coming from one person, Naruto would have brought it up to Kakashi, but it hadn't. He didn't worry about it. The same could be said of a 'hold off' command. If these bandits aren't ninjas, he could be warning them to stay back because there are ninjas here.

Naruto's train of thought was interrupted when the driver next to him shouted, "Ah, damn it, hold up guys, my wheel's about to come off!"

It may have been paranoid, but with that declaration, Naruto dropped into a combat stance and drew a kunai. His forethought paid off. Bandits came streaming out of the forest on either side of the road.

"Bandits, both sides!" yelled a voice from behind Naruto. "Guards, form up and repel!"

Naruto was moving before the caravan's guards even had a chance to process the command. He ran forward and engaged the bandits. He lashed out with his kunai and buried it into the chest of a bandit. It lodged in firmly, and Naruto didn't try to fight it out.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

The bandits were matched up with one Naruto for each of them. The Narutos dodged many swords and axes. They retaliated with crippling punches and kicks, and a few even dished out headbutts.

The real Naruto found himself face-to-face with a well-dressed bandit sporting a fancy katana. The man was tall and had shoulder-length brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. A thin beard stretched from his chin to his sideburns, and his think features were twisted into a wicked smile.

"You're just a whelpling of a ninja, aren't you?" the man taunted. He drew his sword and struck a stance. "We'll just have to show you your place then, hmmm?"

Naruto found himself pressed by the sword, ducking and dodging for his life. He tried to reach for his weapon pouch.

"Tsk tsk tsk. None of that, now." The katana blurred to Naruto's side, and the pouch fell to the ground, cut from the genin's belt.

Blow after blow rained down on Naruto, and he could not dodge all of them. Several cuts, some shallow and some deep, adorned his arms. Naruto tried to press forward, but the sword came up to meet his belly every time he tried, and he could not proceed without impaling himself. Thus, he was driven back against a wagon.

"Quite sad, really. It's a shame how little you ninja are trained, if even a man like me can defeat you. Of course, I am quite the swordsman..."

The man continued to gloat, his sword up against Naruto's neck. There were no shadow clones left; they had been disposed of, and now the caravan's guards engaged the bandits. They were driving the highwaymen back with ease; their hard leather armor was more than a match for the rusty weapons of their adversaries.

The swordsman stopped talking. "Well. At any rate. I'll just spill your blood here and be on my way. This was just a probing attack; we wanted to know how you ninjas measured up. Our next attack should encounter no difficulty. You seem to be rather-"

"NARUTO!" yelled Tsumeki. She came at the swordsman in a blur and shouldered into him. A thin line of red appeared on Naruto's neck as the blade was knocked away.

The swordsman backhanded her and scoffed. "You're naught but a girl." He looked around. "My men appear to be dead. Well, that's that, then. Ta ta." With a parting kick to Tsumeki's gut, he turned and ran.

"Oh, no you don't!" yelled Naruto, running after him. "Nobody hits Tsumeki and just gets away with it!"

The swordsman looked back out of the corner of his eye. "Persistent little bastard, aren't you?" He tossed a small capsule back towards Naruto, and it exploded into an acrid green gas.

The result almost instantaneous. Naruto leaned over and began to retch horribly, and it was all he could do to not soil himself as well. His arms stung as he doubled over and fell into the growing pool of his own vomit and it contaminated the cuts upon them. Eyes bleary with tears, Naruto looked at the fleeing man. He was laughing. Naruto puked again, and then passed out.

"Oi, 'e's wakin' up!"

Naruto's eyes opened. He was in the back of a wagon, in a bed. He could feel the bandages around his arms and disinfectant stinging his wounds. As he became more conscious, Naruto realized that his larger cuts had been partially mended; they didn't hurt in as large of an area as they had. It stood to reason that the smaller cuts had been totally patched up, as his neck felt fine. When he reached up to touch the cut that was on his neck, it wasn't there, affirming his theory.

The wagon rocked to the side a touch, and part of the canvas cover slid up to admit Tsumeki. Kakashi came in through the door in the back. Naruto saw from the passing terrain behind Kakashi that they were still moving, though it was getting dark out. A third man, presumably the one who had yelled out of the wagon, slipped out the door behind Kakashi.

"How're you holding up, Naruto?" asked Kakashi.

"I'll kill him," Naruto croaked. "I'll kill the bastard."

Kakashi's mask twitched, and Naruto knew he was smiling, at least a little. "That's the spirit. When you're ready to get up, get out here. We need you back in your watch spot." Kakashi dropped out of the back of the wagon, pulling the door shut on his way out.

Tsumeki came to the bed and sat on it. "I'm sorry I didn't get there sooner. We had some bandits of our own to take care of on the other side."

"Don't worry about it," Naruto said, his throat still raw. "I'm sorry I let him get away."

She lightly slapped his arm. "Don't. There was nothing you could have done, puking your guts out like that."

"I know." It was silent for a moment. "I'm going to kill him," Naruto repeated.

"I believe you. The world will be better for it." She stood up and held out her hand. "Come on. Let's get back out there."

Naruto sighed. The bed was so comfy, and he was still pretty achy...

"Naruto. Get up. I know you're well enough to do that. You've had worse."

He groaned. "But I don't waaaannaaaaaaaaaa..."

Tsumeki laughed. "Get up, dork." She grabbed his arm, making sure to grab an area that wasn't bandaged, and hauled him up.

As Naruto and Tsumeki stepped out of the wagon, Naruto remembered something the swordsman had said. "I'll be right back; I need to go talk to Kakashi."

"Yeah, sure. I'm just going to go back to my spot."

"All right. Talk to you after we stop."

"Yeah. See you."

Naruto went to the back of the caravan, where Kakashi was reading his book in the last of the day's light. "Hey, Kakashi, I just remembered something."

"Hmmm?"

"The swordsman I was fighting mentioned that they were just trying our defenses. They're going to attack again."

Kakashi looked up from his book. "It'd be too much to ask that he said when, wouldn't it?"

Naruto nodded. "The only reason he told me that much was because he was about to kill me."

The jounin sighed. "All right. I'll let Mr. Dogo know."

"Also, Kakashi? I think the driver next to me is the lookout. He shouted that his wheel was coming off right before the bandits attacked. I think that might have been a code signal or something."

Kakashi shook his head. "No, it's not. I checked directly after the battle. The wheel was loose. Besides, right when he was shouting, there was a bird call from the back of the caravan."

"So what? There are plenty of birds around."

"The kind of bird that call belongs to only lives around Kumo. That was the signal for the bandit attack."

"Well, who did it?"

"I don't know. Keep an eye out."

"For what?"

Kakashi didn't respond. He had already fallen back into his book.

Naruto walked back to his position, grumbling, "Well, thanks for nothing."

Something wet dripped onto Naruto's face, and he rolled over. Rain, wonderful...

"Naruto," whispered Tsumeki, her voice cracking. "Naruto, wake up. Please wake up."

This is probably important, Naruto thought. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Tsumeki? What's wrong?" He looked at her, and the first thing he noticed is that wide streams of tears were – or at least had recently been – pouring down her face. She also had a blanket draw around her, even though it wasn't that cold.

"Come on." She grabbed his hand and pulled him up and out of his sleeping bag, leading him away from the encirclement of wagons within which the guards and their teammates were sleeping.

"Tsumeki, are you sure it's a good idea to go into the forest?"

"I need to talk to you, Naruto. Alone."

Her behavior seemed a bit odd, but Naruto decided to trust his friend and let her lead him some distance away from the caravan's campsite. He shivered a bit. It wasn't that cold out, but all he was wearing were a pair of pants.

After they had been going through the forest for about a minute, Tsumeki looked around. She then walked up a nearby tree and sat on the second branch, which was the thickest of the bunch.

"Okay," he muttered, "That's just mean." Naruto concentrated chakra into his (bare) feet, and was suddenly acutely aware of several splinters of wood and small rocks that were embedded into them. He removed them quickly, and then tried running up the tree. It didn't work very well, but he managed to make it to the first branch, just two feet below the second and a bit to the side. Naruto jumped, grabbed the second branch, and hauled himself up. He rested his back against the trunk and let one of his legs dangle off the side. The other was folded near to his body.

Tsumeki shifted her position to face Naruto. She looked like she might be riding a horse sidesaddle. "Naruto... I..." She bit her lip and seemed unsure of herself. "I am different."

He sighed a little. "No, Tsumeki you aren't. You—woah!"

Naruto had looked away from her for just a moment, but when he looked back, her ears were gone and replaced by two fuzzy, red triangles on the top of her head. Her eyes were red and slitted, and her fingernails were longer and sharper. His reaction made her start, and her eyes watered anew.

"No, Tsumeki, don't cry, you just startled me with that, is all."

"I know," she said, her voice cracking again. As she talked, Naruto noticed that she had fangs. "I know you wouldn't let something like this change anything, but..." she wiped at her eyes with her arm. "It's just...Oh, I don't even know."

Naruto leaned forward a bit. "Hey," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "What's on your mind?"

Tsumeki sniffled, but she looked like she was done crying for now. "I had a dream about my parents," she said. "It was the first one in a very long time."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She nodded her head, sniffling a bit more. "I...I'm a Kitsune, Naruto. I don't know how much you know about us." She looked at him, searching for a response.

"I know a bit, yeah. That actually explains a lot about how a genin just out of the Academy knows so much about genjutsu."

"No," she said. "That's actually genjutsu. A Kitsune can't cast illusions until they earn their first tail."

"Earn their...huh?"

"All Kitsune are born as Tailless," she said. "Other than a few minor things, like our ears, fangs, and claws, we're essentially human. We can't do anything more than disguise our Kitsune traits. When you earn your first tail, you start to become more like a Kitsune. Most earn their first tail between the ages of six and eight." She sniffled again, her eyes threatening to spill over. "I hadn't earned my first tail by the time I was eight. I still haven't earned it. My parents were very...elitist. When I hadn't earned my tail within the normal time period, they sent me to the orphanage."

Naruto's jaw dropped.

"Any chance I had of earning my tail after that was gone. I was so devastated...I couldn't..." Tsumeki covered her face with her hands. She was sobbing.

Naruto scooted forward on the branch. "Hey. Hey, don't cry." He pulled her head to his chest. "C'mon. It's gonna be okay. You don't need to cry."

She cried into his chest for probably ten minutes before she was able to regain control of herself. When she pulled her head up, Naruto scooted back just a touch, wanting to give her some personal space.

Naruto tried to think of a way to get her mind off of her parents. "So, what happens when you get your first tail?" Maybe that wasn't the best topic...

However, the reaction wasn't as bad as he thought it might be. "Well," she sniffed. "I'll get stronger and faster. I'll be able to cast Kitsune Illusions. Those are different from Genjutsu, too. Harder to dispel. And some you have to dispel in different ways than normal, so that can make them really useful. Uhm. I'll be able to conjure Foxfire, too."

"What's that?"

"Foxfire is...well, it looks like an off-blue flame. It affects the minds of those looking at it, and they're compelled to walk towards it. A lot of stories about disappearing travelers are blamed on Kitsune. You know, for using the Foxfire to lure people to their death. That happens sometimes. Not as often as superstitious folk would like to believe, though. And it can be hard. Someone with a strong mind requires a lot more Foxfire to lure."

"That sounds pretty cool."

"Yeah...I guess."

It was silent for a moment. "Is that all?"

"Well, we can tap into our tails for power. Each tail generates its own chakra, and we can pull on it when we need it. The chakra is revitalizing. You get stronger and faster, and your illusions are more powerful. Your Foxfire has greater strength, too. And you heal faster. Each tail has a bit more chakra than the previous tail, so the boosts get bigger as you tap into higher tail numbers."

"That's a really handy ability. It's liking having a second wind."

"Or a third, fourth, and fifth," Tsumeki agreed.

"How many tails can you guys get, anyways?"

"Up to nine."

Naruto's eyebrows shot up. "That's a lot."

She nodded. "Each tail is harder to get than the one before it, though."

"Do they give you anything other than the tapping boosts to make up for that?"

"Yeah. Each tail gives you...I guess you'd call it a passive boost. One that you don't need to tap into it for, you know? The first's boost is mostly just getting all of your Kitsune abilities. The second...I think the second is mostly speed. It gives you more strength and stronger illusions, too, but it focuses on speed. They all give you some kind of increase in everything, but they focus mostly on something. Does that make sense?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, I get what you're saying. So if tail five mostly helps with strength, it'll still give you some speed, but not as much as the second tail did."

"Right. But tail five isn't strength. That's tail six. Tail five is eyesight. Kitsune always have good night vision, but with tail five, we start to see in different spectrums."

"So you get, what, heat vision?"

Tsumeki nodded.

"That's really cool. What about three and four?"

"Three is illusions. They start to get competitive with mid- and high-level genjutsu at tail three. Tail four makes your Foxfire more powerful. Not like in how easy it is to lure someone, it makes it...a viable attack, I guess. Makes it really hot."

"Does it spread?"

"Like a normal fire? No. But it doesn't need fuel, either. It lasts until I tell it to go away. Takes a little bit of chakra to maintain. Most of the chakra cost is in summoning it, though. Keeping it up requires maybe ten percent of the chakra it took to summon it."

"Cool. What about the other tails?"

"The others? Uhm. Tail seven is illusions again. But this time around, your illusions are really strong. Like, unheard of in terms of genjutsu. Almost impossible to dispel. Tail eight is healing. You get the ability to heal at an incredible rate all the time. I've seen that in action. My great-great grandfather once almost had his arm chopped off. He just held the arm in its proper place for twenty minutes and it was attached enough that he just put it in a cast. In three days, he had use of it again, and it was back to full strength in a week."

"That's nuts! How do you kill something like that?"

"You cut off the head. But by tail six, most people aren't out to kill you. They're out to seal you into their body and steal your power."

"You can do that?"

Tsumeki nodded. "Haven't you ever heard of jinchuriki?"

"Uhm...You know, it seems to me that I have."

She was silent for a few minutes. "Yeah. It's...awful, really. That's how most Kitsune die. They're sealed into some asshole's body, and then the asshole goes on and dies somewhere. Since the Kitsune is inside the body, they die too. The only way to save them is to extract them through a really complicated and dangerous jutsu. It kills the host, but...Most of the time, at that point, they deserve it for sealing the Kitsune within themselves."

Naruto saw this conversation going nowhere good, so he changed the subject. "What about the ninth tail?"

"Cunning and intelligence. Nine-tailed Kitsune are thought to be omniscient. They're not, but..." she smiled a bit, thinking. "My great-great grandfather was pretty close. He was the Kyuubi, you know."

"The who?"

"The Kyuubi. The most powerful living nine-tailed Kitsune." Her smile faltered. "Of course, even being the most powerful doesn't always save you from people looking to seal you up." She looked toward Suna. "You know, there's actually supposed to be a jinchuriki in Suna."

"Is there? How many tails does his Kitsune have?"

She shook her head. "I don't think it's a Kitsune. I think he has a Tanuki. Maybe even the Ichibi."

"Tanuki? Ichibi?"

Tsumeki smiled. "I sometimes forget that not everyone was educated on these matters. I learned all of this before..." she paused. "The Tanuki are one of the nine species of Tailed Creatures. Or, as most humans call us, Demons. Tanuki can only get one tail, but it's harder for them to get than our first tail is, and it's powers go a lot further. A tailed Tanuki can usually compete with a six- or seven-tailed Kitsune, and sometimes, if they're really strong, they can go toe-to-toe with a nine-tails. The Ichibi is the most powerful living Tanuki that has his tail."

"Wow, nine species? How come they haven't overrun the world?"

"Tailed Creatures have a very low fertility rate. Perhaps one in a thousand...unions...will produce a pregnancy. We have long lifespans, though, so I suppose that offsets it. You also have to consider that many Tailed Creatures don't live their full lifespan due to various causes. War, disease, being sealed inside some asshole human... No offense."

Naruto held up his hands. "Hey, I'm not planning on it. I'm not worried."

Tsumeki smiled. There was a moment of silence. Then, she said, "Hey, Naruto?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for listening. You have..." she teared up a bit. "You have no idea how good it is to talk about myself to someone. Like, the real me. Not, you know..." her Kitsune traits disappeared, replaced by her human ones. "...this me." She dropped the concealment again, going back to her Kitsune self. "It feels good to actually have my ears out, too," she said. Her ears twitched and moved around on her head. "Human ears are so uncomfortable. And they don't move. How are you supposed to hear something behind you clearly if you can't turn your ear around?"

"Move your head?" Naruto suggested. "At least, that's how most of us mortals do it."

Tsumeki laughed. "Oh, you'd understand if you had my ears. It's a totally different feeling."

"If you say so." Naruto thought for a moment. "Hey, you never did say how you earn your tails."

"Great feats of strength or trickery. Our bodies have some sort of...I don't know how to describe it, really. My body will know when I've beaten an opponent significantly stronger than me, and when that happens, I'll get my tail. Or, if I manage to trick someone in a major way, that'll work too."

"What kind of a trick do you need to do?"

Tsumeki bit her lip. "Well. Trickery is a tough one. It's hard to do without the trick being malicious. Most stories I heard about Kitsune earning a tail through trickery involved making someone think their family was murdered and go on a killing rampage, or tricking someone into suicide, or something grim like that. Even the more innocent pranks that would get you tails can end up getting people killed, though. My great-great grandfather made it appear that the moon was going to crash into the world. He managed to trick everyone in the world. It took him three months of constant concentration, the story goes. He cast the illusion right onto the moon. People freaked out. It caused riots. A lot of people died. He didn't mean for it to happen that way. Just wanted to get his tail and give everyone a nice scare."

"Wow," said Naruto. "What tail did that get him?"

"His ninth."

He let out a low whistle. "Damn."

"Yeah."

Both ninjas looked up at the sky. It was clear out, and the stars could be seen clearly. And then, without warning, a bright light flashed through the sky – a shooting star. Out of his peripheral vision, Naruto saw Tsumeki close her eyes for a moment.

"Hey, Tsumeki."

"Hm?"

"I'm going to help you get your tails. Promise."

She looked at him, eyes wide. "W-what?"

"I'm going to help you get your tails."

Tsumeki said nothing at first. Her mouth hung slightly open. Then, she clamped it shut. Her eyes began to water, and she couldn't help but smile. "Naruto... That's..." She jumped forward and slammed into Naruto's chest. "Thank you," she sobbed. "Thank you so much."

"Of course. Anything for you."

They sat there in the tree for some time before Tsumeki managed to stifle her tears. She pulled back from Naruto, wiping her eyes and smiling.

"Hey," he said. "We should get back to the camp."

"Yeah," she replied. "Yeah, we should."

A Week and a Half Later

Visiting Suna had been fun for the first few days. After that, the scorching heat and severe boredom had been enough to make Naruto contemplate suicide. To make matters even better, they had failed to make contact with Team Guy.

The caravan was now on its way out of the desert. Just a mile away, the edge of the River country could be seen. The return to a temperate climate put a spring in the step of everyone.

Well, that and the sandstorm.

The caravan was making double time to the River Country because, behind them, a huge sandstorm was brewing. It was closing on them fast, and Mr. Dogo was moving the animals as fast as they could move. It didn't seem to be helping much.

"Come on, lads!" shouted the guard captain, who was out of breath from keeping up with the brisk pace the draft horses were carrying. "We're almost there, just gotta move! Don't get caught in the storm!"

Outrunning the sandstorm was hard work. It was tiring, even for Naruto, who prided himself on his endurance. The sand made it difficult to run. Every time he took a step, he had remember to wait for his foot to settle in the sand, so that he did not slip and fall. By the time he was ready to pick it up again, the sand had closed in around his foot and he had to pull it out, which almost made him lose his balance on several occasions.

They had been running hard for going on twenty minutes when they finally crossed the border, but they didn't stop there, for fear that the sandstorm might extend the grip of the desert and catch them resting. For another four minutes they ran, their speed slowing as the adrenaline left their bodies and the exhaustion began to set in. When they stopped, Naruto sat down and leaned his back against one of the wagons. As he sat there, panting, he heard a conversation from the front of the caravan.

"I told you we should have waited in Suna for another day!" That would be the driver of the second wagon. He was a bit of a hothead, and often clashed with Mr. Dogo.

"The sandstorm wasn't forming, then! It caught everyone off guard, there was no way we could have known!" That would be Mr. Dogo.

Before another word could be said, a bird call rang out, and Naruto felt a chill of icy terror run up his spine. Bandits appeared from everywhere. They came from the trees, from holes in the ground, from piled up grass and leaves. They had been waiting, and now they were going to take everything in the caravan, to include the lives of the people in it.

Naruto got to his feet. "Shadow..." he swallowed, wetting throat somewhat. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Nine more Narutos appeared next to him. They looked about as tired as he was, but that was obviously going to be true. He couldn't just make clones that were in better shape than he was.

Naruto could almost feel the sound of the bandits colliding with the caravan guards. He and his shadow clones did not attempt to participate in the countercharge, where it happened. Many of the guards were slaughtered where they sat, never having a chance to react to the attack. Instead, Naruto and his clones jumped over the line of bandits to get behind them. He buried a kunai in the back of the nearest bandit, squarely on the spine. The man collapsed, as did several others felled by the clones. Four of the clones were killed by vicious blows from axes and swords before they were able to land a killing or disabling blow on the enemy.

Not wasting a moment, Naruto pulled his weapon out of the bandit's back and spun around in a circle. The spin gave his kunai momentum, and he threw it directly at the neck of a bandit coming for him. The throw didn't hit right where he had wanted it to, but it had left a sizable gash on the man's neck, and he stopped his advance on Naruto and scrambled to stop the bleeding.

Sensing movement behind him, Naruto spun around to deliver a high roundhouse kick. His foot collided with the wrist of a bandit who had lagged behind the rest, and he knocked the sword from the other's hand. He followed up with a quick palm strike to the base of the nose, driving it up into the man's brain and killing him. The sound of the nose breaking was disgusting. Naruto almost vomited.

A sudden awareness of the battlefield told Naruto that the rest of his clones had been surrounded and killed, and that the group of six bandits was heading for the real him. Instead of engaging them, Naruto ran at the nearest hard-topped wagon. He was too tired to jump it, so he jumped as high as he could, grabbed onto the side, and hauled himself the rest of the way to the top.

As he paused to look over the battlefield, Naruto realized that the caravan wasn't doing well. The merchants were nowhere in sight, but the guards were almost completely decimated. A few surrounded pockets of resistance remained, but would soon be overwhelmed. About thirty bandits remained to the maybe twelve guards, not including the nine bandits trying to follow him up the wagon. Naruto looked around for his team, but he couldn't see them.

Then, from the back of the caravan, he heard, "Fire style: Great Fireball Jutsu!" There was a red glow of fire, and the shrieking of burning men. Naruto made his way to the last wagon. The bandits on the ground followed him.

I can't just lead them to the back, Naruto thought. I don't know if everyone can handle that right now. Since he was on top of a wagon with canvas sides, Naruto jumped down the opposite side of the bandits and, when he was out of sight, ducked into the wagon. He heard the bandits going through the gaps between wagons, so he jumped out of the other side, where they had been a moment ago. All of the bandits had gone to the other side, so Naruto had a minute to move. He ran to the back of the caravan. The adrenaline had fully set in, and Naruto's limbs weren't as heavy as they had been when the bird call went out.

Naruto turned the corner, and he was immediately fighting for his life. The tip of a blade was less than a hair's breadth away from his eye, and it took all of his strength to push it away.

"Dumbass," Sasuke said, pulling the kunai away. "I had almost killed you!"

"I noticed," Naruto replied dryly.

Kakashi and Tsumeki were standing in front of the steps into the wagon. In the window of the door, Naruto saw the terrified face of a merchant peeking outside before going back down to hide.

"Naruto, what's it looking like elsewhere?" Kakashi asked.

"Lots of bandits. The guards are going to be gone in just a few minutes if we don't help."

"We can't just leave the merchants," Tsumeki said.

"I don't want us splitting up," Kakashi said. "My first priority is making sure you get out alive."

"Bring them on," Sasuke said. "I can roast them like I did the rest." He gestured to a mass of charred bodies, at least twelve high.

"We're going to need help," Tsumeki said. "If only we had found Team Guy..."

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the little baby ninjas."

Naruto spun around. The swordsman from the previous attack had come onto the road and was striding confidently toward them. At either side of him was a massive man, each easily seven feet tall, if not more, and rippling with grotesquely massive muscles.

The swordsman drew his blade. "I don't have time for this, so you'll forgive me if I'm brief. You are holding up my operations to an extent you wouldn't believe, and I have better things to do. Yamak, Ramak. Get the white-haired one. I'll take care of the brats."

"Yes, boss," they said in unison. Each took a heavy club off of his back and advanced on Kakashi with malice in their eyes.

Without changing his pace, the swordsman drew three throwing knives and pitched them at the genin. Before they had gone far out of his hand, however, Sasuke responded with shuriken and knocked them out of the air.

The swordsman smiled. "This should be a bit more fun than last time."

The two brutes broke out in a run, and the one on the left swung his club downward at Kakashi. He dodged right, not wanting to put the genin in danger from the right brute's attack. It was fortunate that he did, because Rightie swung his club in a low arc.

Naruto didn't have time to look at what happened next, because the swordsman engaged them. He had a kunai out so that he could at least make an attempt at parrying, and his teammates had followed his example. Despite their advantage in numbers, however, the swordsman kept all three of them on the defensive. His strikes were fast, hard, and precise. He did not attack them in any particular order, but no attempt to attack was forgiven with less than two rapid, brutal strikes, barely deflected by a the failing metal of a kunai.

How can we beat this guy? Naruto thought. He's faster and stronger than all of us put together! If only Tsumeki had a tail, we could do this!

Naruto rolled to the side to evade an attack, and he watched in horror as one of the giant clubs swung past where he had just been and caught Tsumeki in the side as she ducked under a sword slash. She was flung across the field, and she landed on the same side of the caravan that the bandit horde was on.

"Tsumeki! No!" Naruto yelled.

A roar of victory came from the direction of said horde, and Naruto knew the last of the guards were dead. There was a storm of stomping feet. The bandits were coming to them, and they would trample Tsumeki to death on their way. There was no way Naruto could find out of the situation while the swordsman was pressing him.

Then, a great, thundering voice gave pause to everyone on the battlefield. "DYNAMIC ENTRY!" A green blur shot from a tree, and suddenly, the brute on the right had a foot in his face.

The swordsman snarled and spun to attack Naruto again. Seizing the opportunity, Sasuke bolted. Naruto was about to snarl a curse at him, but a dodge gave him an angle on what Sasuke was actually doing – standing guard over Tsumeki's body. For the first time, Naruto felt a flash of gratitude to Sasuke, and it quickly grew into a healthy amount of respect.

Others began to engage the bandits, but Naruto had no time to look. His attention was demanded back in his fight with the swordsman.

"With just you, this'll be easy pickings!"

Naruto snarled at him. "Shut up, you stupid son of a bitch!" Instead of parrying the coming blow, Naruto got right up into the swordsman's face. The katana bit into his skin, and Naruto gasped in pain. The cut was deep, but it wasn't going to stop him. Now that he was in the swordsman's guard, he had all the advantage in the world. He punched at the other man's face, but the swordsman dropped his blade and rolled back. He struck a taijutsu stance.

"Now you're fighting on my field," Naruto said.

Naruto unleashed a barrage of punches and kicks at the other man. He proved to be as adept at taijutsu as he was at kenjutsu, though, and Naruto found no advantage.

"Idiot child, I'm in every way your better!" His hand went to his pouch.

Naruto wasn't about to let him use another one of those gas pellets. He did a low, sweeping kick and knocked the swordsman's legs out from under him. The swordsman recovered quickly by knocking Naruto onto the ground with him. He seized Naruto's throat and got up, lifting Naruto into the air.

"Now," he said, moving to his sword, "I will gut you."

Naruto gurgled out the best he could of an insulting response.

"What did you say?" the man narrowed his eyes and drew Naruto closer.

Naruto used what leverage he had to headbutt the man in the nose. There was a loud crack, and the man yelped in surprise and dropped Naruto. He didn't miss a beat; he picked up the swordsman's blade, which he had been dropped by, and ran the swordsman through.

"G...ga...ack..." Blood ran out of the man's mouth. He attempted to grab Naruto's throat again.

Naruto's fury got the better of him. He wasn't done. He dropped into one of the stances he had learned from the kenjutsu scrolls and quickly struck the man twice more across the chest. Blood poured from the swordsman freely, but he still wasn't dead. Naruto executed a precise spin. When the blade came back around, it separated the man's head from his shoulders. The body followed the head to the ground. Naruto stood for a moment, catching his breath. He looked at his arm. It was covered in blood, but he wasn't sure how much of it was his. Naruto dropped to his knees and ripped a piece of clean cloth off of swordsman's pants. He used it to make a tourniquet and stop the bleeding in his arm.

After he made sure that the bleeding was going to be under control, he got up and checked the status of the battle. It looked like Team Guy had arrived. The two giants lay dead on the ground, and the ninjas were cleaning up the rest of the bandits. There was a man and a boy in awful green jumpsuits who seemed to exceptionally talented at taijutsu, one girl in a pink shirt standing back and throwing all manner of weaponry (Was that a sword?), and another boy in a beige shirt and shorts engaging in some sort of chakra-infused taijutsu. Sasuke and Kakashi were fighting, too. With the sword in hand, he stumbled over in that direction. The blood loss didn't make it easy. About halfway there, Naruto realized he'd be pretty useless in a fight. He kept going towards it, but altered his course slightly. He dropped down next to Tsumeki and checked her pulse. It was strong. He ran his hands lightly over her ribs. He could feel that a few of them were broken. He was no medical genius, but he thought Tsumeki should be fine.

Naruto was shocked back to reality by a hard slap to the face. His vision focused in on the girl in pink.

"Hey, wake up, don't go to sleep. You're losing too much blood for that."

"Sleep? I wasn't sleeping, I was just..." Naruto was aware that he was laying on the ground. "When did I get here?"

"You probably passed out," she said. "You did a good job with the tourniquet. Without that, I'd have a lot harder time keeping you alive. Hold still."

A searing pain in Naruto's arm informed him of the invasion into his cut.

"This is a disinfectant. It'll keep you from losing the arm."

"Tenten," said a calm voice, "does he need to be stitched up, or can we move?"

"I'd like to stitch him up, but unless these merchants have some anesthetic laying around, we're just going to have to bandage him."

"Hnn."

"Did you take him down?" Tenten asked Naruto, gesturing at the headless swordsman.

"Yeah," he said.

"That's not bad. That's Kero Kushoni. He was a big-shot tournament fighter a couple years ago, but he got kicked out. Went into banditry, I guess."

"He's got a nice price on his head, too," said Kakashi, who knelt down next to Naruto. "About fifty thousand ryo. You'd better bring the head if you plan to collect on it."

Naruto closed his eyes. "That's, like...ten missions."

"Yes it is." Kakashi clapped Naruto on the arm. "Good work."

"Is the sword yours?" Tenten asked.

Naruto looked at his hand, which was still clenching the katana tightly. It was a plain weapon; the handle looked like ivory wrapped in fine, but worn, leather, and the blade was crafted with steel. "It is now," Naruto said.

"Do you know how to use it?"

"Kind of."

"You'll have to show me sometime."

He looked at Tenten. "Why?"

She smiled, tying off the bandage. "I love weapons," she said. "I know how to use a lot of them. I could teach you more about kenjutsu."

"That'd be good. I need someone to practice with, at least..." A little bell went off in Naruto's head. "Tsumeki!"

"Calm down, calm down," Tenten said, pressing him down. "I already took care of her. You don't need to be freaking out. Don't get your blood pumping more than it already is, I don't know how much more you can afford to lose."

"Is she going to be okay?"

"She's got a couple of broken bones, but I managed to set most of them. The rest can be taken care of by the medics. As for you, you're stable. You might need a little blood when you get to Konoha, but as long as you don't do anything dumb, you should be fine."

Naruto heard Sasuke's voice. "We finished burying the guards. The jumpsuits are marking the graves with Mr. Dogo."

Tenten looked over towards Kushoni's body. "I'll be right back." She returned just a moment later with the scabbard for the katana. It was entirely made of ivory, with the same leather wrapped around it in some places. "Here. Give me the sword. I'll hang onto it while you rest."

"No, I'm fine, I can-"

"While you rest," Tenten repeated, hand outstretched.

Naruto surrendered the sword to Tenten. She sheathed it and put it in the back of a nearby wagon. "Neji, help me move him." She grabbed Naruto's legs.

"Hn." Another pair of hands seized him by the shoulders.

They placed Naruto in the back of the wagon. He turned his head and saw Tsumeki laying next to him. She was sleeping. "I'll see you when I wake up," he murmured, and then fell asleep.

Damn, that took me a while. I'm sorry for that, I had some trouble with the last part of the chapter. I hope it turned out okay; I'm not sure how I feel about it. I know I liked the part where Tsumeki was revealing her identity to Naruto, I feel like that came off well. The chapter as a whole seemed a bit fast, too, but that could have just been the speed at which I was reading it.

You'll be happy to know I have the next couple chapters mapped out. You'll all be excited for chapter five; I know I'm excited to write it, and I'm not telling you why!

You guys make me sad! Only two people reviewed chapter two! I'm more than willing to assume that that's because chapter two was bad (because I feel like it kind of was), but still. I thought we were friends! And friends don't let friends write without reviews!

Also, heads up for those of you who don't know. I've put up a poll on my profile. Check it out. It's important.

Anyways, next chapter should be out in the next week and a half. Might be a bit longer, because I do need to think on how I'm going to work with the first part of chapter four, but I'll try to get it out soon. Hope you enjoyed it, please review!