Eh... not quite as long as I wanted it, but I wanted to update something. There's a more detailed reason in the ending author's notes.

disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, but, let's face it, I could do worse!

warning: standard foul language warning. Not that you'll listen.


The easterners were ready to depart from the vampiric stronghold when the sun set that night. Once the moon emerged hidden behind the overcast night, the remaining creatures of lore had risen from their daytime slumber and were fully prepared to move out. Naruto and his entourage took the scenic tour on the way out and were passing over an outdoor ledge when a sudden outcry sounded from every direction. As soon as the shock of the unexpected guttural shrieks subsided, the foreigners peered into the night sky, as it was the only possible source of any danger.

"What are those?" Hinata asked under her breath.

"I dunno…" Naruto responded as he squinted at the approaching objects falling silently through the twilight atmosphere. His eyes widened once he realized that they were people in freefall, and one of them was angling towards them…

"Move!" Sasuke ordered, Sharingan blazing as it instantly read the immediate path of the person descending at terminal velocity. Uzi moved just in time to avoid getting flattened by a flash of tan and silver.

Everyone stood stunned and alert as they looked on the woman who had fallen from the sky and landed unharmed in a crouching position, having cracked the heavy stone beneath her tan leather boots. The woman slowly stood and faced them, tossing her long smooth silver hair to the side and revealing a pair of brilliant golden irises. She immediately eyed Naruto and let loose a nasty snarl.

"Who the hell are you?!" the blonde red-eye asked, both shocked and aware all at once.

The young woman glared at him and said nothing for what seemed an eternity. "Uzi," she finally spoke after the ocular showdown, "I'm here to kill you." Her otherwise soft and pleasant voice was dripping with intense hatred and spite.

"Figures…" the eastern red-eye said to the side. "I'm so popular these days…"

The woman stood calmly as she undid the buttons of her overcoat before easing her arms from her heavy sleeves, allowing the woolen outerwear to fall to her sides supported only by her outer belt. This caused everyone to flinch ever so slightly in surprise when they saw that she wore no clothing of any sort under the coat, save for her pants and boots. Visually, she was quite the looker with her soft skin, small yet well-built frame, and her... other ample features. But all this was momentarily negated by the fact that she was practically leaking hatred.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Hinata yelled out, perturbed at the silver-haired woman's behavior.

"Prepare to fight, Uzi!" she yelled as she clasped her hands together. She closed her eyes and began mumbling something, the surrounding air seeming to change and react to her muted chanting.

Juugo began shaking with excitement and anticipation, attracting the attention of Sasuke's group. "I… wanna kill something…" he shakily spoke as his cursed genes began to kick into gear.

"Damnit!" Karin swore. "Not now!"

"Hold it," Sasuke commanded. "We could use this. Juugo," he addressed the large man with bloodline eyes, "You can kill her." He pointed to the golden-eyed woman.

Juugo smiled maniacally as he gave in to his murderous urges. "Alright!!" He cried as he charged from the group toward the half naked enemy. "You're so dead!!"

Hinata activated her Byakugan when the elegant stranger started chanting and noticed a change in the foe's chakra when Juugo charged. "Wait! Stop!" she called out to the berserk easterner as he brought an arm with multiple genetically enhanced protrusions back to strike.

He never touched the enemy. As soon as he threw his fist forward, she moved over his left shoulder as swiftly and silently as possible, with the exception of the noise caused by the forced removal of the large man's clavicle, scapula, and a few ribs via her newly sharpened teeth. Juugo, despite his possession of his cursed abilities, was still only human. He crashed to the ground and went into immediate shock as he lost blood at a phenomenal rate. Before the bloody bones dropped from the silver-haired woman's mouth hit the stone walkway, he was dead.

"Shit! Juugo!" Sasuke yelled.

"Ugh… damn…" Suigetsu temporarily overcame his dislike of his former companion to offer his sympathies.

Karin was dumbstruck. She had studied her dead teammate's genetics for years, and never once had he ever been vulnerable to such an attack until now.

Naruto and Hinata, however, stood their ground. In a way, they expected the man to go down from blindly charging ahead. They gazed upon their changing foe with alert eyes.

"Moron!" the woman yelled at the disfigured corpse. "Don't get in my way! I'm here for Uzi and Uzi alone!" She turned back towards the blonde and his blue-haired companion with a grimace.

"What the hell are you?" the Hyuuga asked calmly, her blood limit revealing a constant shifting of the woman's chakra.

Naruto's eyes widened with horror when his red eyes suddenly burned brightly. His adversary smirked, knowing that he now knew exactly what he was up against. "Everyone," he turned back to his companions, "Run!! She's a lycanthrope!!"

Hinata raised an eyebrow. "A werewolf?!" she proclaimed inwardly as Karin and Suigetsu obeyed the blonde red-eye's command.

"Very perceptive," the woman spoke softly as her energy spiked and shifted again. "I guess I should inform you then…"

Naruto turned back with danger in his eyes. Hinata picked up on his mood and prepared for an attack.

"I am Colonel Silba of the Lycanthrope Regiment," she informed with a sneer. "Just thought I'd let you know who'll be killing you tonight." She ended her statement by suddenly melting into mist and traveling towards the red-eyed blonde with freakish speed.

Uzi leapt back as the mist came together in midair and Silba launched a series of spinning kicks, increasing her momentum with each strike. He built up energy in his left hand and struck her with his razor sharp tattoos only to have her transform into fog again and move to his back. He unleashed an energy tail to swipe the area behind him but was too slow as she landed a solid blow to the back of his head.

"Naruto!" Hinata cried out as she rushed to his side. She struck at the silver-haired woman to no avail, as the werewolf merely burst into fog again and reformed with an uppercut to the Hyuuga's chin. The white-eyed easterner stepped back instinctively and poured her chakra into her arms, thrusting her deadly palms at the golden-eyed woman with blinding speed as she pushed forward.

Silba responded to the advancing barrage of gentle fists by kicking herself backwards on one foot and shooting forward again with the other as soon as she touched the ground. She twisted her agile body to avoid most of the blue-haired woman's lethal attacks and landed the heel of her free boot into Hinata's gut, prompting the Hyuuga to let loose the contents of her stomach.

Naruto intervened with an energy whip from his right arm's tattoo. It caught Silba around the waist and almost cut into her before she reverted to mist again. "Damnit!" the blonde cursed, "We can't do anything while she's like that!" He attempted to call out to the Hyuuga or Uchiha to determine if their eyes could somehow discern the lycanthrope's moves only to be interrupted as the werewolf's arm came together from the haze and elbowed him in the neck. He faltered as the pain coursed through his body when the werewolf flicked her knife out of its scabbard and prepared to run it through his head.

She suddenly became aware of a crackling spear of energy headed towards her. She melted into mist and moved up a wall as Sasuke's energy sword protruded from his hand to her previous standing.

"Naruto!" He called. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Uzi responded between hacking coughs. "I'm fine. Thanks for the save."

"I can't predict her movements when she's hiding in the fog." He swung his extended chakra through the haze perched high above them, only to stir the smoke.

"She's a lycanthrope. She is fog! You can'tpredict that!"

"What?!" He yelled as the mist shot forward. The Uchiha released his chakra spear and unsheathed his sword to counter the she-wolf.

The smog suddenly split to avoid the unique blade and moved around the avenger. As his eyes followed the train of aquatic smoke to his right, a knee formed on his left and scored a heavy blow to his face. He stumbled back before Silba's hand reformed, clutched his foot, and yanked back, sending the Sharingan user off balance. He averted his eyes to catch himself when he noticed the mist was moving behind him and thickening, meaning the golden-eyed werewolf was about to strike from behind…

But he was suddenly jerked upwards. He turned to his savior to find Naruto holding onto his cloak, all nine chakra tails brimming with power as he used them to scale the towering fortress wall.

"Gimme your sword!" Uzi demanded.

"What?! No! I need it!"

"She's after me! Now hand it over!"

"You don't even know how to use it!" His retort was answered by him being flung onto a higher walkway and his blade being wrenched from his hand. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"I'll give it back later!" Naruto replied as he continued forward rapidly upward with his tails acting like a spider's legs. Sasuke followed the blonde with his eyes when the mist of Silba streaked by, headed straight towards the eastern red-eye.

"Oh, damnit…" Uzi thought as the fog sped upwards with a faint golden glow leading it. "I'm gonna need help on this one…"

-----------------------------

Hinata gazed with her Byakugan at the near vertical battle of Silba and Naruto. It had taken her precious minutes to recover from the strong blow to the gut; too much time, in fact. Why the she-wolf didn't finish her off was a mystery to her.

She was worried and a bit pissed off all at once. Uzi was taking hit after hit from the lycanthrope, but every time he tried to retaliate he struck nothing but mist. "Werewolves are really something…" she observed inwardly. She was jarred from her thoughts when another wolf man's smog incarnation streaked up the precipice of the walkway, closely followed by a surge of flying… blood?

The blood abruptly splashed together to form a red-eyed vampire. The western specialist pulled a slim knife from a leather pouch and flung it over the fog which suddenly came together to expose the attacking lycanthrope. The werewolf stood frozen for a split second as the vampiric red-eye rushed him, only to transform into fog again and continue the gravity-challenged pursuit.

The Hyuuga woman wondered what just happened for a moment. To be sure, her bloodline revealed that there was currently a large scale battle between the legendary creatures, but she hadn't been paying attention to the individual fights until now. She peered upwards and noticed the vampire's blade stuck in a crack in the stonework. She focused chakra to her feet and started walking along the wall, taking careful steps as she had never quite gotten the hang of taking a stroll on a non-horizontal surface. When she approached the protruding knife, she loosed it from the crack and examined it.

"This thing's nothing special," she noted, seeing that the blade was pure iron and nothing else. "But, maybe…" She formulated a desperate plan as she sent more chakra into her feet and ran towards Naruto's current position. "Just maybe…"


Alright, here's the skinny: As many of you might be aware, I'm a college student. Next week is my final week of this semester. Now, while my school is an art school (for lack of a better term), this means that while we don't have exams, we DO have final projects, all of which take insane amounts of time to complete and let me pass my classes.

Due to my new time constraints, I will be unable to spend any significant amount of time writing. You've already gotten a taste of my schedule, seeing as how I haven't updated in a few days (I spoil you all so. nyaa). What I'm saying is that I have to focus all my efforts into schoolwork and won't be updating until the end of next week. Now, before you burst out into tears, remember how good I've been to you guys, updating damn near every day since I started this. I wont leave ya hanging. I'll start up again as soon as school gets out. Hell, I'll even write a chapter or two on the flight back home during Christmas break.

So in the mean time, wish me luck on my evil, evil projects, and I'll see you guys in a week and a half!!