Disclaimer: If you don't know by now that I don't own either Naruto or DBZ...well, just go back and look at the other eighteen chapters.
Last time: Sakura shows off the results of her training.
"Now," Temari growled, her voice all the indication Sakura needed that she was ready to kill, "where were we?"
Sakura shivered as Temari's killing intent washed over her. The other kunoichi was really out to kill. She launched herself at Temari. A slight flicker in the other kunoichi's eyes told Sakura right off that the Suna-nin had lost sight of her again.
'Let's see how you like this!'
She lunged, digging with her foot to slow down a bit. Temari whipped her fans, a savage wind hammered Sakura, feeling like she'd run right into a brick wall. Then her fist was flying forward…
Stopping just short of Temari's chin.
Sakura had just enough time to blink and wonder what happened before Temari smacked her with the iron edge of the fan, stunning the Konoha shinobi. The Suna kunoichi followed through, fans snapping open as she spun back around.
"Fuuryusen!"
A huge blast of wind slammed into Sakura, throwing her head over heels across the arena, slamming her into the other side of the stadium, the wind gust slamming her a split second later. Sakura screamed in pain as gashes ripped themselves open all over her body. The wind kunoichi threw herself into the air, fans coming open.
"Ninpou: Kazekiri!"
An invisible ripple shot from Temari, slicing through the air with an audible whistling noise. It slammed into the area Sakura had been, the trees creaking ominously before a thin gash appeared in their trunks and the mighty plants keeled over sideways. The wind had slashed through them more precisely than any sword.
Something whispered past Temari and she spun like a Hyuuga doing a Kaiten. The dome of wind generated ripped outward, blasting into Sakura, stopping her cold. In the second it took for the kunoichi to regain her footing, Temari flung a volley of shuriken at her then waved her fans.
Sonic booms rippled through the arena as the shuriken vanished as they sped up with the wind. Sakura saw the shuriken coming, to her great surprise. She threw herself into her evasions, trying to avoid them. For the most part she was successful, but a few lines of icy pain drew themselves along her arms, one of them crossing the wound from earlier, doubling the burning from there.
"Sakura above you!" Naruto shouted.
She looked up, trying to squint past the sun. Temari was floating above her, already getting ready to strike.
"Kazekiri!"
Another blade of wind slashed at Sakura. There was no time and it slashed across her body, entering at the chest and exiting just below her waist. Blood sprayed from the startled kunoichi as she began to split in two.
Temari smirked as she landed, watching the girl she'd hit finish separating, hitting the ground with two meaty thuds. "Keh, serves you right, bitch," the Suna girl snorted.
"Who's a bitch?" A voice asked from behind her. Temari whirled, eyes going wide. Sakura was standing behind her, totally unhurt except for a small tear in her dress from where she'd just barely managed to dodge the blade of wind. When Temari looked behind her, only a severed log was laying there. Sakura smirked. "Kawarimi no Jutsu. Don't discount the basics."
"Don't fuck with me chibi!" Temari thundered, furious at being outwitted by the pink girl. She spun, launching another blast of wind. Sakura crouched, the ripple passing over her, then threw herself into the air, avoiding a second blast. The Konoha kunoichi flung a volley of weapons, mostly kunai, as hard as she could. The weapons became nothing more than black streaks in the air.
Temari grunted as she flung an enormous blast of wind. The two attacks met and merged. Sakura felt like a hammer hit her as she was blasted away, flying through the air before hitting the ground and rolling as fast as she could to dissipate the momentum. Temari gritted her teeth against pinpricks of pain as the kunai hit her, digging into her, but not really doing anything but superficial damage. The way Sakura quickly got back to her feet told Temari that she really hadn't hurt the other girl either.
Sakura fazed out.
Temari counted to one in her head then flung herself sideways, just in time to see Sakura's fist flash past, followed by the girl's startled face. Temari's hand chopped down on the kunoichi's neck, making her stumble as a fan slammed into her chin, making her rear back before Temari's foot flicked out, sending Sakura crashing to the ground.
Sakura's teeth rattled as she hit, but she kept the presence of mind to roll out of the way before any follow up could find her. Just in time too because Temari's foot slammed to earth right where her head had been a second before. Sakura kicked her feet into the air, twisted on her hands then pushed herself into the air to land on her feet.
She twisted, a fan flashing past, her hand slapping Temari's arm, keeping it at bay, her other arm coming up in front of her, pushing the second fan up and away. Temari was wide open. Sakura struck, slamming her fists into the other teen's stomach. Temari gagged as something suddenly shot into her throat. The Suna kunoichi felt her feet leave the ground as her legs and arms continued forward. Sakura let loose with a series of punishing blows to Temari's midriff, each one feeling heavier than the last.
Two palms appeared in Temari's face.
She saw white, her ears ringing as the bony hands slammed into her nose, breaking, making blood spill down her face as she flew away. Temari cried out as she slammed into the wall of the arena. She was vaguely aware of sinking into it, a noise like cracking ice filling her ears. Temari fell to the side and that was what saved her.
Sakura's fist, charged with chakra and powered by energized muscles, slammed home a second later, the Konoha kunoichi's burrowing into the wall up to her elbow. Sakura's emerald eyes went wide as she forgot about Temari and tried to free her arm.
Temari, despite the throbbing in her head, knew what happened. She gestured to her fans, the weapons transforming into the weasel again before darting to her hand and changing back to the fans again. She held them out, horizontal, one on top of the other, grinning nastily.
"Now I have you!"
"Look out Sakura!" Gohan and Naruto shouted together.
"Fuuton! Kaze no Kizu!"
Sakura screamed as savage wind ripped into her again, tearing her free of the wall with a rough shove, her arm popping as her shoulder dislocated from being jarred so harshly. She slammed to the ground in a heap, new rips and tears in her skin bleeding profusely. Sakura struggled to sit up, holding her shoulder, teeth gritted against the pain, eyes screwed shut to hold back the tears that pain brought.
"You're lucky girl," Temari snarled. "If that had been my usual fan, you would've been cut to pieces."
"How…" Sakura ground out faintly. "How did you…?"
"Know?" Temari finished. She laughed. "It was easy. At first I used my wind to slow you down to almost a stand still, but then I started realizing that your brain can't keep up with the speeds you move at. To make it simple, your body moves faster than your head. So I just began to time you."
"Shit," Gohan cursed. He'd forgotten all about that in his haste to make Sakura faster and stronger. He'd totally forgotten to train her reaction time. "Oh shit. I'm sorry Sakura."
Kakashi was watching the entire battle, Sharingan bared to the air to follow Sakura's movements, since he'd barely been able to follow her without it. He noticed Gohan's downcast expression. 'He knows he made a mistake. Gohan knows it and now he's seeing what happens when the instructor makes a mistake in passing on his knowledge to his student.' The dual-colored gaze returned to the floor of the arena. 'You'll have to learn it the hard way, Gohan.'
"Get up Sakura!" Ino shouted. "You can't just roll over and die here! Not now! I still haven't kicked your ass yet!" The crowd around her began to take up the chant "Get up Sakura," the call growing louder and louder with every passing second until it was a loud roar that filled the entire stadium.
"I hate to tell you, kid," Temari said cockily, "but now that I know how to counter your speed, it's all over. From here I can come up with at least a hundred different ways to counter you. This is checkmate."
"No," Sakura rasped as she struggled to push herself to her feet. "No. I can't lose yet!" She glared at Temari, emerald eyes smoldering in an uncanny likeness to Gohan's when he was in Super Saiyan. "I promised myself I wouldn't lose. Naruto won. Gohan-kun won. I'm not going to be the only member of Team Seven to lose here!"
Temari chuckled. "You've got spunk…Sakura."
The Konoha kunoichi blinked. It was the first time Temari had used her name.
"But, you still can't win. I know how to counter you, you're not used to your own strength yet, and you're getting low on chakra. However you got that speed, you've been using chakra to do it. Now you don't have much left."
Sakura could see the other girl's reasoning. She felt like she could tip over and pass out at any time, but some drive kept her on her feet, moving forward, towards the prize she so desperately wanted, to the notion that she had to prove herself. Her good arm came up. "I'm not backing down," she muttered. It was probably beyond her to fight with only the one arm, but she wasn't going to roll over and just hand Temari the victory.
"I won't hold back," Temari said softly, looking rather startled by Sakura's determination.
"I know."
The blond sighed. "Well, if you understand…" She poured chakra into her feet, lancing forward than Sakura could see in her weakened state.
There was a sharp rap to the back of her neck by something cold and hard.
Her eyes rolled back and Sakura slumped unconscious.
At first there was silence from the crowd, as if they couldn't believe what had just happened, then, like a jet revving up, they slowly began to cheer for Temari, though those who'd been rooting for Sakura made themselves known as Sakura's parents watched worriedly as their daughter was carted off for the hospital wing, her mother sobbing quietly on her husband's shoulder.
Naruto and Gohan looked at each other, no words needed, before nodding once and heading after the medics who bore Sakura with them. Genma's announcement of Temari as the winner went unheard in the cheering (or booing) crowd.
"Wow," Ino muttered to Chouji, "Sakura was incredible out there!"
"I'll say," answered the corpulent boy, munching on his potato chips. "Who would've thought she'd be that strong after only a month?"
No one noticed Sasuke's knuckles turn white. If anyone had been caught off guard by Sakura's leap in strength, it was him. For the longest time he'd considered her a small annoyance, then one that he could stand. Now he recategorized her as potentially more powerful than himself. The notion that Sakura, who had brains but almost no brawn, had suddenly gained the physical strength she needed to surpass him…
The Uchiha's ego took another big hit.
'At this rate, Itachi will…'
Boos split the crowd, all of them directed at Kankuro who was leaving the contestant's box for the exit.
"What happened?" Sasuke asked.
"Kankuro forfeited," Gai explained. "It appears that he lost his courage to fight."
"After coming this far?" Kakashi asked. "No, there's something else at work here." He wasn't sure, but something had sent the alarm bells in the former ANBU's head off. There had been vague reports of unusual activity within the Suna borders of late and then there had been Hayate's murder, a killing that had gone unexplained for the last month. Then with Orochimaru appearing in the Exams for some unknown reason along with all of that. He glanced around the arena.
'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine…' Kakashi thought to himself, counting the ANBU in the arena, hidden in the shadows and other places. 'Only nine ANBU for this entire place? It's not enough if the shit hits the fan.' Out loud he said, "Gai, be ready for something."
"So you noticed it too." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah. I'll be right back."
"Where…" It was too late. Kakashi made a hand sign and was gone. He'd recognized one of the ANBU.
The other shinobi didn't blink when the masked jounin suddenly appeared next to him in a muted puff of smoke. "Kakashi-sempai," the man muttered.
"Tenzou," the jounin murmured just as softly.
"To what do I owe the visit? Something tells me this isn't a social call."
Kakashi nodded. "Right to the point then. I was curious as to why there're so few ANBU here."
Tenzou, better known as Yamato, nodded. "I'm as much in the dark about it as you are. Sandaime-sama wouldn't elaborate as to what he was thinking. Something's up though." The mask turned to face Kakashi. "Kakashi-sempai, we've been hearing reports of Suna getting…"
"Up to something, I know," Kakashi finished. He sighed. "Fine. Just keep a sharp watch. If they're gonna try something, whoever they are, it's gonna be during the Exams."
"Rest assured, I'm way ahead of you."
Kakashi nodded and repeated his hand sign, vanishing to reappear in the stairway behind Gai. He trotted up the steps, Icha Icha Paradise in hand.
"Where'd you go?" Sasuke asked, shooting Kakashi a curious glance.
"Nowhere," Kakashi answered, eye curling. "Just went for a walk." Sasuke shrugged and turned back to the arena where intermission had been declared, the crowd dissolving into a mass of movement. The Jounin stood watching the chaos for a bit then left again, going towards the hospital wing.
Gohan and Naruto sat on either side of Sakura's bed as the kunoichi rested, waiting for her to open her eyes. Both breathed a sigh of relief when she did.
"Sakura-chan!" Naruto cheered, hugging the kunoichi. A fist rapped him sharply on the back of the head, making him back off to tend to the large welt on his skull.
"Back off, baka," the kunoichi snarled.
"Feeling okay I take it?" Gohan asked with a smile.
Sakura blinked. "Gohan-kun!" Her eyes turned downcast. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" He asked.
"I lost."
The saiyan shook his head. "No. I should apologize to you."
"What for?"
Gohan looked away, unwilling to meet his student's eyes. "I failed you as a teacher. I didn't fully prepare you for what your training would bring. Because of… because of my error, you had to suffer the consequences when Temari-san figured you out."
"Better that happen now than on the battlefield where your mistake could have cost Sakura her life," a new voice said.
The three teens looked around. "Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto called. "Hey! Did you see us fight? Huh? Did you did you?"
"Most of you," the jounin answered. "I didn't see you fight, Naruto, but I heard you were fantastic." The three beamed as the sliver-haired man sat on the foot of Sakura's bed. "Sakura, I'm impressed with you most of all. You've made such an improvement it's astounding."
The kunoichi blushed at the praise.
"Naruto and Gohan," the two boys blinked. "You two are up next. Shikamaru got seeded and Kankuro forfeited. It means that in ten minutes, you two will fight for a place in the finals." Naruto grinned.
"I'm ready, Kakashi-sensei," he said confidently. "Ero-sennin showed me a few tricks that should help."
"I wouldn't expect anything less from Jiraiya of the Sannin," Kakashi muttered. "Sensei and his son. Who would've guessed?"
"What was that Kakashi-sensei?"
"Nothing." He looked at Gohan. "I hope you won't be holding back." The black-haired boy nodded, grinning as well.
"I'm gonna give Naruto a workout," he promised. They lapsed into silence until a roar filled the stadium.
"It's time," Kakashi told them, standing up. He helped Sakura out of be, the kunoichi wobbly but otherwise able to stand.
Roars of approval filled both boys' ears as they emerged into the brilliant sunlight. The crowd was on the edge of their seats, almost biting their fingers off in anticipation of the battle to come. Would it be the come-from-behind Naruto or the powerhouse Gohan? One thing was for sure, this fight wouldn't end until both teens were drained.
Genma stepped forward. "Ready?" he asked, probably unnecessarily in his opinion. Both of the kids had grins on that said they were looking forward to this more than anything.
"I dunno," Naruto said to his opponent, popping his knuckles, filling the air with cracks like firecrackers. "You ready Gohan?"
Gohan massaged his neck muscles, popping the bones in his neck. The dull popping was audible even to Genma. "I guess so. Are you?"
"Let's do it!"
"Uzumaki Naruto vs. Son Gohan!"
The crowd went silent at the jounin proctor's words.
"Begin!"
Naruto jumped back, flinging a volley of shuriken to cover himself, hands folding into a hand seal a moment later. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
Gohan leaped above the shuriken only to find his landing spot covered with clones. 'Aw crap. I can't tell the clones from the original. Guess I'll just have to get rid of them until one says ouch.' Hands seized his ankles. "What?"
The clones had formed a human ladder, using it to grab hold of the floating boy's feet. The ladder rotated, the movement being amplified like a whip, slinging Gohan through the air towards one of the walls. The saiyan tried to dislodge them, but Naruto was using chakra to hold onto him. No matter what Gohan did, his opponent remained unmovable.
He slammed into the wall, not terribly hard, but still, it was enough to rattle his teeth. Gohan shook off the collision, but his eyes widened when he saw the cloud of orange coming at him. "You gotta be kidding me!"
"Uzumaki-ryu! Uzumaki Naruto Rendan!"
The clones plummeted.
"Don't think so!" Gohan's fingers went to the sides of his face. He needed time to deal with all the clones. "Taiyoken!"
Blinding white light flashed, as brilliant as the sun, stripping every clone of sight. Before they knew what had happened to them, the whole leaping mob exploded in a wave of white smoke. Those who managed to shade their eyes in time saw Gohan shoot out of the curtain of haze into the sapphire sky.
"KamehameHA!"
The blue and white streak shot into the center of the arena, blasting every clone from existence in a massive concussion, the real Naruto tumbling head over heels into a bush, where he stuck, upside down. Gohan landed in front of him. "So much for your clones, Naruto," he said with a grin.
Naruto grinned right back. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
A huge puff of smoke later and Gohan was once again outnumbered a hundred to one.
Up in the Hokage's box, the Kazekage yawned widely beneath the scrap of cloth that covered his lower face. "How boring," he commented to Sarutobi. "This Son Gohan person has totally outclassed Uzumaki Naruto."
The Sandaime chuckled. "I wouldn't count Naruto out just yet. He's been known to pull more than a few miracles from his sleeve at the last second."
"Surely you jest, Hokage-dono," the Kazekage answered, gesturing to the arena floor where Naruto's clones were being picked apart by Gohan one-by-one even though the black-haired saiyan was more than capable of steamrolling the clones beneath a tide of power. "They know as well as you and I that Son Gohan could rip Uzumaki in two."
"Maybe, but Gohan-kun is not the type that will needlessly squash opponents or flaunt his power." The Hokage took a pull on his pipe. "After all, strength is not the only thing in this world."
"Perhaps, but it's the only thing that matters."
Sarutobi managed to keep his shoulders from stiffening. He'd heard that phrase years ago, from one of his wayward students, Orochimaru. As far as the old Kage knew, it hadn't caught on as a basic proverb yet. "I'm sorry," he said, a horrible theory dawning in his mind. He'd had the ANBU looking for Orochimaru ever since the rogue Sannin had shown himself at the Second Exam. "Could you repeat that?"
'What if I'm looking for Orochimaru in all the wrong places?' whispered a little nagging voice in the back of Sarutobi's mind. 'What if I'm looking right at him?' It would certainly explain the unhealthy amount of interest the Kazekage had been showing in the saiyan below. Ever since Gohan's match, the other Kage's eyes had been dancing with some inner light.
"I only said that strength isn't the only thing in the world, it's just the only thing that matters."
"That's what I thought you said," Sarutobi said, signaling for his guards to leave. It wouldn't do any good to get them mixed up in all of this. They would only be in the way. The Kazekage…no Orochimaru stared back at the Hokage. "How long has it been? Orochimaru?"
"I'm sorry?" The false Kage asked, doing a fairly convincing job of looking confused. "I think, Sarutobi-dono, that you may be going senile."
The Professor snorted. "Hardly. Drop the charade, Orochimaru. I see through you."
The other man's voice changed, becoming the smooth silky tone he knew from years before. "You saw through me earlier than expected Old Man," the snake hissed. "How did you know?"
"That phrase of yours," Sarutobi answered as he tugged at his red hat. "It was always a favorite. And the way you pay so much attention to a gifted fighter like Gohan-kun. Don't think for a second that I don't know the idiosyncrasies of my students, Orochimaru."
"I suppose I underestimated sentimentality," the Sannin admitted, pulling a sliver canister from within the folds of his robes. Sarutobi recognized it as a smoke canister. Orochimaru pulled the pin and tossed the silver tube out over the stadium. It burst above the match raging between Gohan and Naruto.
The Kages vanished, along with Orochimaru's guards, who revealed themselves to be the members of the Sound Four standing on each other's shoulders. Kage robes fell to the ground, devoid of their occupants. Orochimaru snickered as they alighted on the terra cotta tiled roof of the Kage box. The Sound Four took up their positions, molding hand seals.
"Ninpou!" They cried together. "Shishienjin!"
Lines shot between them, then a translucent purple wall shot up into the sky, making a box around the master and apprentice that were preparing to do battle. There was no way around or over it and more than likely no way under it. Screaming reached the ears of the two men. It was the crowd, screaming in fear as they came under sudden attack by unknown shinobi. They'd been sitting in disguise the entire time, unnoticed by the jounin and ANBU in the area. Now they shed their civilian guises and took up kunai, hacking and slashing at every moving person.
In the same instant, an explosion rocked the village walls as three massive snakes loomed at the foot of the ramparts, Sound and Sand shinobi running up their great serpentine lengths to jump over the walls and rain kunai on the skeleton forces assigned to protect the huge barriers. Only minutes after the initial assault, the west gate had been fallen and the doors forced open, allowing more shinobi to stream through, overwhelming the Leaf defenders and driving them back towards the Hokage's Tower.
However, while the Suna and Sound nin were fully prepared to route the Konoha-nin, they were soundly disappointed. They took the gates and much of the west side of the city, but the Konoha soldiers made them pay dearly for every inch of ground they acquired.
Then the heavy hitters stepped forward.
An entire company was busy securing house after house when someone stepped forward. Someone with a green gi, red haori, white hair, and a massive scroll tied to his back.
An Oto-nin noticed first. "It's Jiraiya of the Sannin!"
The writer grinned. "Correct! Now, here's your prize!" He bit his thumb, molded seals, then slammed his hand to the ground. "Ninpou! Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" A massive explosion obscured the road, but when it cleared, a massive brown and green toad sat in the middle of the street, a pair of ridiculously long katana strapped to his back. The company took a step back.
A tap made one shinobi turn around.
He found himself staring into Jiraiya's grinning face. "Want some advice?"
The Suna jounin only quivered.
The pervert winked. "Run."
With wild terrified yells, the men did just that. Jiraiya threw back his head, fists on his hips, and laughed uproariously. "That's right! Flee little people! Flee from the mighty Jiraiya! Lord of Toads and Master of Myobokuzan!"
A low hissing made Jiraiya look up, finding himself looking into the serpentine eyes of one of the massive snakes summoned by the attackers. He whistled. "Damn! What the hell's Orochi-bastard been feeding you?" He grinned. "Last time I saw you you were only a teeny li'l garden snake!"
The snake hissed angrily and lunged, gaping jaws slamming to the ground where Jiraiya had been. "Hey! I'm not your afternoon snack!" The snake pulled its maw out of the dirt, glaring, as if it understood Jiraiya, at the Sannin who was standing on Gamahiro's head. A quick Kawarimi had been all it took to avoid the snake's strike. "Gamahiro?"
"Sure thing."
The toad reached for the weapons on its back, lifting them from the scabbards. Using only its powerful hind legs, the sword-wielding toad shot forward, slashing the snake once with each. Blood sprayed from its body as the head and part of the upper section of the snake split and fell apart. The corpse vanished before it even hit the ground.
Gamahiro slammed the swords back into their sheaths.
"And that," Jiraiya remarked with a self satisfied nod, "is how it's done!"
"It's not over yet, Jiraiya," the toad answered. "There're still two more snakes out there."
"Well then let's skewer us some worms!" The Sannin shot back. As his toad launched itself into the air towards another of the two remaining serpents, Jiraiya looked back at the stadium, his face uncharacteristically serious, a faint purple box just visible over the walls. 'Don't die on me Old Man.'
Gohan and Naruto had just bounced apart from clashing with each other when the smoke bomb had burst over their heads and Gohan caught a flash of ki he knew right before a huge purple box showed up over the Kage box. He felt his blood run cold and the Curse Seal on his neck gave a painful twinge, despite the seal that kept it dormant. He felt Orochimaru.
"What the hell is that?" Naruto asked, pointing at it.
Two Oto-nin appeared in the stadium floor, rushing at both fighters. Naruto made a new mob of Kage Bunshins and pummeled his man into unconsciousness before letting the clones string the man up from a tree by his underwear.
Gohan ducked under a stab with a kunai before driving his fist straight up into the attacker's jaw, feeling the satisfying jar of bone and bone, followed closely by the enemy's jawbone shattering. A fast roundhouse kick later and the man was laying in the middle of a gout of powderized cement where he'd slammed into the wall.
"Just what the heck's going on?" Gohan asked.
"Up here!" A voice called. It was Kakashi, Sharingan blazing, one hand beckoning both boys to the top of the wall. They wasted no time in getting there. "We're under attack," the jounin said unnecessarily as he dueled with a Suna shinobi. It was a mark of Kakashi's mastery of the Sharingan and his skill as a ninja that let him talk and fight at the same time.
"So what now?" Gohan asked as he leaned to one side and seized the arm of an Oto-nin who tried to be sneaky and stab him in the back. The saiyan's gaze never wavered as he threw the attacker away, the man's flying body meeting another one, thrown by Gai, with a dull thud, both men dropping onto their heads.
Kakashi feinted with his kunai, making the Suna-nin back up a half step. As soon as he did, Kakashi's other hand flicked into his kunai pouch and came out again with a second knife, which he threw right into the hollow of the Suna man's throat. He collapsed, suddenly boneless. "I want…"
"Kakashi-sempai!"
A cloaked ANBU appeared next to Kakashi. "Bad news!"
"What is it?"
"Sabaku no Gaara is missing."
Kakashi's bi-colored eyes widened. "What!? Where was his last known position?"
"Somewhere in the forest outside the village."
"If he gets a chance to unleash that then we're all done for."
"Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked. "What's all this about?"
The jounin turned to Naruto, looking grave. "I guess we just fight fire with fire. Naruto, I'm giving you a mission."
The blonde's face lit up. "Really?"
Kakashi nodded. "This mission is A-rank at least, which is far beyond the rank we had with Zabuza. Take Sakura, Shikamaru, Sasuke, and Gohan and track down Gaara." When Kakashi looked around for the Uchiha genin in question, Sasuke was nowhere to be found. "Dammit. Where is he?"
"Feels like he's heading for the forest," Gohan answered, just managing to find the prodigy's suppressed ki in the sea of chaotic clashes. Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Oh well. Scratch the first order. Naruto, take Sakura, Shikamaru, and Gohan and go back Sasuke up. Make sure to catch up to him before Sasuke reaches Gaara." His arm flashed, the kunai in his hand embedding itself in the eye socket of an enemy shinobi that was trying to ambush him. The man fell dead only feet from his target. "Naruto, about Gaara. Be careful. He's like you."
There must have been some hidden meaning in Kakashi's words, because Naruto's bright blue eyes went wide without Gohan really understanding why.
"He's…like…me?" Naruto repeated slowly. As Kakashi did a Kuchiyose to bring out Pakkun, his tracker dog, Naruto bowed his head, throwing his eyes into shadow.
"Naruto?" Gohan asked.
The blond didn't respond. "He's like me…" he murmured, not hearing his roommate. "Then…does that mean he's hated by everyone too?"
"What're you…"
The back of the arena blew out, Gai standing away from the hole he'd made.
"There's your exit!" He announced proudly. "Get going!"
And so the invasion begins! Sorry this took so long. I blame Burnout Paradise for most of it. That's one of the few racing games I acutally like. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter and remember, as always, to read and review!
Glossary
Fuuton: Fuuryusen (Wind Style: Wind Dragon Strike): Any readers of the Disappearance, one of my other stories, will recognize this. Hoever, unlike that version, this one is more like just a blast of air that lacerates the target when it hits something. Not very powerful with Temari's backup fans.
Fuuton: Kazekiri (Wind Style: Wind Edge): Another jutsu taken from the Disppearance, though instead of being a name of a sword, this one is actually a jutsu. A large blade of wind, much like Temari's usual jutsu, though a bit weaker. again, it would've been more powerful had Temari had access to her usual fan.
Fuuton: Kaze no Kizu (Wind Style: Cutting Wind): Taken from Inuyasha. Pretty much just a smaller version of Kazekiri, though more blades of wind means less chance of evasion.
Ninpou: Shishienjin (Ninja Art: Four Violet Flames Battle Encampment): Needs four users to define the area of the jutsu. Once activated whatever area has been defined is then enclosed in a huge purple box. Whatever touches the box bursts into violet flames, getting instantly immolated.
Uzumaki-ryu: Uzumaki Naruto Rendan (Uzumaki Style: Uzumaki Naruto Combo): Naruto's combo just with a different name. Face it, it's something he would do. ^_^