Hey! Finally I'm updating, its been over a month, right? Sorry for the extra long wait. I discovered the wonders of Harry Potter fanfiction and couldn't stop reading. Those plot bunnies for HP fiction were annoying as hell as well. Wasn't in any mood to write my story. For that I apologize and to make up for the wait this chapter is almost thrice longer than I intended (originally this chapter was meant to be 10k words).

To answer some reviews:

Opnbf: lol thanks. I think you're going to be extra happy about this chapter because it's extra long *laugh*

Root of Origin JRZTimeTravel: I'm glad to get a feedback on my OC. She will have a big role in the plot but Naruto is still the main hero and character. Alicia is just going to help him along the way. As for her name, I wanted something english. I mean, she's a unique character in the story with her own background so I wanted to give something unique, something different from the Narutoverse. Besides, it is just a name anyway and almost all japanese names sounds the same so I wanted something different. Well it's in my opinion anyway.

Manah Scarlet Shadowsong: high5. I think the same. I didn't like how I started the story but now I think it's getting better.

NinjaFang1331: I know, right. Something epic.

oneheart117: umm, I'm confused here. I don't know if I should be either sad or happy about your review... Well. thanks for the review ^_^

DivergenceMagic: wow. such a feedback. I didn't think I'll get such a long review ever. I'll try to answer all the point you mentioned. Firstly, there will be a wave arc though it will be much more different. And I think many won't like what I'm planning to do with it. Secondly, your comparison of Hunter and Asura path. Firstly, I agree that Hunter path is weaker than Asura path. Secondly, instead of durability and strength, Hunter path gives Naruto speed boost (I forgot to mention it so I'm doing it now. That's the reason why Naruto is so fast now). Thirdly, I don't really like the Asura path - shooting your own limbs which then regrows... No, I just don't like it. And you're right - now Hunter path seems weak and limited but as you said, there's more to that path that hasn't been stated or revealed yet. I'm aware that Hunter path is weak now and I'm going to make it equal in usefulness with Asura path. In this chapter there will be more Naruto's abilities revealed which seems useless and weak, but bare with me. If I'm creating something, then there's a good reason for it. About Deva path. Don't worry, I've thought about that too. Deva path is very limited to ST and BT. I'm going to expand the capabilities of Deva path. I already have some Deva abilities in mind (some of them are similar to what you suggested) which will be revealed in Wave mission (spoiler xD). About the pairings. Well, you'll have to wait and see. I have two possibilities in mind and I still haven't decided which I want. It depends on many things. As for the sub-elements. I agree, Naruto has very good chakra control and and he should be able to mix elements to get sub-elements. I'm not sure if I want to do to it because Naruto will be overpowered then (well, he is overpowered now as well but not that much xD). I don't want to make Naruto godlike. Well, not yet anyway *chuckle*

StormyTempest: I'm trying to make the story flow as fluently as I can (sequence of events) and I hope this chapter will be better than previous ones. Though I didn't get what you meant by 'limits on what people would do based from psychology'. Could you elaborate this please?

IMPORTANT! Now you can see the progress of the next chapter in my profile. Click on my profile and scroll down to the story section. There, under the name of the story, will be shown name of the next chapter, current word count and goal word count (goal word count can change though, like it did with this chapter *weak laugh*). There will also be small notes on the upcoming chapter (for example - 'sent to my beta')

Okay, enough ranting. On with the story! Finally.

Chapter 8

Siege

"Hm. So they're finished?"

*chirp*chirp*

"Tell them to meet me at the spot where we parted ways yesterday."

*chirp*

"Thanks, you can go."

And the small bird flew away.

It was already noon the next day and team 7 sat in the jounin room and discussed their plans for the day. All the present jounin were really confused about what just happened - some moments ago, a small bird with a red chest knocked on the window. Kakashi paid it no mind until Naruto asked to open the window. Curious, Kakashi did as he was asked. And it surprised the jounin when Naruto raised his hand and the bird sat on it and started to chirp. And it was even more surprising when Naruto answered back, in human language. Now that the bird was gone, Kakashi asked the question which was on both Kakashi's and Wahoki's jounin minds.

"Naruto, you can understand birds?"

Naruto looked at Kakashi and answered "Yes. And not only birds. I understand all animals."

Kakashi and Wahoki widened their eyes "How?"

"Remember what I told you about the Rinnegan paths?"

Kakashi nodded, though Wahoki now was even more confused. Rinnegan? What was he talking about?

"It's another of my paths. It's called Animal Path. Originally, Animal Path was used to summon various creatures and animals into battle. You could summon any kind of animal and your only restraint was imagination."

"Imagination?" Kakashi asked. "How does that work? To summon something you need a contract with-" he was interrupted.

"Rinnegan. There's still a lot of mystery about it and that's one of them. As long as you imagine some kind of animal, you could summon it. Unfortunately, I have a different ability. My Animal Path allows me to connect with nature - I can understand animals, I can even make them to do something for me. I can also connect with the earth itself and use it to scout in large distances. That's why I call it Nature path."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow "Connect with the earth?"

"Yeah. I don't know how to explain it... I put my hand on the ground, concentrate, and then I can feel some kind of pulse... some kind of stream going through the earth. This path allows me to use this stream to see - I can easily predict how many ninjas are behind the wall and how strong their chakra is. But that's it. Talking with animals and feeling my surroundings. Nothing that could help in battle though, maybe I'll discover new abilities later."

"Such an interesting ability. I suppose that's exactly what you did yesterday - went to the forest and forced animals to gather information."

"Kind of yeah, but I didn't force them, I asked them if they could do it for me."

"Right."

"Wait. You want to say that Naruto-san here has the legendary Rinnegan?" Wahoki exclaimed.

"Yeah." Sakura answered. Wahoki fainted.

"I think we've finished discussing our course of action and can get to work." Naruto said and everyone, except Wahoki, nodded. "Let's go then."

-Naruto-

Naruto was now in the forest, in the spot where he left the foxes yesterday. After some minutes of patient waiting, six foxes appeared.

"Naruto-sama!" they all yipped in unison.

"Hey. Was your mission successful?"

Yara, the leader of these six foxes, answered "Yes. But it was very hard. Some of us almost got caught."

"Report."

Yara nodded. "My and Yoru's task to draw a map of the base was successful. There were some dead ends or rooms where we couldn't get in, but judging from Kiri's and Muru's reports, they are not important. The base itself is not big. We marked all the important places Orochimaru spends his time on the map here." A quiet 'poof' was heard and a scroll appeared on Yara'a back which Naruto took and unrolled. "Kiri and Muru will explain the marks."

Naruto looked into the scroll and was impressed. The base consisted of of many corridors and rooms, almost like a maze. There were some green, yellow and red circles as well as purple lines with arrows at the end. Above the lines and circles were written some numbers.

Muru nodded and gave his report. "It was hard to track Orochimaru. We only needed just one night to understand that he is a very paranoid man - with every step we followed him, he would suddenly turn around and stare into corridor as if he felt that someone was watching him. Every time we would watch what he was doing, he would stop and stare in our direction, not directly at us though. Anyway, we succeeded in our mission. The green circles are the rooms where nothing important or interesting was happening and where he spends less time. The yellow circles are the rooms and places which are worth investigating, you might find something useful there because Orochimaru went into those rooms several times. Such rooms are actually a prison and storage rooms."

"A prison?"

"Yes, Naruto-sama. There are around 5 - 10 prisoners. Mostly women and men aged around 30 - 40 though there are also some kids. I don't know when he managed to get them, but most of them are broken and would never be the person they were. Now, the red circles are the most interesting. There are only three. One, his laboratory, two, a room where he holds his experiments and three, his bedroom. Each room has a lot of papers and documents scattered on the tables. The yellow circles, as you can see, are all located in base's east wall, while the red ones are at the west wall, except his bedroom, which is far to the north, at the end of the base. The green ones are basically very close to the entrance."

"A laboratory and a room where he holds his experiments. I expected that from Orochimaru..." Naruto thought, "I see. What about these purple lines and numbers?"

This time, Kiri answered. "Those are the routes he takes. The number above the circles is how much time he spends in a room while the numbers above the lines are how long it takes him to move to another room."

"You even managed to fix the time?" Naruto was awed at the work the foxes did.

"Of course. As you can see in the map, the lines starts from his bedroom. He goes around the base, as showed on the map, and after approximately 3 hours, he gets back into his bedroom where he spends an hour writing some stuff. Then, he goes for another route around the base. He did that 3 times yesterday and once today. I'm pretty sure that's the route he takes each day."

Naruto nodded "It makes sense. First, he checks on his prisoners and chooses who should be his next experiment, then he goes into the storage room and picks something up for it. After that, he goes into the laboratory and does those experiments after which he brings the poor guy, or a girl, into the room where he holds his successful or failed experiments. Then, he goes into his bedroom and makes notes - what went wrong, what went good and what could be improved. He comes up with something new and he goes for a new prisoner leading to another route. Did he leave his base at least once?"

"Yes. He left just before he went to sleep for some minutes. Varu and Baru can tell more."

"I see. Are there any other entrances or exits in the base? So far I see only one."

Yara lowered his head. "All bases should have a secret exit but we couldn't find any in this one. Sorry, Naruto-sama."

Naruto smiled and petted Yara's head. "That's quite alright. You did a great job." He then turned to the remaining two foxes, "Varu and Baru, what do you have?"

"All the ninjas in the area are there by force and they don't really like to be in presence of other ninja. They are there because of Orochimaru, and the nuke-nin are afraid of him so they won't leave." Varu said "They will attack tomorrow by 6 p.m. when the sun starts to go down. Half of the ninjas will attack the main gates while the other half will attack the rear. This way, they can get into the village faster and besiege it from both sides. By measuring their chakra, most of them are chunin level, while some are jounin level ninjas. Here is the scroll with all the details." Varu unsealed the scroll and gave it to Naruto.

"There's another thing though, Naruto-sama." Baru said. Naruto nodded and the fox continued, "While Varu scouted for information on the attack, I scouted for any other useful information from these ninja. Apparently, Orochimaru will test a new developed jutsu on the village. Some say it's a wide destruction jutsu, some say it's some kind of wide poison jutsu, while the others say he will summon something. Although these are only rumors, you can be certain - the snake man most probably is planning something. Here's the scroll with other trivial information which may be useful." the red fox unsealed his scroll and give it to Naruto. "Be careful, Naruto-sama!"

Naruto was awed. Just one day and these six small foxes managed to obtain so much information which may lead them to victory. Real scout foxes. "I don't even know what to say... Only one day and so much information."

Yara grinned "Say nothing. It's our job as scout foxes to scout for information. That's what we are best at."

Naruto smiled. "Thanks, guys. It's much appreciated. I will treat you to some BBQ once we return. Consider it as thanks from me."

All the foxes joyfully yipped. "BBQ! That's what we love the most about you, Naruto-sama! You always treat us!" Baru exclaimed.

Naruto laughed a bit. "I'm just kind to those I care about. Anyway, you can return."

The foxes said the last 'bye' and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Right, gonna head back to the village and report on the foxes's findings. But first..." Naruto muttered.

Naruto activated his Rinnegan and slammed his palm into the forest floor and quietly said, "River of Nature!" His surroundings turned black and the only thing he could see was how blue and green tendrils arose around him from the ground. Then, they started to stretch and Naruto could see everything as they flew by - small ants southeast from him, all the leaves and feathers on the ground, trees and bushes started to appear, and some birds on the trees. But it wasn't what he was looking for. After some moments, he finally found it. "That's it..." Naruto thought. "1... 5... 13... 18... 22... 23... 29... 32... 36...36 ninja around the base and judging by their chakra levels, some of them might be jounin level. So many of them... When did Orochimaru manage to bring them all here? Lets see if the snake is in its lair.Hmm, according to foxes' information,he should be in the prison room now."

He commanded some tendrils to go into the base. After some moments, they finally found what they were looking for. Orochimaru was in his base, not far from him were 6 persons - 2 men, 3 women and 1 boy around the age of 8. Orochimaru was standing in front of them and holding something in his hands. "I see. So he is still in his base and follows the route Kiri talked about. Gotta get back and tell everyone!"

And Naruto shut down the connection. Tendrils disappeared in green and blue mist and blackness reverted back to forest.

-Later-

It was almost evening and team 7, once again, sat in the jounin room. Naruto shared the maps, scrolls and information. Kakashi and Wahoki were surprised and awed. Animals could write and draw? Somehow, they started to doubt they were simple animals. Nevertheless, they now discussed how to invade Orochimaru's base.

"According to Naruto-san's information, we need to check these rooms: Storage room, laboratory, experiment storage room and Orochimaru's sleeping quarters." Wahoki said.

"What about the prison room?" Sakura asked "Naruto said there's still some people left there."

"We don't have time for that, they will only slow us down. We need to get in, find any useful information and get out as fast as possible."

Wahoki was right. They indeed didn't have time to save prisoners; it would only slow them down. Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura didn't like it, but they will have to deal with it.

"So what's the plan?" Sasuke asked.

"We will start in 6 p.m. According to Naruto's information it will be the time when Orochimaru is leaving his room and heading to the prison. I will somehow distract the ninjas around the base while all of you head into the base. Sasuke, you will go to the storage room and retrieve everything you deem worthy. Same for Naruto, who will go to the experiment storage room, Sakura will take care of the laboratory while Wahoki-san will head into Orochimaru's room." Kakashi answered. "Orochimaru will spend 10 minutes in the prison and 10 minutes walking from the prison to the storage room. The storage room is almost near the entrance, so Sasuke will have about 16 minutes to check the storage room and safely get out. It gives Sakura about 30 minutes, Naruto about 1 hour 20 minutes and Wahoki-san 1 hour 30 minutes. It should be plenty of time to check important rooms. Any questions?"

After some minutes of silence, Naruto spoke up. "I've got better plan, Kakashi."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Go on."

"Not all of us needs to come in." Naruto took the map and pointed at the prison room which is located at the far right corner of the base. "As you said, at 6p.m. Orochimaru will be here. Sakura and me will lay a heavy genjutsu on the ninjas around the base, allowing me and Wahoki-san to get in. We will immediately go here," Naruto pointed at the laboratory which is at the left base's wall. "We will have w35 minutes to search the laboratory, copy any information and get to the next room here." Now he pointed at the experiment storage room which is located at the far left corner of the base. "We then will have about 50 minutes. We can use these 50 minutes to search the room and get to the next one, Orochimaru's room, here." the blonde pointed at the room which is located at the far wall of the base. "There, we will have another 30 minutes. After that is done, we run past the prison and storage room directly to the entrance and safely leave without being noticed."

Naruto took a breath. "The difference between my and Kakashi's plan is time and danger possibility. What I mean is: Kakashi's plan is to spread out and search all the rooms at the same time, resulting in less time spent in the base but it also greatly increases the chances of encountering Orochimaru. It also puts Kakashi in danger because there are 36 ninjas outside. Not to mention that if Orochimaru finds out something happened outside, he can easily change his route, thus ruining Kakashi's plan. In my plan, only 2 persons head in and watches each other's backs while searching for information."

Another minute of silence, until Kakashi spoke "Wow. Such a well thought out plan in just a minute. But what is this copying you mentioned?"

Naruto smirked. "It's a seal I created. It's quite difficult too. I write a large and difficult seal on the scroll, that scroll can then can be put on any document, book or another scroll. The scroll then changes form to that of the book or document it's placed on, keeping all the writing and pictures in it. It's extremely hard to spot the difference between the original and copied thing. It's much better than to take the original because if Orochimaru sees that something is missing, he can take advantage of that. For example, an enemy wrote in his plans that he will attack from the west. He notices that someone has stolen that information so he decides to take advantage from that and attack from the East instead. Results - while everyone sits in the west waiting to ambush an enemy, said enemy flanks them from behind because there was no defense in the east. You get what I am saying right?"

"Yes." Sasuke said. "If Orochimaru still has all the documents and nothing is being stolen, then he will act as he planned, while at the same time we know what he is planning. Genius."

Wahoki and Kakashi widened their eyes - it's a perfect scouting tool. "H-How?"

Naruto sighed "Jeez, you're jounin already. You should have known that the possibilities of Fuuinjutsu are endless. Endless! There's a drawback though. It takes some time to create them and some time to copy everything. To copy one book which has around 20 pages we will need about 7 minutes. The more pages it has, the more time it will need. I've prepared 3 such scrolls prior leaving the village and will prepare 2 more now."

After some thinking, Kakashi decided to agree with Naruto's plan.

"We'll do then, how Naruto says. He has a lot better and safer plan than I had. There's still a problem, though. Orochimaru can easily sense our chakra if we head into the base."

Naruto smirked again "I've thought about that too. I'll be right back." Naruto stood up and left the room.

"I wonder what he has in mind." Sakura murmured.

After some minutes, Naruto finally returned with some pieces of paper in his hands. Naruto handed it out to everyone. They were the size of an explosive tag, with a kanji for 'Suppress C." on it. Both jounin realized what it is.

"Ingenious." Wahoki said. "Completely block our chakra and no one will notice. Maximum, what Orochimaru will feel is an insect."

"What will I need to do?" Sasuke asked. To tell you the truth, he felt a bit left out.

"When me and Sakura places the genjutsu, Sakura will go back to the village and help to prepare their defenses for an attack. You, Sasuke, will stay outside and observe the missing ninja. If there's a sign that they've noticed the genjutsu, or something happens that might endanger us, inform me by using this." Naruto gave another slip of paper to Sasuke "You know how it works."

Sasuke nodded.

"Okay, now on to the next matter. Tomorrow's attack." Kakashi said.

"Whoa, wait a minute. It's not my business so I'll go out get and some fresh air. See you later tonight then." Wahoki said and left the room.

"Right." Kakashi continued "So they will attack from two sides - from south, where the main gate is, and from north. Both sides will have 18 ninjas. Any ideas?"

"I've looked for good places to set some traps. Behind the back wall of the village, which is exactly north from the gates, are some piles of logs. We can set explosive tags on them and once the enemy ninjas walks by, they will explode, hurting anyone nearby. Also, the explosion will launch the logs into the air which will then fall on the ninja's heads. It should take a couple of ninjas out." Sasuke said.

Kakashi nodded "That's a good plan. I've thought of one as well for those who will come from the south. I will set some explosive tags on the bridge and once the ninjas set their feet on it, I'll detonate them, immediately killing some of them, the rest of them will fall in the water. While they are disoriented, I'll use Raiton jutsu and electrocute everyone in water, killing them. Then we will take out anyone who survived."

"I see. Kakashi, once you use Raiton on water, get out from there and leave the rest for Sakura and Sasuke." Naruto said.

"Why?" Kakashi asked.

"And what about you, Naruto?" Sakura added.

"Don't forget about Orochimaru, Kakashi. You have the keenest eye of all of us and it would be very good if you could quickly check the whole village and spot anything out of place. We don't even know what Orochimaru is planning, though maybe we will find out something tonight. After you're done with checking the village, assist any of us who needs help. As for me, I will take on the ninjas coming from the north. Before you object, remember - I'm a one man army with my Kage Bunshin."

"He has a point, Kakashi. Me and Sakura can deal with some survivors, and he is strong enough to take on some surviving chunin ninjas at once. It would really be good if you could check the village after everything starts. Besides, It would be a real practice for us in a real situation." Sasuke said.

Kakashi thought about it, considered the cons and pros. Yes, they still don't know what Orochimaru was planning and if he stayed with the genin, then they can get back-stabbed by anything Orochimaru is planning, but at the same time they can finish much faster and assist Naruto or deal with the Orochimaru problem. Besides, not all ninjas will get caught in the traps. On the other hand, if he leaves the genin, he can check the village for Orochimaru. If only he knew what that man is planning. He didn't have any choice.

"Once again, I'll agree with Naruto, then. He and Sasuke have good points. Listen, here's what we will do. Sasuke and Sakura will hide behind the wall, and once I execute my trap, both of you will jump in and kill everyone who survived. Meanwhile, I'll check the village and if nothing is spotted, I'll assist Naruto. Got it?"

"Hai." the three genin said.

"Oh and by the way, what about that Alicia girl?" Kakashi asked.

Sakura answered her sensei's question "Today when I was with Gaiko, I asked what Alicia will do. He said that she is on another scouting mission near Taki, but once she returns tomorrow, she will assist us to the best of her abilities. Gaiko said she will be back before the attack, so there still will be time to tell her of our plans."

"I see." the one eyed man said. "Now go and prepare for our actual mission, Wahoki-san will be in command. While you are in the base, I'll prepare the traps."

"Hai." the genin answered again, and left the room.

"It doesn't even feel like it's their first mission." Kakashi thought.

-Later-

-Not far from Orochimaru's base-

It was almost 6 p.m. and team 7 with Wahoki were standing in a clearing not far from the base. It was time to execute their plan.

"Sakura." Naruto whispered and Sakura nodded.

Both of them bit their thumbs and touched each other so the cut connects. Naruto then stood behind the girl and placed his hands on her shoulder blades. Naruto closed his eyes and concentrated.

"Now!" Naruto whispered.

Without giving any answer, Sakura rapidly started to do a long set of hand seals. Naruto still seemed to be in deep concentration. Wahoki wondered what are they were doing. After 3 minutes, Sakura finally stopped on a horse seal and whispered "Force of Unchanging Reality!" The air around them twisted a bit before returning to normal. Sakura sighed "It's done. We did this jutsu only 3 times and it still requires so much time and strength to perform."

"What did you do?" Wahoki asked.

"Naruto's genjutsu is basically non-existent, despite his very good chakra control, must be something to do with Kyuubi. While my genjutsu is excellent, my chakra is not strong enough to make strong, long, wide area genjutsu. So we found a compromise." Sakura explained "Basically, Naruto gives me some of his demonic chakra through the blood. I absolutely can't control demonic chakra so he helped me to control it while I morph it into demonic genjutsu chakra. That's why I did so many hand seals."

Wahoki raised an eyebrow "Is it possible to transfer demonic chakra to someone?"

"Well, we did some research and found out that no, it's not possible. Though there are exceptions such as Ginkaku and Kinkaku, the gold and silver brothers who absorbed Kyuubi's chakra by eating its meat. Me and Naruto assume that it has something to do with my Chishioton, seeing as Naruto can give me some of the demonic chakra through the blood. And for some reason it's not as harmful as everyone thinks, though its impossible for me to control, hence why Naruto helps." Sakura said.

Wahoki nodded, it made some sense after all. "What was that genjutsu?"

"Force of Unchanging Reality is a genjutsu me and Naruto developed. It is applied to an area and its users. I don't know how to explain what effect it has, but basically we're not here. Enemy ninjas won't see us and hear us, though they can still feel our chakra signatures if we are close enough so we need to use these chakra suppression tags. If we will interact with the surrounding world, like picking something up, it will look like it's rising on its own, though it will reduce the time of the genjutsu. Enemies won't see what we are doing, so this genjutsu is good for spying, assassination, getting past guards." Sakura explained.

"Quite a genjutsu. But why did you use demonic chakra instead of normal? It shouldn't take THAT much chakra to cast the genjutsu." Wahoki asked.

Naruto answered this time. "Because this genjutsu was supposed to be cast on a small area and on one or two enemy ninjas. And it is cast much, much faster. In this case, we're talking about 36 chuunin and maybe higher level ninjas and a huge area of effect. Sakura's chakra is not that strong yet."

"I think we wasted enough time explaining your jutsu." Sasuke said. "How much time 'till the genjutsu wears off?"

"Right. Actually, we used more chakra than usual so you have 2 hours to safely get in and out." Sakura said.

All three of them nodded and attached the chakra suppression tags to their chests. They felt how their power is drained.

"Man, I feel weak." Naruto commented. He also couldn't feel the connection to Kyuubi, which he always felt. Shaking these thought aside, he said, "Let's go, Wahoki-san."

The man nodded and both of them went towards the base's direction.

"Well, Sasuke, I gonna go back to the village and help Kakashi-sensei with the traps." Sakura said and went back to the village.

"Why do you continue to call him sensei?" Sasuke muttered. "I've got the most boring task. Again." he thought. After a bit of thinking, he added "Well, at least their safety depends on it. Yes, it's important as well." Sasuke consoled himself and sat in the bushes, observing the nuke-nin camp. He sighed and waited.

-With Wahoki and Naruto-

They got into the base without any problems. It was funny to see that the missing ninjas didn't even notice them. Anyway, they were in the base, not far from the entrance and in front of them were three ways - one in front of them, on to the right and one to the left.

"Thank Kami we have a map. And thank Kami all the rooms we need are connected with one corridor. I wanna get out of here as fast as possible." Wahoki said.

"Yeah. This place is creepy." Naruto replied. "We need to turn right to get to the laboratory. Orochimaru should be in the prison room now, at the other end of the base."

And the place was creepy indeed. Dim light, long corridors with strange wave like patterns drawn on the walls, insects crawling on the ground and a dripping sound could be heard somewhere ahead.

After 7 minutes of fast walking, the duo finally reached the laboratory's room.

"It smells strange here." Naruto commented. The door was just like the walls but with a door handle on it. Naruto opened the door as quietly as he could and both he and Wahoki entered.

There were two tables at the centre of the room, those kind of laboratory tables which horror movies have in the villain's base. There was also a large lamp on the ceiling which illuminated the dark room. Naruto saw some blood around those tables. Creepy. There were also some half empty bookcases along the walls and a large table at the end of the room. There were some opened books, test tubes and some kind of large construct used in alchemy on the table. That construct had green and brown bubbling liquid in some of the bottles; there was also a small fire under one, tall bottle, filled with purple liquid.

"I guess Orochimaru used that to mix something together." Naruto thought.

"I'll check the table over there," Wahoki pointed at table Naruto was just observing "See if you can find something interesting around here."

"Hai."

Naruto went over to the bookcase and examined the books. Some of them were: 'History of Shinobi World', 'Alchemy for Experts', 'Human body' etc. Most of the books present were about science. Most of them looked old and tattered, though there was one book which looked quite new and judging by its name it didn't belong to this section of science. Hell, Naruto thought those kind of books should be banned from production at all.

"Snakes. Snakes are truly outrageous. They are truly, truly, TRULY outrageous." Naruto read "What the fuck? Orochi-pedo has fetish for snakes? Though it wouldn't be surprising."

Naruto got curious and took the book out to see what is this book about. Just when he got out the book from the shelf, he heard a weak 'click' sound.

"Psst, Naruto-san." Wahoki said, trying not to shout. Naruto placed the book back and went to Wahoki to see what did he want. "What did you just do?" Wahoki asked as Naruto came closer.

"I just took this one weird book about outrageous snakes from the shelf. Why are you asking?"

Wahoki weirdly looked at Naruto and replied "You just opened a secret shelf under the table."

"So that's what this 'click' was..." Naruto thought. "Something interesting in it?"

"Let's see..." Wahoki said and opened the shelf and saw that there's only one book in it. It looked more like a journal or diary than a book. Next to the book there was a small test tube with... something in it. Wahoki took the the journal and opened it at the last entry and read.

"... a complete failure. Though I think one of them survived. Nevertheless, I decided to continue these experiments and see where they will take me. For that I will need Shodaime's DNA cells which I can get only from Konoha. Luckily some weeks ago, some agents of Danzo, an old war hawk from Konoha, approached me with an interesting offer: Danzo will supply me with Shodaime's and Nidaime's DNA as well as some sharingan eyes and information on Konoha; in return he asked me to implant Shodaime's cells into his right arm to heal it and boost his energy and then implant some sharingan eyes, which he collected from the Uchiha massacre, into the right hand (if Shodaime's implant will be successful). It is a risky offer and experiment, but I need those cells and eyes! So I decided to agree. He already sent me the information, cells and some eyes. I will the keep eyes and cells at my other base where Kabuto now is. We will meet in private when the chuunin exams starts to implant Shodaime's cells in Danzo. I will do the experiments with simple people until then to boost the success rate. Maybe Danzo will be a useful ally for some time until..."

Both ninjas were shocked from what Wahoki just read. "Naruto-san. Copy this journal."

"Hai." Naruto said and got the appropriate scroll from his backpack. He then placed the scroll on the journal, bit his thumb and smeared some blood on the seal. Wahoki wanted to ask but Naruto answered, already knowing the question "Don't ask. I can't use my chakra here so I had to find another way to activate the seal. In this case, blood. Judging from the thickness of the journal, the scroll will need about 12 minutes."

Wahoki nodded. He then looked at the secret shelf again. "A test tube... Could it be?" Wahoki wondered and took the tube and placed it in his supply pouch which was attached to his waist. "I'll show it to Hokage-sama!" "Now what should we do in the meantime?"

"I dunno." Naruto truthfully answered. "Let's see what else we can find here."

And so they searched the room for 12 more minutes and found nothing interesting except one ninjutsu scroll which Naruto copied using his Rinnegan. The jutsu involved creating snakes from chakra and launching them at enemy. It looked like the snakes are being summoned from the sleeve; the name of this jutsu is 'Sen'eijashu'. Naruto didn't like snakes, but he thought maybe instead of snakes he could create something else... for example foxes flying out from his sleeve or something else. It would look badass.

"It's done, Wahoki-san. Let's leave this room and head on to the next one."

They collected the copied journal, put the original one back into the secret shelf and closed it before they left the room and headed on to the next one.

-With Sakura-

"Ahh... it's finally done." Sakura sighed as she sat on the bench near a flower shop and relaxed.

When Sakura returned back to the village, Kakashi had done half the work already, and together they finished placing traps much quicker and now Sakura was enjoying her free time. She didn't even know what to do. Sasuke, Naruto and Wahoki were on the mission, Kakashi most probably in his room, reading his smut and doing hell knows what. Maybe she could train a bit to get ready for tomorrow?

Sakura stood up and went to the village's gates, planning to train outside the village. That was until she felt someone was following her.

"It's definitely a ninja and this chakra... It feels so peaceful. Who might that be?" the girl thought. She didn't show any panic and continued to go to the village's gates at a normal pace. After a moment, she quickly hid behind the corner of one house and did some hand seals. "Cloak!" she whispered.

Instead of following Sakura behind the corner, the pursuer got on the roof and jumped down to the dark alley where Sakura was hiding. The pursuer got behind the girl, who was still near the corner, and put a kunai to Sakura's neck. The pursuer felt something was wrong, but it was too late already: the pursuer felt a pressure on his neck. He realized it was a kunai.

"Who are you and what did you want from me?" Sakura hissed. It was already pretty dark outside and shadows from the surrounding houses blocked the light. Sakura didn't see both the face of her pursuer and what he was dressed in.

The pursuer smirked and dissolved into a swirl of feathers, after which Sakura felt a kunai on her neck. The game of cat and mouse continues.

"Wait. Feathers?" Sakura thought.

The pursuer was ready to say something when suddenly he felt a kunai on his neck. Again. Then the Sakura in front of him poofed out of existence. "Kage Bunshin! This girl is not weak like I thought."

"*chuckle* Fine, fine. You got me, Sakura." the pursuer said. It was actually a girl. A young girl. "You can take your kunai off me."

Sakura narrowed her eyes "A girl? Feathers? Is it that Alicia girl? Damn, it's too dark here to see her clothes. Gotta be sure." she thought and said "Not so fast. I'll repeat: who are you and what did you want?"

The girl sighed. "I'm Alicia Tsukiko, just Alice for friends. Gaiko told me about you and your friends here. Just wanted to get acquainted with you. When I heard that one Sakura Haruno has a pink hair I thought she's a damn fan girl and can't do shit, so I decided to test you. Man, these fan girls are so annoying. Satisfied? Or do you want to look at my back some more?" Alicia said with a smirk.

"I can't see anything here anyway." Sakura muttered and removed the kunai.

"Jeez, you know Kage Bunshin and don't know that you can send chakra to your eyes." Alicia replied.

"Oh. I knew that, just forgot to actually do it." Sakura sheepishly said.

"Yeah, right." Alicia said with another smirk.

"But I really knew it..."

"So. Let's go and take a walk around the village, talk about things, get to know each other better. Or do you prefer to stay here in this dark, secluded arch? You know, I might scream." Alice said.

"What's with that attitude? Reminds me of Naruto some years ago." Sakura thought. "No, let's take a walk. Let's go outside the village and I'll show you the traps and tell you about our plan."

"Traps? Plan?" Alicia asked.

"Didn't Gaiko tell you about us?"

"Well, he said that there are a few ninjas in this village, described how you look and that's it."

Sakura sighed as they left the arch and went towards the gate's direction. She asked "He has memory problems or what?"

She finally could see what Alicia was dressed in - high leather boots, a black lace skirt which reached her knees and was held in place with a blue belt, beautiful sky blue blouse, and black crossed laces around the arms. (A/N: similar to Yuna's songstress costume, except for the drape thingy, blue thingies around the arm, that tail behind and the skirt is longer. Search in google to see what I am talking about.)

"To tell you the truth, yes. That old man has memory problems. Very often he forgets to give some details or forgets to say something at all." Alicia explained "So what about this plan and traps?"

"We... well Naruto, my other teammate-"

"Naruto?" Alicia thought. "Is it really him?"

"-decided to stay here and help you in the upcoming attack. We are his good friends and teammates so we agreed to stay and help as well. Besides that, me and my other team-mate, Sasuke, as well as Naruto just couldn't leave this village without even trying to help. What kind of ninjas would we be? Ninjas should protect people." Sakura said. "Anyway, the traps and the plan. Me and our sensei, Kakashi-"

-Back with Naruto and Wahoki-

Both Konoha ninjas in the base were near Orochimaru's private room. They found nothing interesting in the room where experiments were held. When both of them entered that room, they got sick. Naruto felt pity for poor human souls and bodies which were abused in the experiments.

-Flashback 10 minutes ago-

Naruto and Wahoki finally entered the room and the sight horrified them. The room consisted of 5 cells and in each cell was a minimum of one person, if that could be called a person now.

Both women and men laid in their cells, staring at the ceiling with emotionless facial expressions, but with great pain and sadness in their eyes, their bodies mutilated and abused. Instead of left or right arms, they had vines with leaves, instead of a left or right leg they had a trunk, instead of a right or left ear they had a bush growing out.

"That's horrible." Naruto muttered.

"Indeed." Wahoki replied. "Never in my my life have I seen something like this. Let's search this room as fast as possible and leave."

"Yeah... When did Orochimaru manage to do so many experiments anyway?"

-Flashback end-

"Damn!" Wahoki said. "It's locked."

"Somehow I'm not surprised." Naruto said. "What are we going to do? There must be very important things in the room, if Orochimaru locked it up."

"I think I have some lockpicks..." Wahoki said as he searched for lock picks in his supply pouch. The man smiled "Yup, here they are. Now lets' see what can I do here. Cover my back."

Naruto nodded and stood behind Wahoki, who crouched and tried to pick the lock. Naruto looked left and right, trying to notice any movement or sound. After some moments, Naruto felt his wrist heating up. "Must be Sasuke." Naruto thought and got out a slip of paper from his pocket.

-With Sasuke-

Sasuke was still sitting in the bushes and observing the camp. He didn't take his eyes off them even once and some might say he didn't even blink since Naruto and Wahoki went in. And good thing he didn't, because he saw something suspicious.

"Wait. What are these two doing?" Sasuke thought when he saw two nuke-nin heading to the base's entrance. "They are going in! Need to inform Naruto."

Sasuke got out a brush and a slip of paper which Naruto gave only to him. Sasuke wrote on it

"Naruto! Two nuke-nin just went into the base-"

-Naruto and Wahoki-

"-in slow pace. They didn't say anything, so I don't know their intentions. Be cautious and get out quickly before someone finds both of you!" Naruto read and then thought "Shit!"

That was also the moment when he heard distant steps coming from his right, the direction of experiment cell room. Realizing who it was, and it wasn't those two ninjas because they couldn't get so far so quickly in slow pace, Naruto panicked "Shit! Fuck!" Naruto's thoughts colorfully explained the situation they were in.

"Wahoki-san, stop immediately. We have a problem." Naruto whispered.

Seeing Naruto's face, the man stopped and whispered back "What is it?"

"Listen. Can you hear it? Can you hear the steps from the direction of that experiment cell room?"

Wahoki hold his breath and concentrated on that spot. His eyes widened "Shit!" he hissed. "It's Orochimaru, right?"

Naruto nodded. "That's not the only problem."

"What else?"

"Sasuke said that two ninjas went into the base in slow pace, intentions unknown."

"Oh Kami. What are we going to do? If someone finds us then they can entirely change plans for tomorrow."

"Why should you care about tomorrow?"

"Listen, Naruto-san. I care for these people and want to help, but I'm tired of this. Tired of bloodshed. I just want to get back to Konoha and get some months of rest. But I really care for these people and I pray for your success."

Naruto nodded. So Kakashi was right about Wahoki. "I see. Orochimaru is heading from the right so let's hide behind that corner." Naruto pointed to the left "Hopefully Orochimaru won't go that far."

"Yeah, he is going to stop midway, turn around and go back. Sure." Wahoki said, but nevertheless they quietly ran to the left, trying to reach the corner before Orochimaru saw them in the dim light. They didn't have any other option anyway. They hid behind the corner and held their breaths to sound more quiet. They even tried to calm their heartbeats.

Both of them heard how the steps came closer and closer, almost as if he is going to turn around the corner any second now. They already saw the man's shadow coming in view, when suddenly, the man stopped.

"Damn those idiots. I told them not to enter." Orochimaru frowned. "Ku ku ku, it's their own fault for becoming my new experimental pets. Just need to take some things from my room." and the man turned around and went back from where he came. On Orochimaru's way back, Naruto and Wahoki heard a sound when someone is opening a door using keys. They assumed that Orochimaru went into the room. After some moments, they heard the door shutting, though they didn't hear Orochimaru locking it.

"This is great luck!" both Naruto and Wahoki thought. They sat behind the corner for 5 more minutes until the sound of Orochimaru's steps completely disappeared. Both Konoha ninjas let out the breath they held in for so long.

"This is good luck!" Wahoki quietly exclaimed and got out from the corner and went back to the doors.

"Yeah..." Naruto sighed as he followed Wahoki. He was all sweaty from the stress. "He even left the door open!"

"I wonder why he felt those ninjas but didn't feel us. Although chakra suppression tags blocks the use and flow of our chakra, sensors still should be able to sense us."

"I modified the seal a bit. This tag does not 'suppress' our chakra, it completely removes it. I know that a human dies if he runs out of chakra, but this seal literally removes the chakra from our system so we're mere insects to Orochimaru's sensors at the entrance. However, if we take the tags away, our chakra will completely return to us only after 10 or 15 minutes."

"I see. Anyway, stay outside the room in case Orochimaru returns." Wahoki whispered. "And give me the remaining scrolls please. How much are left?"

"4 of them."

"Okay. Warn me if someone comes."

"Hai." Naruto whispered back.

-With Sakura and Alicia-

"...and so that's the plan." Sakura finished her explanation as she and Alicia got closer to the gates. Sakura managed to show Alicia all the key places and traps they set up and explain what were they planning in such a short time, and now they were heading back to the village.

"Wow." Alice said. "Looks like you planned everything through."

"Yeah. Mostly Naruto thinks of a plan and Kakashi-sensei just adds something to it." Sakura said.

"You think this Naruto can take so many ninjas, which are chunin and higher, alone?" Alicia asked.

"I don't want to doubt him and I won't. I'm pretty sure he can. He is very strong, intelligent, his chakra reserves are monstrous and he can think of a deadly plan in just mere seconds. Sometimes I even think he took lessons from the Nara clan. He is the pure embodiment of the word 'genius'. In my opinion, anyway." Sakura truthfully answered. She really thought so but she didn't say it to Naruto.

"He must be pretty strong then... and hot!" Alicia giggled "Do you have the hots for him?"

"Huh?"

"You know... do you have crush on him?"

"What? No! I like the other guy on my team." Sakura answered. She didn't even know why she was saying such things to an almost complete stranger. It must be something about Alicia's aura, Sakura thought, so calm and friendly, so peaceful. Almost like Naruto has.

"You mean Sasuke?" Alicia asked and got a nod from Sakura. "Well, tell me at least if Naruto is hot or not!" she insisted.

Sakura blushed a bit. Only for a bit "Well, yeah. Both Naruto and Sasuke are hot. I mean... Sasuke is more hot than Naruto though sometimes Naruto looks more hot than Sasuke... especially with his new hairstyle. Oh Kami I'm so confused now! I still like Sasuke though!"

Alicia laughed. "Sure. Don't be surprised when all three of you find yourselves in one bed though. Naked."

Sakura heavily blushed at that statement. Naughty images of Naruto and Sasuke doing naughty things with her sprung into her head. She almost got a nosebleed, but being a girl, she controlled these kind of hormones. "S-Shut up! Let's change the topic!"

Alicia laughed even more at that. "Fine. What do you want to talk about?"

Getting back her composure, Sakura asked, "Where's your feather dress? I thought you always walk in it."

Alicia chuckled "Well, I'm a girl, right? I need to change my attire sometimes. I use that feather dress only when accepting missions or when on a mission or in battle. I use this dress on normal occasions, such as now."

"Oh, I see. Makes sense actually. I actually wanted to ask why did you return? Gaiko said you're on another scouting mission and will back tomorrow."

"I got there much faster than Gaiko expected. Used my bloodline for fast travel." Alicia explained.

"You flew?"

"I have materialized only one wing and can't properly fly yet. I can easily jump very high into the sky and glide in the air, meaning once I'm in the air, I can use my one wing to slowly descend and choose the direction where I want to descend. I can't fly higher or float in one place, I can't do complex maneuvers in the air. Yet." Alicia explained.

"Wow, it's still quite a bloodline to allow the materialization of physical wings. And what do you mean by 'yet'?" Sakura asked.

"I'm not going to tell it to you now." Alicia replied and Sakura felt a bit hurt because Alice still didn't trust her. Though it wasn't the case. "I'm too lazy, you know. I'll tell everything about my bloodline and abilities when all your team is present. Don't want to repeat myself more than once."

"Oh, okay." Sakura said as both girls finally approached the gates.

"Oh, hello Alicia-sama, Sakura-san." said the guard in blue armor. He was the only guard there today. "How was your walk around the village?"

"It was good, thank you." Alicia answered in a respectful tone.

"Wow. How quickly she can change personalities." Sakura thought. "Some moments ago she was like a normal 14 year old girl, making jokes, discussing guys and stuff like that, but now she's like a real lady. Her voice almost demands respect. Is that why the guard said -sama?" Sakura then remembered something "Sometimes Naruto has the same voice when he talks to some ninja. Wait. How did this guard know my name? WAIT! Why -san?!"

"PEDO! HE SPIED ON US! SHANNARO!" shouted Inner Sakura.

Sakura was horrified. Until she remembered that Wahoki introduced them and -san suffix was most probably because she was a ninja.

"Tch. I wanted you to beat him to a bloody pulp... Bad luck today." Inner Sakura pouted.

"Are you alright, Sakura?" Alicia asked. "You look a bit pale."

"Y-Yeah, I'm alright." Sakura said.

"Go in girls, I'm going to close the gates for the night." Guard said.

"Wait!" Sakura shouted.

"What is it, Sakura-san?"

"There are Wahoki-san, Sasuke and Naruto in the forest doing their mission. They should be back in two hours time, don't close the gate, please."

"Yeah." Alicia added. "If you close the gates they might need to sleep on the ground, that way they will not get enough rest and won't be that effective tomorrow during an attack, resulting in dead civilians and a lost village." "Well they could always walk past the wall using tree walking..."

The guard looked horrified and quickly answered "O-Okay, I'll wait for them."

"Thanks." Sakura thanked the guard and went into the village with Alicia.

"So, have you heard the latest fashion-" and the girls resumed their girl talk.

-Naruto and Wahoki-

"Are you done yet?" Naruto asked.

It was almost 30 minutes since Wahoki entered the room and the man still hadn't left it.

"Almost. I still need to use 1 copying scroll and I can't decide what to copy. There's so much information here." Wahoki whispered out from the room. Indeed there was a lot of interesting journals, entries, scrolls and books which were worth copying. Wahoki couldn't decide which one from all of them to copy. "Wait, I think I found something!"

After a minute of silence, Wahoki exclaimed, almost shouted, "Oh Kami! This definitely needs to be copied!"

"What is it?"

"No time to explain but it involves invasion of Konoha."

Naruto raised an eyebrow "Who is mad and stupid enough to invade Konoha?" he thought.

"There's also some information on Sasuke-san."

Now this got Naruto's attention. "What?"

"It says that Orochimaru's spy, Kabuto, spied on Sasuke-san for some reasons. It says that Sasuke-san has no anger or hatred towards the village or his brother and that he is completely loyal to Konoha. It also says that Sasuke-san spends a lot of time with a blonde boy and pink haired girl and that it would be useless to try to convince Sasuke-san to betray Konoha. There might even be information on you and Sakura-san, it's in the same journal as the information on invasion."

Wahoki placed the last copying scroll on the journal and smeared some blood on it, starting the process.

"Should be around 10 - 12 minutes." Naruto whispered, still shocked.

"Right. Let's wait."

-Sakura and Alicia-

"And that's it." Alicia finished.

"Wow. Each country has their own fashion style..."

"Yeah. You learn a lot in your travels." Alicia then looked up into the sky. It was pretty late now. "Thanks for spending some time with me. I found another friend." Alice smiled. "It's pretty late so I think we should go to sleep now."

"Yeah... Just one more question for you, Alice."

"Hm?"

"This might be strange, but Naruto says that he sometimes sees someone like you in his dreams. Those dreams are rare, he says, but they feel real. He says that he feels how he is being watched from somewhere above. Later he sees a girl, with deep brown eyes, a beautiful face and long, white hair, who watches his last moments and shouts at him. It's strange how you look exactly like Naruto described. Do you know something about it?"

Alicia's eyes widened. "It can't be!"

"Are you alright? I hope I didn't ask something very private."

"Sakura! This guy, Naruto. Is he blonde and has whisker marks?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Oh Kami! You see, I sometimes see a strange dream as well. In my dream, I'm observing a young boy, with short, golden hair and whisker marks. He is about four in the beginning. In my dream, I'm floating above a large village. I see how this boy is abused, how he is hated. I also see his strange shadow - as if nine tendrils or tails are coming out from it. Later, when he gets much older, I see how he faces a giant monster alone. He looks at me. He has strange, ripple pattern eyes and nine tails behind him. I shout for him to run, to hide but he doesn't hear me. Then, he dies from this red eyed monster in a huge, black fire. No one is around to even help him."

Sakura was speechless. It was exactly how Naruto described this dream. She asked "When was the last time you saw this dream?"

"2 years ago, at the end of October I think."

Sakura widened her eyes. Is it even possible? Could it be just coincidence? "Naruto saw the same dream, 2 years ago at the end of October as well. Could it be just a coincidence?"

Now Alicia was shocked. It couldn't be just a coincidence. It must be him. "Is this the boy I've been looking for my entire life? Is this the boy I have to help? Is this the boy the Goddess tried to tell me about?" she muttered, but Sakura heard it.

"What are you talking about?"

"S-Sorry. I have to go. See you t-tomorrow." Alicia quickly said and ran away.

"Strange. We live in mystical age indeed." Sakura muttered and went back to the inn where she was staying.

-Naruto and Wahoki-

"Is it done yet?" Naruto impatiently asked.

"Yes, almost. Just some minutes more." Wahoki replied.

Naruto then saw a small mouse coming his way. "This might be bad news..." Naruto muttered and crouched, awaiting when the mouse will come closer.

The mouse finally came closer and squeaked, though Naruto understood it. "Snake man is coming in this direction. He is walking at a slow pace. He said something about 'Forgot to take a tool for livers' and 'Forgot to lock the door'."

"Thanks. You can go." Naruto said as he shivered at he thought of what Orochimaru could do with them. "Ugh, livers..." "Wahoki-san, we have a problem. Orochimaru is coming this way." he said as the mouse ran way.

"Let him come. We're finished anyway. Let's skip the storage room and head straight to the exit."

Naruto nodded "What about prisoners?"

"I told you before - unfortunately we can't rescue them. They might blow our cover."

Naruto nodded again. He understood him perfectly, though he really didn't want to left them behind. Looks like this is one of those situations when there's nothing Naruto could do.

Wahoki finally left the room and closed the door. Both of them heard distant steps coming from the way Orochimaru left.

Wahoki signaled and both of them ran in the opposite direction, towards the exit, past the prison and storage room. Wahoki had 2 books in his left arm and 1 in his right, while Naruto had 1 in each hand.

The mission was a success.

-After 2 hours-

Naruto, Sasuke and Wahoki finally returned to the village. They were a bit surprised that the gates were still open and the guard explained that Sakura and Alicia asked for it. The trio nodded and made note in the back of their heads to thank the girls. The trio were quite dirty - Sasuke had dirt and leaves on his clothes, while Naruto and Wahoki had some spider webs and dust on their clothes and faces. They returned to the inn and entered the jounin room, where Kakashi and Sakura were already waiting for them.

"Yo." Kakashi greeted in his usually lazy tone. "So how was it?"

"Why are you still up? It's pretty late now." Sasuke asked.

"We decided to wait for you." Sakura answered and the raven haired boy nodded.

"So how was it?" Kakashi asked again.

"It was okay..." Naruto answered.

"Okay? We are the luckiest ninjas ever - we got into Orochimaru's base undetected while the man was in it, we retrieved important information and safely got out. That's not all... we almost got caught and lady luck saved us again!" Wahoki exclaimed.

"Tell us the details." Sakura pleaded.

"So we entered the base and faced three, scary passage ways. We were brave though and-" Naruto started off.

-After 10 minutes-

"Then we left the base through the entrance, met Sasuke-san and hurried back to the village." Wahoki finished.

"They were quite lucky. Again. Because of the genjutsu, which Naruto and Sakura applied, dispersed in 4 minutes after they got out."

"I see. It's a shame I couldn't participate in this 'adventure'." Kakashi lazily answered.

Both Sasuke and Naruto rolled their eyes "As if."

Kakashi hung his head. "My little cute genins don't believe me..."

"Anyway, did you set everything up for tomorrow?" Sasuke asked.

"Yeah." Sakura answered. "Everything's alright."

"I confirm. Both of us set all the traps which are ready for use. The gates will be shut tomorrow and all the villagers will be evacuated to the center of the village. We emptied some big shops there so people might hide. Then we wait." Kakashi added.

"And we also sent a message to the Hokage-sama informing him of our situation. I hope he won't be mad at us." Sakura said.

Naruto sighed "I see. I hope we will survive tomorrow."

Sakura them remembered something "Oh, right. Alicia returned to village."

This got Kakashi's attention "What? How do you know?"

"We actually met and spent about 1 or 2 hours talking, getting to know each other better. You can say we're friends now. She returned much faster than Gaiko thought. I already told her about the traps and plan, though I didn't say what she has to do tomorrow."

"I see. Well, I'll find her tomorrow and tell her what part she has in this raid. Now I think is time to go to bed. We need rest for tomorrow." Kakashi said.

"There's something else I wanted to say. It might be interesting, especially to you, Naruto."

Naruto got curious "Hm? What is it, Sakura?"

"I told Alicia about your dreams and that you think she is that girl. Guess what she said."

Naruto widened his eyes a bit "You told her what? Why did you tell that in the first place?"

Sakura felt a bit guilty "S-Sorry, Naruto. It's just that she really looked like the girl you described so I asked. Maybe that was just coincidence."

"And what did she say? Did she freak out?"

"No, quite the opposite. She was shocked, because she saw the same dream."

Now this got everyone's attention.

"The same dream?" Sasuke asked.

"Yeah. She is floating above the village, observing a young boy. This boy has short, blonde hair, three whisker marks on each cheek, and his shadow has 9 tendril like appendages which look like tails. Later, the same boy faces a giant red eyed monster. The boy looks at her and he has ripple pattern eyes. Your Rinnegan, Naruto. Alicia shouts, trying to reach you, saying to run or hide but you don't hear her. Then you die in black flames and no one is around to even help you."

Naruto was shocked "T-That's-"

"Your dream, right?" Sasuke finished.

Naruto nodded. "Just from another point of view. Did she say something else?"

"She then muttered something about 'is this the boy I have to help' or 'is this the boy the Goddess tried to show me'. Something along those lines. Do you know what Goddess she was talking about?"

"I'm not sure. But every time I see this dream, I feel like something attracts me to her, like I need to find her or something."

"Now this is getting quite mysterious." Kakashi said.

"Yeah." Wahoki added "A boy and a girl, who have never seen each other in life, see each other in one dream. Something unearthly attracts them and no one knows what exactly it is or the reason for it. Boy gets a mission and the girl suddenly pops up in the village where the boy has a mission. It can't be just a coincidence."

Awkward silence. Only the birds' chirping was heard outside the window.

"You know, guys, I'm gonna take a shower and go to sleep. I'll worry about it later. Maybe Alicia knows something." Naruto said "Goodnight." and he left the room.

Sakura and Sasuke nodded, said goodnight and left the room as well.

"I've got the feeling things will get interesting tomorrow." Kakashi said.

"Yeah." Wahoki replied "Anyway, I'll go to bed as well and I'll leave tomorrow once I wake up."

Kakashi nodded and both of them went to sleep.

"This indeed will get interesting." was Kakashi's last thought.

-Next morning-

The morning was a bit cooler than previous ones, but still pleasant: the sun was shining and birds were singing beautiful songs to team 7. Well, Naruto enjoyed it the most because he actually understood what the birds were singing. Even nature had a feeling about the upcoming battle, because birds were singing about brave warriors and innocent civilians, about evil monsters and dark armies. Sometimes Naruto wondered how the birds knows these songs in the first place. Do they get the lyrics from instinct or is there a Mother Nature who teaches music?

Team 7 also noticed the absence of Wahoki. Sakura wondered when he managed to leave. Kakashi said that he left early in the morning to get back to Konoha faster.

Team 7 and Kakashi had just left the inn and they didn't have any idea what to do until the raid.

"Hey, guys!" someone shouted from afar.

Everyone looked in the direction the voice came from and saw a girl in a black skirt and blue blouse running towards them.

"It's Alicia." Sakura said. Naruto tensed and everyone noticed that.

The girl finally stopped in front of them and panted slightly.

"Jeez. I was running for 10 minutes around the village, trying to find you. Then I remembered that you were staying in the inn." She said and finally looked at the group. "Yo, I'm Alicia Tsukiko. Nice to meet you."

Her gaze finally met Naruto's. Alicia and Naruto widened their eyes.

"You really are the boy/girl from my dreams!" They both muttered in unison.

Suddenly, the wind started to blow stronger, picking up dust and everyone's hair; a small force pushed Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi a bit away from Alicia and Naruto who stayed still, looking into each other's eyes. Naruto's eyes transformed into his Rinnegan, and one wing sprouted out from Alicia's back in white light changing her attire to the feather dress. Everyone freaked out, except for Naruto and Alicia.

"Mysterious times indeed." Sakura said.

"What?" Kakashi asked.

"Never mind."

"What the hell is happening?" Sasuke shouted, trying to be louder than wind.

"I don't know but it looks like these two don't even notice it." Kakashi shouted back.

A spark appeared and floated mid-air between Naruto and Alicia. This spark became bigger and brighter, but then it exploded, creating a black dome around all the ninjas present. Strangely, no civilian was caught in this black dome.

They heard 4 voices: voice of a young girl and a boy, a woman and man sounding as one.

The past...

The scenery changed in this black dome. The five ninjas stood in a plain field and they could see a village with tall towers in the distance. A man in a black cloak with orange hair fell on the ground, kunai and shurikens sticking in his body, dead. Next to him stood another man in the same black cloak, but with crimson hair, mourning the death of his comrade. He raised his head and his ripple pattern eyes were filled with tears and burning emotions of pain, hatred and sadness.

"This world shall know my pain!" he shouted and the area nearby exploded in invisible force.

Nearby, there was another man, but this one was dressed in purple robes, he had a long spear in his hands and huge, black wings behind. He had short, brown hair. There was also a woman in a pretty, pink and yellow dress and long, teal hair. The man pierced the woman's heart with his spear and the women shed her last tear. Her last words were "W-Why?... What... happened... t-to y-you?"

"This world is tainted and cursed! It shall know my rightful anger, starting from you! Don't worry - your sacrifice won't be for naught." The man answered and flew away.

...the present...

The scenery changed again. It was now a small, happy village, similar to the Glass village, though a bit different. Everyone saw 8 figures approaching, each one had a black cloak with red clouds on it. Behind them were burning forests and clouds of smoke. Strange... creatures, they couldn't be called animals anymore, were following the 8 figures. After a moment, the village was destroyed, civilians killed by these strange creatures, whose appearance was hidden in shadows and clouds of smoke and flame. The man with orange hair and ripple pattern eyes appeared and said.

"I will bring peace to this tainted land!"

...and the future...

Now the scenery changed to that of a huge, plain field. No grass, no water, no trees. Only craters and thousands of bloodied bodies laying around. A loud roar was heard. A huge monster appeared in their sight. It looked like it had 10 tails wildly swaying behind. On the top of the creature's head were two figures. One had eyes of the sharingan and the other had the same ripple pattern eyes. Another roar and a voice.

"I have bought peace to the land. A new era can begin!"

The scenery changed back to that of the black dome.

...is in your and your friend's hands.

But only you can stop them.

Stop him.

Stop it.

Many ordeals will await both of you.

Remember your past, live your present and create your own future.

Future where people will know peace.

Where people will know love.

Where people will know friendship.

Cleanse this world from the hatred it is filled with, with your pure souls. The future is in your hands; build it as you see fit. I won't guide you anymore and won't show you where to search, or say what to do anymore. Know that every choice you make will affect your surroundings. But know that I believe in you, for you are my chosen champions! This message was made when both of you were born and will play when you meet each other, when you gaze upon each other.

Remember, when the world will be about to die; when the world will face darkness it can't survive, you will see me. But I hope that moment won't come. Go, Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze, Alicia Tsukiko... my chosen ones, my priests, and create the future everyone will love! Heavens smile upon you and I will continue to watch your growth.

With that, the voice disappeared along with the black dome, and the wind calmed down as well. Naruto's eyes returned to normal and Alicia's one wing faded out of existence. Alicia's attire also changed to what she wore before. Naruto and Alicia were shocked at what they just heard. Especially Naruto.

"What the hell was that?" Sakura now asked, completely shocked as everyone else.

"I think," Kakashi muttered "It was some kind of divine intervention."

Sasuke wanted to comment on how obvious Kakashi just sounded but decided against it. Instead he said, "Indeed. And this message must be at least 13 years old. But still, it is... it felt... I don't even know how to describe it."

"Astonishing?" Sakura asked.

Sasuke nodded "Yes, you can say that. And who were all those people we saw? And that one guy with orange hair had a Rinnegan, though it looked different than Naruto's."

"That was," Naruto finally said "quite unexpected."

"Yeah." Alicia agreed. "I actually knew that sooner or later something like this will come up."

"How?" Naruto asked.

"It's the prophecy of my clan. You see, everyone in my clan who has the bloodline are called Valkyries. Both men and women. But it's very rare - valkyries were born once every 200 or 300 years, when the world was facing some kind of ordeal or danger. The last valkyrie born was about 1500 years ago. The one you just saw with black wings. He was an evil man which is quite surprising because he was a Valkyrie. The prophecy says that when the world will be at the brink of destruction, the last Valkyrie will be born; this Valkyrie will then help a man with sacred eyes to heal the land. Well, it has come to this - I'm the last member of my clan AND I have a bloodline, whereas you have these sacred eyes. So you are the man I need to help. Now we just need to figure out how to save this world and what are we actually saving it from." Alicia explained in a song-song voice as if everything is the way it should be. Looks like the girl accepted her destiny long time ago.

Naruto was at loss of words. The rest of team 7 watched everything in silence and interest. Save the world? It was too much, even for Naruto. "I.. I can't." he finally said.

"What?" Alicia retorted "Jeez, be a man and-"

She was cut off by Naruto's shouting, "Be a man? How can you say that? My life has just begun; I just became an official genin some days ago, I still haven't visited other countries, haven't even participated in the chunin exams, I've never been in a relationship, never kissed a girl and let's add to the list that I'm still a virgin! There's a lot of things I want to try out before thinking about saving the world or something like that! But you! You already visited a lot of countries, have seen a lot of stuff and gained a lot of knowledge. You're really beautiful and most probably you had a boyfriend and were in relationship in your life. You knew about this saving world shit for a long time and had enough time to think about it and accept it."

"..."

Silence overtook the area. Even civilians stopped and watched the scene. Actually, the whole village heard that voice, the message Naruto and Alicia got, though they didn't see anything. After some moments of silence, Naruto hung his head and apologized.

"Sorry... I just need some time to think about it and accept it."

Another moment of silence.

"Thank you." Alicia muttered.

"Huh?"

"Thank you." Alicia said louder. "No one ever called me beautiful before."

Naruto blushed a bit and smiled "You're welcome. People should say it more often to you because you really are beautiful."

Sakura resisted the urge to 'awww' at the scene before her, though Sasuke couldn't resist the roll of his eyes.

"And I've never been in relationship." Alicia continued "I've been to a lot of places and I've seen a lot of things, both terrible and happy, but I never stay in one place for too long. Just like you, Naruto, I want to try a lot of things, but people like us become adults very fast."

"People like... us?" Naruto re-asked.

"Yeah. People who are destined for great things. They don't have the privilege to enjoy their time because they try to make the world a better place. They spend all their lives helping people in need."

"Just like Yondaime..." Kakashi sadly thought.

"I see in your eyes," Alicia said as she looked into Naruto's ocean blue eyes "That you know the truth, that you know what I am saying is the truth. Think about it. Why did YOU of all people get this gift from Kami? Why was Kyuubi was sealed in YOU? Because you are destined for great deeds."

"I... I do not believe in fate and that our destiny is inscribed in stone."

"I don't believe in it as well and I wasn't talking about that. Kami gave us the tools and we choose how to use them. We make our own destiny, our own future, but you can't deny that you feel something. You, just like me, feel that you're destined for great things. Though what these things are, is up to us."

"..." Naruto didn't know what to say, because deep within, he felt it. He really felt that he is destined for great things. Kyuubi... Kami gave Naruto a tool and... a friend who will teach him how to use this tool and who would always be with him and who will always help him.

"A friend, huh? Is that how you see me? Is that how you always saw me, kit?" Kyuubi wondered in his thoughts within the mindscape, clearly hearing Naruto's own thoughts.

"How do you know all of this? You sound like an old lady, not a young girl." Naruto finally asked.

Kakashi shook his head in disapproval "Never call a girl old..."

A vein popped out on Alicia's temple "Thanks for mentioning my age. Anyway, as you said, I had a lot of time to think about it and I accepted it."

"I see." Naruto said. "Indeed, I feel that I'm destined for great things... helping people in need is one thing and saving the world is completely different."

"No one said the world needs your help right away. It's not falling into oblivion right before your eyes, after all. We just help people on the way, until the world needs us."

Naruto nodded and smiled. "Yeah, it's not like the world is gonna end any minute now. I will help people on the way and get stronger. Thanks, Alicia-san, I really needed this talk. Though it doesn't mean I completely accept it. Yet."

"Just Alice for friends, Naruto. And you're welcome." She then turned to Sasuke and Kakashi "So you're Sasuke Uchiha and Kakashi Hatake, right?" she asked, hoping to change the subject. Both of them nodded."Nice to meet ya. So, what are you up to? We have a party tonight, you know."

"Well, actually we were heading out of the village for some exercises. Maybe you should come with us and there you can tell us about your abilities." Kakashi said.

"Good idea." Alicia replied "I feel a bit uneasy with all this staring."

"Yeah." Sakura added and then laughed.

"What are you laughing at?" Sasuke asked.

"Oh boy... Seeing the way the villagers are looking at Naruto and Alicia, they can expect a shrine built in their honor."

Mentioned teens looked at Sakura with a deadpan expression. "I think we better go outside before they start to kneel before us." Alicia whispered.

Everyone nodded and left the village by jumping over the walls.

-Kaze no Kuni border-

The same day, somewhere near Kaze no Kuni border, was relatively small village. It wasn't big, really: just a few small houses with tattered roofs and dirty walls, and a single road through the entire village. It was much smaller than Glass Village. It was a hot day and a harsh, strong wind blew from the hot desert. The few villagers who lived in the village hid in their houses to survive the coming storm. Surprisingly, an old looking pub was open. Well, it actually was the only pub in the village anyway. What was even more surprising is that the pub, although old looking, was the safest place in the village. The pub's walls and roof were reinforced with strong steel which could survive a strong storm.

At this moment, the pub was half full, considering it was quite small for an ordinary pub. It is because of the small village: why build a big pub if there's only around 25 or so civilians in the village? People were sitting around tables in groups of twos or threes, drinking beer, sake and eating some food that the pub could offer. The pub was loud with chatter and laughter. It can't be said about the 2 persons sitting at the back corner of the pub, covered in shadows where their faces couldn't be seen. Both of them had black cloaks and straw hats. And even if their cloaks were black, they were a bit different: the shorter person's cloak was plain black, whereas the bit taller person's cloak was black with red clouds on it.

Akatsuki.

But Akatsuki always travelled in pairs and it was clear as a day that the shorter person wasn't from Akatsuki and wasn't the partner of the taller one. The place where they were sitting was also covered in a weak genjutsu. Everyone could see that someone was there, but no one could see their definite appearance and no one paid any attention to them. And why would civilians pay any attention to the two persons? Quite often, people in the pub could see various shady persons meeting and discussing things. People didn't say anything and just ignored these dark persons in order to stay away from trouble.

The taller person shifted in his seat and for a moment a lock of blond hair was seen in the sunlight before retreating back into the shadows.

"Careful, Deidara, someone might notice you." said the shorter person in an emotionless voice. Now revealed, Deidara merely grunted. The other person continued, "How did you manage to slip away from your partner? I thought you always travel in pairs."

"Hn. I have my ways." Deidara replied in an arrogant manner. "I'm one of the most trusted members in Akatsuki. I said I've got some business I have to take care of and no one asked any questions."

"I see. Who's your partner then?"

Deidara sipped some sake and then looked at the other person's eyes and searched for something, for any emotion. Finding nothing, Deidara diverted his gaze, looking at the full pub and sighed. "Still wearing that emotionless mask, Itachi?"

A faint smile appeared on Itachi's lips but he quickly hid it. Deidara noticed it though, but didn't say anything. "And you're still pretending to be an arrogant puppy who follows every order." Itachi calmly replied. He could swear he saw some twitching in Deidara's eyebrow. Itachi finally smiled, a true genuine smile "It's good to see you, old friend."

Deidara couldn't help but smile as well, although it looked like more like a grin than smile. It was some years now since they had last seen each other and it was really hard to arrange this meeting without any suspicion. "I would really like to catch up with you, Itachi, but my time is running short."

"Indeed it is." Itachi sighed. "Let's skip the pleasantries then and get straight to business. First, who are the members of Akatsuki and who's your partner? I know only some so I would like to know the rest."

"How much do you know?" Deidara asked as he looked out of the window.

"Not much." Itachi replied "I know about Kisame, you, Hidan and Kakuzu. I also know you've finally captured Sanbi."

Deidara nodded and smirked "Hn. You don't know much indeed." After brief silence, he continued "The members are: our leader, Pain and his right hand man... woman, Konan. Then there's me, Kisame, Hidan, Kakuzu, Zetsu, Orochimaru, Haori and a mysterious member Tobi. No one knows much about Tobi and it's very rare when he appears in the meetings, but I know that he works alone."

Itachi's eyes widened showing much more emotions than he did in past few years altogether. He hissed "Orochimaru? Haori Hyuuga?"

Deidara, already expecting such reaction, nodded. "Yeah. Orochimaru is paired with Kisame and the Hyuuga is paired with me. To be honest, he is quite a ruthless man and likes to torture victims before killing them." Deidara shuddered at the thought. Although Deidara has seen death and has killed many, seeing Haori in action was a bit frightening.

"Sounds like him. But why is he in Akatsuki? Kami only knows how much he already told to the leader. And Orochimaru? What purpose has he to side with Akatsuki? What can he gain from it?"

Deidara shrugged "I don't know, but knowing Orochimaru, something's going to happen. Something big. Oh and don't worry, although Haori is one of the most trusted member as well, he didn't reveal any Byakugan or Konoha secrets. Well, he did say something about Konoha but nothing of great importance."

Itachi nodded, a bit relieved "If he didn't spill any secrets about Byakugan or Konoha how come this Pain person trusts him so much?"

"I don't really know. I've asked the same question myself and it gives me a headache to think about it. Maybe Pain and Haori knows each other or something. Not sure. Hn."

"I see." Itachi replied. After some moments of comfortable silence and some sipping of cold sake, Itachi asked "What about this Tobi? And what happened to Sanbi?"

"No one knows much about him. I can only tell that he has an orange mask and can do some kind of teleportation jutsu. He rarely appears for meetings but he also is very trusted by Pain." Itachi raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything, allowing Deidara to continue. "As for the Sanbi... it actually was under our control for a long time."

Itachi was a bit surprised "Really? As far as I know Yagura, the Yondaime Mizukage was jinchuuriki of Sanbi. What happened?"

Deidara finally looked into Itachi's eyes. "Tobi's doing. As far as I know and as far as rumors go, Yagura had a kind soul and he was a good Mizukage. But then, at one moment, he started this kekkei genkai purge. I hope you know that."

Itachi nodded "Yes. I remember Kiri was a peaceful village until this purge. Who in their right state of mind would start something like that? I mean, Kiri just destroyed its own military force. Kirigakure is in civil war for some years already."

Deidara nodded and diverted his gaze again "It's because Tobi started to control him. I don't know how, but it has to be quite a powerful jutsu. Yagura was, I think, possessed is the right word. He didn't know what he was doing and I've also heard that sometimes Yagura started to speak with himself. Now, when Kirigakure's military force was so crippled, Tobi decided it's enough and extracted the Sanbi. It was a very long and tiring process because it's the first bijuu we extracted."

"I thought you need Ichibi in order to extract Nibi and Sanbi."

"Technically yes but we managed to extract Sanbi first. It was much harder and longer than it would be if we extracted Ichibi and Nibi first, but what's done is done."

Itachi narrowed his eyes "Why so suddenly?"

Deidara shrugged his shoulders "I dunno. I heard that something is planned for Sanbi's demonic chakra. That's all I can say for now."

Itachi nodded. Troubling news indeed. Just what was Akatsuki plan? "What about Kiri?"

After a brief silence, Deidara answered. "Now without a Mizukage to lead them, anti-kekkei genkai forces started to lose. They even started to fight between each other for the Mizukage title. The rebellion army needs one final, strong push into the main base and the civil war will be over. That's all I know."

Itachi nodded "Thanks a lot. I will leave now. I need to report this to Hokage-sama." Itachi stood up and was ready to leave when Deidara grabbed Itachi's hand by elbow and stopped him. Itachi turned around and looked into Deidara's eyes.

"You're still loyal to Konoha, hn?" Deidara asked.

Itachi didn't expect such a question, but he answered nonetheless "Yes. And I will always be."

Deidara let go of Itachi's hand "I see. Well," Deidara chuckled "I hope you'll figure out how to get me out from this Akatsuki organisation without my head rolling."

Itachi smiled "I wonder why you're in there in the first place."

Deidara smirked "It was the only way to hide from Iwa's hunter-nin and to get some kind of protection. I don't have any ambition in this organisation and I really don't share their idea of world dominance."

Itachi raised an eyebrow "World dominance?"

Deidara sighed in annoyance "Well, yeah. Hn. Obviously. Pain talks about bringing some kind of peace to the world but I see the true image - why else they would need all the bijuu? I suppose they want to create some kind of weapon or something like that to take control of elemental nations. Not really my thing."

Itachi stared at Deidara for some seconds before replying "Interesting theory, quite logical too. If it's not your thing, what is?"

Deidara shrugged for countless time already and answered "I dunno. I mean, I like the idea of peace but what Akatsuki is doing is definitely not for peace."

Itachi nodded "I'll think about what I can do about it. See you later then, friend." after receiving a nod from Deidara, Itachi calmly left the pub. When he stepped outside, the genjutsu at the back corner of the pub disappeared.

Deidara sat there for some more minutes before gulping all the remaining sake and leaving the pub as well, going in opposite direction from Itachi. "I don't think there's much you can do, Itachi."

-Glass Village-

*chirp!*chirp!*

"They are coming!" Naruto shouted.

Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi and Alicia were in the village with the rest of the civilians waiting for the attack. When Naruto shouted, loud murmurs and whispers erupted in the village.

"Are you sure?" Kakashi asked.

*chirp!*

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Both forces will be here in approximately 13 minutes. I think it's time to lead the villagers to safety." Naruto answered and let the bird fly away.

"Alright, listen up." Kakashi addressed the villagers and at once everything went quiet "After 13 minutes enemy forces will be here. Please follow Sakura, Sasuke and Alicia. They will escort you to the safest buildings. Stay in these buildings until all the fighting is done. We will inform you when it's safe to come out."

Kakashi nodded in the direction of his team and Sasuke, Sakura and Alicia started to escort all the villagers into nearby big buildings. Earlier that day and the day before, Sakura and Gaiko supplied all these buildings with enough water and food for all the villagers to last for 1 - 2 days.

Everything was done in 8 minutes. At first glance, it seemed that the village was completely deserted, but if one looked closer he would see the faces of worried villagers peeking out from the windows of the big buildings.

"It's time." Kakashi said. "Take your positions, and good luck." Everyone nodded to each other and left. Naruto and Alicia went for the back of the village, whereas Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi went for the front of the village where the gates were.

-Naruto and Alicia-

"Here they come." Alicia said when she saw numerous figures appearing in the distance.

"Are you worried?" Naruto asked.

"A little bit. You?"

The blonde boy nodded "Only arrogant fools wouldn't be worried."

"Maybe we should hide and take them by surprise?" Alice asked.

Naruto shook his head. "No. If they come too close, they can easily sneak past us. We need to take out as many as we can from the distance then engage the survivors in close range combat."

BOOM! was heard from behind and earth shook a little.

"Looks like Sakura and Sasuke started already." Alicia said.

Naruto didn't pay much attention to it because enemy ninjas were already approaching the piles of logs where their explosive tags were hidden. "Be ready." he said and made a one handed ram seal and said "KAI!" Purple lines spread around his body, then disappeared. Alicia raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't ask. Then Naruto summoned his crimson bladed sword. At the same time, in a flash of white light and feathers Alicia's attire changed to her feather battle dress and her long, feather bow appeared in her left arm. Naruto and Alicia were ready for battle.

"NOW!" Naruto shouted and activated all the explosive tags. Several explosions were heard and loud screams echoed throughout the air. Naruto could also hear how some ninjas, who were faster to react, made a mud wall in order to shield themselves from falling logs. Another set of loud screams were heard, meaning that not everyone managed to dodge or block the incoming huge logs.

At the same time when Naruto activated the explosion seals, Alicia materialized her one wing and leaped high into the air while making a long set of one handed seals with her right hand. When she finished, her right hand started to glow in yellowish-blue light. She pulled back the bow string on her bow as far as she could and the yellowish-blue glow from her hand quickly transformed to shining arrows. She took aim at the middle of enemy ninja's small army and shouted as she let go of the bow string, "Holy release: Raining Judgement!" In a small flash from the bow, two dozen tendrils in the shape of arrows randomly but quickly started to fall on the victims. Where the shining, arrow-like tendril landed, small fire erupted and the only thing what was left from shiny tendril, was simple wooden arrow with metal tip.

Another set of screams were heard, most probably from those who were unlucky enough to get hit by burning arrow.

"So that's what villagers meant by '...heavens themselves passed judgement on the sinful; light shot from her bow burning the bandits...'" Naruto mused as he watched the light show, his Rinnegan activated. Alicia landed near the boy and hid her wing. Naruto said "Nice. I'm gonna head in now, from 18 ninja, only 8 are alive and ready to fight. 5 are injured and unable to fight. By injured, I mean either they are crippled because of your burning, pointy arrows or squashed under the huge logs."

"Hey wait, what do you mean 'head in'? It's dangerous! The entire place is filled with smoke, even I can't see anything." Alicia protested.

"We don't have time to argue. We successfully confused them and I want to take out as many as I can silently while they are in this state. And unlike you, I have a good dojutsu and although it's not like the Byakugan, I can see through this smoke. Provide me with long range support." Naruto said and in a blink of an eye he was gone.

Alicia widened her eyes "What speed!"

Naruto already entered the smoke and was running towards his closest target. Judging by Naruto's feelings, his first target was no stronger than a chuunin and next to him was another chuunin level ninja. "Needtoaimforthethroat." He thought. Naruto gripped his sword harder.

Another second and he was within sword's reach, another second and he jumped, spun 360 degrees and slashed the victim's throat open while in the midair-mid spin, silently killing him. Another two seconds and he landed, spun 125 degrees on his heels, another second and he stabbed his sword into second chuunin's throat.

"That's 2..." Naruto thought and observed his surroundings "There!" And he was running towards his next chuunin victim. Within several seconds he reached him and sliced his throat open. "3." He sensed another victim nearby, moving, but this time it was a jounin level ninja. "Need to finish the stronger opponents first."

In 3 seconds, with several large leaps, he reached the jounin and slashed with his sword... only to miss! The enemy jounin ducked under the slash and quickly kicked Naruto from crouching position. Naruto was shocked that he missed that he didn't see the kick coming in his direction. Jounin's foot connected with Naruto's gut, kicking all the air from Naruto's lungs and sending him flying back. While still in midair, Naruto recovered from his shock and flipped in midair, easily landing on his feet. "I shouldn't be surprised. I didn't conceal my chakra at all and this is not Kirigakure no Jutsu. Shit, I need to move!" he thought and heard something fly past him, probably kunai. He took his own few kunai out and threw them at the jounin who easily deflected them with his own kunai.

Naruto extended his free arm towards the jounin and said "Bansho Ten'in!" The jounin widened his eyes when he felt that something grabbed him and started to pull towards his enemy.

Quickly thinking what to do, the jounin did some hand seals, inhaled and exhaled numerous small fireballs while crying out "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!"

Seeing the fireballs coming his way, Naruto canceled his Bansho Ten'in. Instead he waved his free hand, performing silent Shinra Tensei blocking the small fireballs and dashed towards the jounin, intending to quickly finish this fight.

In some seconds Naruto reached the jounin, and while still moving, performed a quick thrust aimed at his throat, which was barely parried with kunai. Using his momentum, Naruto abruptly stopped and spun on his heels, delivering a horizontal slashing attack to the jounin's side. The attack was very quick, so the jounin didn't have time to block or parry, instead he jumped back. The enemy jounin didn't consider the length of the sword and still got a cut on his stomach. This small close range skirmish in the smoke was all that Naruto needed to successfully mark all 10 points on the enemy's body. Naruto smirked in triumph, but didn't allow his enemy to rest.

Silently creating a Kage Bunshin, who rushed after the enemy jounin, sensing all the marks, Naruto made another quick set of hand seals.

"Katon: Blazing Fox Rush!" Naruto whispered and then thought, "Seek and destroy!"

10 small, man-sized fists of blue fireballs appeared around Naruto and quickly took the shape of a fox's head. All 10 blue, flaming fox heads rushed towards the enemy jounin. Naruto was ready to rush alongside his jutsu, when suddenly he heard flesh piercing sound and ear shattering scream very close to him. It didn't last long though. The scream abruptly stopped when he heard unpleasant 'crack!' and 'splaksh!'.

"Headshot! Alice doing her job just fine! It seems that the smoke was dissipating. Idiots, why they didn't use Daitoppa?" Naruto thought and rushed towards the jounin he was fighting, because his Kage Bunshin was destroyed.

"Fuuton: Daitoppa!" someone shouted and the smoke was blown away.

"Nice. Are they mind readers or something? Speak of the devil and it appears." Naruto thought as he finally reached the enemy jounin.

Naruto jumped into the air, flipped and delivered heavy vertical slash onto enemy. The jounin, instead of blocking, sidestepped the slash and was about to stab Naruto with a kunai when something hot connected with his fist. Hissing in pain, the jounin did some backflips towards the rest of his team which now consisted of 4 ninjas: 3 jounin and 1 chuunin.

Seeing that there is 9 more fireballs quickly coming his way, he jumped and weaved around them.

The rest of 3 ninjas threw all the kunai and shuriken they could at Naruto, completely ignoring Alicia. Naruto smirked and merely raised his left arm. All the weapons coming his way suddenly stopped. With another wave of his hand, all the weapons flew back at enemy ninjas with the same deadly speed. They widened their eyes and started to dodge and deflect the weapons with their kunai. When that was done, they now also had to dodge incoming arrows from Alicia which were faster and deadlier.

The first jounin finally realized that these small fireballs are somehow tracking and following him. He did some large backflips to make distance between the following fireballs and himself and to be closer to his other 3 teammates. When he got enough distance, he quickly did some hand seals and shouted "Doton: Earth Dome!" then slammed him hand on the ground.

An earth dome erupted around of him, successfully blocking all the fox fireballs and shielding his other 3 teammates from from vicious arrows. They were surrounded - Alicia from one side and Naruto from the other.

"What the hell happened! There were 18 of us and now only 4!" shouted one of them, probably a chuunin. He had an average build and had long brown hair, which reached his shoulder blades.

"Shut up, Kaiko! They knew about the attack and set up a trap. No one expected it so they were easily killed or injured. Enemy used the smoke and confusion for cover and got another few kills." said the largest of these three, the one who made the earth dome. He had short, spiky, black hair.

"They are only kids, Shinji! I don't believe they did everything on their own." shouted another jounin, this one had hair similar to Mizuki - long and blue. He was tall and he had a lean build.

"It doesn't matter, Goro!" answered Shinji, the large one.

"What are we going to do? They're only kids." asked the last of the jounin. He was wasn't tall, but he wasn't short either. He was of average build. He had short, straight, brown hair.

Before anyone could say something, the dome shook, almost collapsing.

"Listen up, me and Daisuke will go after the boy." Shinji said. "Of the both of them, I think the boy is stronger. Kaiko and Goro, go after the girl."

Everyone nodded.

-Naruto-

"Damn!" Naruto muttered when he saw that his average powered Gōkakyū didn't do much damage. "That earth dome is stronger than I thought." Naruto glanced over Alicia and saw that she didn't have much luck either.

Just when he was about to shout something to Alicia, the dome exploded, sending the shards in both Alicia's and Naruto's direction. Naruto blocked, parried and weaved around the shards without missing a heartbeat. He saw that two ninjas used this explosion to get as close as they could without being noticed. Well, it didn't work with Naruto.

Shinji jumped into the air and threw some shurikens towards Naruto, while pointing his kunai at Naruto's head. Daisuke, on the other hand, ran towards Naruto and threw as many kunai and shuriken as he could.

Naruto stabbed his sword into the ground and raised his left arm into the air, then made a vertical slashing motion. All the projectiles stopped and fell on the ground. Then, Naruto raised his right hand in front of him and shouted "Shinra Tensei!" and pushed as much chakra in the attack as he could. The air around Naruto twisted and disrupted, making a dome-like shape around Naruto. Then, this dome expanded in unbelievable speed and radius, destroying the ground on it's way and throwing both enemy jounin away. It happened in less than 3 seconds. And it was enough for Naruto to mark both enemies.

Both jounin flipped in the air and landed on the ground, their eyes widening at the sheer display of power.

Naruto didn't give them any time to rest or marvel at his power. He grabbed his sword and dashed towards Daisuke, the ninja who ran on the ground, at unreal speed. In less than 2 seconds, he reached Daisuke and thrust his sword towards his throat. Daisuke back-flipped and evaded the thrust, but Naruto was hot on his heels and mercilessly attacked Daisuke with his sword with fast thrusts and slashes which should be impossible for the sword of this length. Each time Naruto did an attack, Daisuke would barely block with his kunai or sidestep the attack.

Soon after, Shinji rushed to help Daisuke. But it wasn't enough to stop Naruto. He was too fast, even for two jounin. Where one of jounin would attack with his kunai, Naruto would quickly block or parry the strike with the blade or guard and then just as quickly counter-attack, making difficult and complex chain attacks. When one of them would block, Naruto would slide, spin, jump, sidestep or use the block as the base for his attacks to find an opening. This dance of blades lasted for about one minute and a few times the enemy jounin almost got Naruto.

If Naruto had fought them one at a time, he would have easily won in a Kenjutsu battle at this time because none of them were masters and were slower than him. But he was fighting two jounin at the same time. When he saw or made very good opening, he couldn't use it because the other would attack him denying Naruto the chance to attack. Realizing that he needed another approach if he wanted to win, Naruto blocked an incoming attack from Daisuke. After evading the attack, Naruto pushed himself towards Daisuke so that their blades now made a 'X' shape at chest level.

Thanks to pushing forward, Naruto successfully evaded a vertical slashing attack from Shinji. Naruto moved his blade to the left, dragging Daisuke's kunai as well. Daisuke's chest now was fully open but Naruto didn't have any other weapons in his other hand to finish the enemy off. Instead, Naruto jumped, kicked Daisuke's chest with his feet therefore using the chest as platform for another jump. Naruto made a backflip in midair and made a heavy slash at Shinji, but he easily parried the attack, although his grip on the kunai was too weak and he lost it thanks to the hard hit.

It gave Naruto another opening, which he used to escape the close combat. When Naruto's head was facing the ground, with his free left arm he reached Shinji's right shoulder (the one which had the kunai) and used it as another platform to get away. Thanks to the opening, Naruto made Shinji unable to do anything, nor had he any time to quickly react. With his left arm, he pushed away from Shinji and in an incredible display of agility, speed and power, Naruto managed to escape the close combat. When Naruto touched the ground, he blasted away both jounin with a silent Shinra Tensei, denying them the chance to follow him and re-engage in close combat.

"I need to distract one of them so I can quickly finish offtheotherone." Naruto thought as he sheathed the sword back into the storage seal and removed the marks from Shinji. Instead, he applied all 10 marks on Daisuke. Naruto did a couple of handseals and called out his jutsu, "Fuuton: Razor Fox Rush!" "Seek and destroy!" Then Naruto created one Kage Bunshin and sent him towards Daisuke.

When the 10 transparent fox heads and Kage Bunshin rushed towards Daisuke, both jounin were already on their feet and running towards Naruto. Seeing incoming missiles and a clone, Daisuke started to dodge the fuuton jutsu and at the same time trying to dispel the clone. Shinji, on the other hand, wasn't slowed down and while running he performed his own jutsu.

"Doton: Doryū Taiga!" Shinji cried out and Naruto felt the ground beneath him becoming soft. Recognizing the jutsu, Naruto quickly escaped the mud by jumping away, but Shinji didn't give him any rest. Shinji performed another set of seals and informed everyone of his next jutsu "Doton: Doryūdan!" Using the mud from Doryū Taiga as a medium, a large dragon head erupted from the mud and started to shoot mud bullets at Naruto, who in turn dodged them. Shinji performed yet another set of hand seals in order to finish his jutsu combo. Shinji cried out "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!" and exhaled a large fireball which shot towards Naruto. On it's way. the fireball touched the mud dragon and it became twice as dangerous: mud transformed into the blazing rocks. Seeing as Naruto couldn't possibly escape this one, Shinji ran forward, intending to finish Naruto the moment the fireball and burning rocks collided with the boy, though he thought it won't be necessary.

Naruto really couldn't dodge this one - the attack was huge. "Shinra Tensei won't save me from both fireball and rock... Oh well, might as well surprise him. Why I didn't use it before?..." Naruto thought and extended both his arms forward.

Shinji stopped and smirked when he saw that the fire and burning rocks collided with the boy. Daisuke finally joined him with cuts on his arms and torso.

"What took you so long?" Shinji barked.

"Sod off." Daisuke angrily replied "That fuuton jutsu was really fast so I didn't have time to stand in one place and do handseals. Some of them got me." he said as he showed his arms and torso "That clone with his taijutsu was annoying as hell as well. Had to make a decent distance and cancel his jutsu by overpowering his fuuton jutsu with mine. Then destroy the clone with a kunai."

"I see. Well, I'm finished here." Shinji said, smirking.

"I won't be that sure, teme." Naruto said as he left the smoke screen created from fire which he didn't absorb. "Gotta love Preta path."

Both Shinji and Daisuke widened their eyes in shock, seeing that Naruto didn't have even one scratch or scorch. Naruto was smirking.

"H-How!" Shinji exclaimed.

Naruto pointed at his eyes "Rinnegan stuff."

Shinji's and Daisuke's eyes widened to unbelievable sizes, a slight fear evident in them.

"R-R-Rinnegan!" Daisuke stuttered, finally noticing the blonde boy's eyes.

"Yeah." Naruto said and decided to use their shock. He extended his right hand and aimed at Shinji and whispered "Bansho Ten'nin!"

Shinji felt something yanked behind his navel and he started to quickly fly towards Naruto. Daisuke was too shocked by the two previous revelations to do anything about it.

Naruto wanted to beat the crap out of the guy, but he decided against it. Naruto took a kunai from his pouch in reverse grip and stabbed it in Shinji's stomach when he was close enough, forcing the man to fall to his knees. Shinji screamed out in pain and it was enough for Daisuke to shake the shock off and do something. He took some shurikens and kunai and threw them at Naruto, but it was already too late.

Seeing that that the man's other teammate finally decided to do something, Naruto took out the kunai from Shinji and still holding it in reverse grip, spun the man around, successfully dodging the thrown projectiles. While he was in mid-spin, he sliced Shinji's throat open. Blood came out from Shinji's throat and his eyes rolled up.

Daisuke watched helplessly as his teammate, a jounin, was killed by a kid half his age. He watched as Shinji silently fell to the ground. Daisuke didn't feel anything towards Shinji; he wasn't even his friend, but Daisuke knew what a 'teammate' meant. Watching as one of his teammates died in front of him wasn't the best sight to see.

Shaking the faint feeling off, he prepared for a fight. He had a brat to finish off. Daisuke was about to perform a heavy fuuton jutsu. He looked into those ripple pattern eyes and for some reason, felt a bit unnerved by them. Before he could start any handseals, Naruto rushed at him. Within seconds, Daisuke had to block and dodge Naruto's painful Kitsune Claw style stabs and punches.

"This guys is pure speed." Daisuke thought.

After some seconds, Daisuke's arms were heavily bruised. Finally, Naruto decided to switch from defensive tactics to use another new path of his Rinnegan.

After another dodged attack, Naruto was too slow to deliver his next stab with fingers. He slowed down on purpose, of course. Daisuke saw the opening he waited for, and delivered a quick and hard punch to Naruto's face. Naruto evaded the attack in the last second be tilting his head to the right.

Daisuke didn't give Naruto any time to retaliate and attacked Naruto as fast as he could, though he noticed that his attacks weren't as fast as Naruto's. For some more seconds Daisuke was on full offensive using kicks, punches, elbows and knees, yet he didn't score any hit at all. Each time he would attack, Naruto would evade or sidestep. Daisuke also noticed that Naruto still hadn't blocked any of his attacks and that each time he evaded it's at the last moment. And that smirk of his.

"Something is not right here." he thought. "I gotta make a distance and try long range. He is far superior than me in taijutsu, probably he is jounin for some years now. And I were just recently promoted."

Daisuke decided to make his last attack and then escape from the close combat. He tried to kick Naruto in the gut and expected Naruto to evade it as well.

Naruto surprised Daisuke and instead of evading a direct kick, he caught it with both of his arms.

"You're not going anywhere!" Naruto growled as he kicked Daisuke's only standing leg while twisting the other one. Daisuke spun in midair and fell on his back. Naruto was quick and tried to stab Daisuke in the gut with his index and middle fingers but Daisuke managed to roll out of the way, and instead of Daisuke Naruto hit the ground, creating a small crater.

"What power his fingers have! To create a crater even if it's quite small." Daisuke thought as he back-flipped away from Naruto. When he got some distance, he stopped and thought of his next moves. He was panting, slightly exhausted. He looked at Naruto who calmly stood where both of them just were. "How he can have such stamina?"

"What's the matter?" Naruto cheekily asked. "Afraid to get hurt by a kid?"

"What?" Daisuke shouted, getting a bit angrier. How dare this kid taunt him?

"Good, he is getting angrier." Naruto thought and said "Don't worry, I'll kill you faster than I did the other guy. You're not such a big deal, anyway."

That hit a nerve, though Daisuke still tried to remain calm. "I'm not going-"

"To be taunted by some kid." Naruto and Daisuke finished together.

"If you want to kill me-"

"Then come closer." they finished in unison again.

This time Naruto started "Or I gonna come after you-"

"And finish you myself." Daisy finished. Then it hit him. His eyes widened. "W-What? Are-"

"You reading my mind?" Naruto finished the question in Daisuke's place.

"No wonder-" Daisuke thought and Naruto finished his thought.

"That he could evade my attacks at the last moment."

Daisuke was shocked "I-It's not possible!" He brought his hands in front of him and was ready to make a fuuton jutsu, but Naruto was faster.

Naruto started to make the hand seals and finished before Daisuke could start. Naruto shouted "Fuuton: Kaze no Yaiba!"

Daisuke widened his eyes. It's the jutsu he wanted to use! Daisuke rolled out of the way and dodged invisible wind blades though one blade managed to cut his leg. Daisuke didn't have any time to rest because he had to dodge shurikens coming his way. He jumped sideways and when he landed, four kunai embedded in his right arm rendering it useless.

Naruto heard a large explosion from the village's way and he turned his head to look at what's happening. He saw two lightning like arrows fighting for dominance, destroying everything in the radius of the impact.

"Gotta finish this quickly. Seems like Alicia is about to finish as well."

Before Daisuke could do anything, Naruto was upon him and punched him in the face then kicked him away.

Daisuke was about to recover and fight back, but he heard Naruto shout out "Bansho Ten'nin!" Suddenly Daisuke found himself flying towards the boy just like Shinji did before he died. "So this is it..."

When Daisuke finally reached Naruto he suddenly stopped. Before he could fall to the ground he saw Naruto jump over him and shout "Shinra Tensei!"

Daisuke was smashed against the ground with invisible force and he felt few of his ribs being broken. But that wasn't the end. He still could feel his rib cage being pushed. Few more ribs cracked and Daisuke let out a silent scream of pain.

Naruto saw the pain in Daisuke's eyes and decided to bring a swift death. He stopped his Shinra Tensei and before he landed he threw a kunai which embedded right between Daisuke's eyes, killing him.

Naruto landed and let out sigh of relief. Finally it was done. He looked around and saw countless dead bodies and pools of blood around the field. Slowly he became a bit sick and guilt came over him.

"Ikilledsomanypeopletoday..." Naruto thought.

"That's the result of war, kit, though in actual war it would be much more terrible." Kyuubi sadly said.

Naruto shook these feelings aside. He will deal with them later. "I didn't even need to use Kage Bunshin that much... AndI wonder what Alicia is up to." He looked around and spotted Alicia, who was near the village's wall and slightly panting. "Looks like it was a tough fight for Alicia."

He started to make his way towards Alicia when suddenly a 'poof' was heard and a large cloud of smoke erupted in the center of the village. A loud roar shattered the air.

-Before the earth dome exploded-

-With Alicia-

"I wonder what are they up to." Alicia thought and looked at Naruto who did a large, blue Gōkakyū no Jutsu. The fireball collided with the dome but didn't do any significant damage. She also saw Naruto swear. Alice giggled. "I've never seen blue Gōkakyū... Another evidence which proves that Naruto is special."

Just when she was about to shout something to Naruto, the dome exploded. Alicia tightened the grip on her bow when she saw two figures approaching her. She also saw that two ninjas were approaching Naruto. The ones running to Naruto had a much much shorter distance to run than the ones running at Alicia. It gave Alicia a perfect opportunity to attack at the large distance.

Alicia did some one handed handseals, her hand starting to glow. She jumped into the air, without using her wing, and shouted her jutsu, "Holy release: Raining Judgement!" Dozens or so of light arrow-like tendrils shot from Alicia's bow and flew towards the two approaching ninjas quicker than kunai.

What Alicia liked about the bow is that the arrows flew much faster than most thrown kunai. While kunai were much faster to throw, the bow's arrows flew further, faster and were stronger and more painful.

Both ninja masterfully dodged the arrows, though some of them landed in front of them, igniting the area. Because of the fire, the ninjas slowed down a bit to run around the burning area.

"Idiots. Why not jump over them?" Alicia mused and prepared her next long ranged jutsu. She smirked. This jutsu always hits and always catches enemies off guard. It's her personal favorite jutsu.

Alicia did another set of one handed hand seals, this time her hand glowed red and yellow. She shouted the name of her jutsu, "Holy release: Burning Cleansing!" and just like with Raining Judgement, she pulled back the bowstring and glowing, reddish and yellowish arrows formed, though it was twice as big as the arrow of Raining Judgement. She let go of the string, and in a blast of red chakra or light (no one will ever know) the arrow flew towards Kaiko and Goro, who were now running side by side again. They were quite close to Alicia now. The arrow was aimed directly between them.

Kaiko and Goro thought that it was just miss-aimed so both of them dodged by sidestepping, while still on the move. Oh, how wrong they were. The moment both enemy ninjas sidestepped, Alicia snapped her fingers and the arrow exploded, making a ball of fire which quickly died down. Both ninjas were blasted away from the place of impact, Kaiko was thrown to the left, and Goro to the right.

Alicia quickly started to bombard them with her arrows. She pulled back the string and white smoke came came from the handle where her hand was hidden. The smoke wasn't wild like when an item is being unsealed, instead it was neat and the moment it appeared, it formed into the shape of an arrow which ended in Alicia's fingers at the bow string. When Alicia let go of the string, a wooden arrow with a metal head shot out from the smoke. It happened in less than 2 seconds.

Kaiko, at whom the first arrow was aimed, rolled out of the way and barely escaped the arrow. Ignoring the pain in his right hand, which was burnt, he dodged all the following arrows while throwing his own shurikens and kunai which briefly stopped the assault of arrows. Once all the projectiles were dodged, Alicia resumed shooting the arrows at unbelievable and, at first glance, impossible speeds. Same with Goro, though Goro had his left side burned. They couldn't make any jutsu because they had to dodge the arrows.

"Damn!" Kaiko thought "How many of those bloody arrowsdoesthatgirlhave?"

While dodging another arrow, in the corner of his eyes he saw that his superior, Goro, didn't have much luck as well. Because of dodging, both of them were side by side again and were moving quite slowly towards Alicia. The closer they got, the harder it was to evade. Then Kaiko realized.

While doing rolls and jumps, Kaiko evaded arrows and made a distance between himself and Goro. Understanding what Kaiko was up to, Goro started to dodge and move opposite from Kaiko. Both of them noticed that the attacks were a bit slower. And it was only because Alicia, in order to properly aim, now had to turn around much ,more when both ninjas were separated, increasing the time between shots. After some more moments Kaiko had enough time to perform a low ranked jutsu which consisted of few handseals.

When he finished the hand seals another arrow flew his way, but it was too late.

"Fuuton: Daitoppa!" Kaiko shouted as he exhaled and created a large and strong gust of wind, knocking the arrow away. The wind didn't stop there and continued its way to Alicia.

Alicia stopped the ranged assault to dodge the gust of wind which could easily smash her against the village's wall just behind her. Goro used this to shoot his own long range jutsu. Kaiko started to make seals for another jutsu as well. Alicia chakra jumped into the air, without using her wings. That's exactly what two enemy ninjas were waiting for. Once in the air, you can't dodge, right?

"Raiton: Gian!" Goro shouted and extended his arm creating a spear made of lightning which flew towards Alicia in amazing speed.

At the same time Kaiko called his own jutsu "Fuuton: Shinkūgyoku!" inhaled and exhaled a large number of invisible wind bullets which were only seen by small distortion in the air.

Alicia was in grave danger and she knew it. But she also had a way to dodge the attacks, but foes didn't know that. And she decided to use it to her advantage. Before both elemental attacks reached her, she spun clockwise in mid-air and materialized her one wing and extended it as far as she could. Because she was spinning, the air hit the wing and she was pushed back, successfully evading the jutsus. While still moving through mid-air, she flapped her wing and wordlessly and seamlessly shot some feather from her wing to Kaiko, which flew surprisingly fast - at the speed of thrown kunai, while at the same time aiming with her bow at Goro and shooting.

Halfway to Kaiko, the feathers turned into white needles. Kaiko wasn't very experienced and his senses weren't on high alert so he evaded in the last moment. Some needles cut through his left arm deeply embedding themselves deep in Kaiko's burned left arm. Kaiko let out a scream of pain.

Goro, though, was more successful at dodging the arrow because he was more experienced and actually expected an attack after the well done evasion.

Alicia heard the scream and decided to finish Kaiko off. The less ninjas she has to worry about, the better it's for her. She turned around while slowly getting closer to ground, because she can't fly, and made a half ram seal. Her hand glowed white, she pulled back the string and thin yet sharp, white arrows appeared. Alicia whispered "Holy release: Peace!" and let go of the string. In a white flash, arrows flew from Alicia's bow. Kaiko couldn't dodge it because the arrow was really fast, he was in such pain from the feathers in his burnt flesh and he was still shocked at the way Alicia's wing appeared. He behaved like a rookie chuunin. Still, the white arrow pierced Kaiko's chest and he glowed white for 2 seconds before limply falling on to the ground with a small smile on his face.

Alicia finally touched the ground and she sensed danger from her left. She turned around and saw some shurikens coming her way along with Goro. Alicia barely dodged the projectiles but it served only as distraction. And Alicia knew that. Goro managed to reach Alice and throw a punch in her way with his left arm.

Alicia didn't even try to dodge or block it, instead she punched with left hand as well. The only difference is that Alice had her feather bow in her right hand and her hand was hidden in metal covered handle which was pointy and made from metal. Goro didn't think fast and his fist collided with Alicia's bow handle. Because of the force of the punch and the material of the bow, some bones were shattered in Goro's fist and blood started to come out of his knuckles. Goro let out quiet scream of pain. Alicia, on the other hand, wasn't affected at all.

Before Goro could do anything else, Alicia jumped and kicked Goro in the face forcing him to take some steps away from her. While still in midair, Alicia flapped her wing and did a back-flip, making some distance and increasing the height. When she straightened, and still in the air, she shot two arrows in quick succession, both of them were masterfully dodged by Goro.

Goro, ignoring the pain in his left hand, threw a bunch of shuriken and kunai as a distraction before making hand seals.

Alicia didn't try to dodge the projectiles, instead she covered herself with her large, white wing and started to make her own set of one handed hand seals. She felt a tingling sensation as the shurikens and kunai bounced off her wing. Her wing wasn't steel proof, but to get past her wing someone would need to use more than just mere ninja ranged weapons.

When Alicia finished her hand seals, her right hand glower deep blue and white, she forcefully and quickly waved her wing out of the way as she pulled the bow string back and medium sized white and blueish arrow appeared which was sparkling with some electricity. She waved her wing so forcefully and quickly that it created a gust of wind flying towards Goro who finished doing his hand seals as well.

Channelling as much chakra as she could afford, Alicia let go of the string and shouted "Holy release: Force of the Skies!" In a blue flash from Alice's bow, the arrow, as quickly as lightning, flew towards Goro. It was so fast that the blue and white arrow looked like an actual lightning.

Goro didn't waste any time seeing that Alicia prepared to let go her arrow. A small, white and blue sparkling ball appeared in his hand. He pushed as much chakra as he could into the small ball which started sparkling even more thrust his hand forward and shouted the name of his jutsu at same time when Alicia let go of her string "Raiton: Lightning bolt!"

The bolt of lightning shot towards Alicia at the same speed what Alicia's arrow was flying. The lightning bolt was connected to Goro's hand so Goro could easily add more power to it.

Lightning arrow and bolt met each other in a big explosion between Alicia and Goro; both of them were thrown back a bit - Alicia was thrown back in the air by the wind whereas Goro skidded back a bit but still didn't break the connection. Goro's hand was shaking as his bolt was trying overpower Alicia's arrow and Goro added more chakra into the jutsu. His bolt of lightning intensified, sparks and small lightning bolts shot from the place of impact where two jutsu met which exploded as they met surrounding environment. Slowly but steady, Alicia's arrow was being overpowered. Goro smirked in victory.

Seeing that her jutsu is being overpowered Alicia decided to try something out in the hopes it was going to work. Technically it should work. Plus, Alicia was feeling a bit tired because of the lightning arrow jutsu.

Alicia did a half ram sign again and pulled back her bow string and a white, thin arrow formed.

"Holy release: Peace!" she whispered as calmly as she could and let the arrow flying, aiming at the middle of her struggling lightning arrow. The white arrow flew and Alicia was fascinated at what she saw, she didn't even know this jutsu had this effect. The white arrow cut through her lightning arrow like butter and absorbed it into itself. It still remained white but now it was sparkling with lightning. Using its new-found electric power, the arrow easily overpowered Goro's lightning bolt and cut through it making two separate, smaller lightning bolts which safely flew past Alicia.

The arrow continued on its way and Goro didn't sense the danger approaching. He sensed that something went wrong (or right) because he couldn't feel any resistance anymore. His thoughts were short lived when an arrow pierced his chest, missing the heart by some centimeters. Goro felt pain as if a lightning had struct him. The pain was short lived. At one moment he felt terrible pain, the next he was glowing white and felt totally at peace. All his happiest moments flew by his eyes in two seconds and he died with a smile on his face. His heart stopped.

Alicia finally landed and de-materialized her wing. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Finally. At least he left in peace." She thought as she panted. The last two jutsu consumed some of her chakra. She looked around and became sick. So much bodies, so much blood... She didn't have much time to 'enjoy' the sick feeling as suddenly a 'poof' was heard and a large cloud of smoke erupted over the wall of the village. A loud roar shattered the air.

-Just when enemies were spotted-

-With Sakura, Sasuke and Kakashi-

The trio hid behind a wall and concealed their chakra as much as they could and awaited when enemy ninjas would get closer. Once in a while, Kakashi would peek over the edge of the wall to see how close they were. When the enemies were close enough, Kakashi whispered to his other two teammates. "On three I will execute my part in the plan. Then you jump in and kill as many as you can while they are confused. Try to focus on the jounin first."

Sakura and Sasuke nodded their heads in silent agreement.

All of them heard numerous distant steps of enemy ninjas.

"One..." Kakashi whispered.

The running became louder and louder.

"Two..."

Someone shouted over the wall, "Don't go on the bridge yet! It might be booby trapped."

Someone shouted an answer "Don't be stupid. First, they are mere civilians and we're ninjas. Secondly, they don't even know about the raid."

Kakashi heard numerous steps running on the wooden bridge.

"THREE!"

And the bridge exploded and screams of pain were heard. Kakashi also heard how bodies fell into the river. Using the smoke and the confusion, Kakashi jumped over the wall and did numerous hand seals while still in the air. Kakashi pushed as much chakra as he could in the jutsu to make it stronger. When he landed on the ground just near the river, he shouted "Raijū Hashiri no Jutsu!" and extended his right arm.

Large, blue, electric hound shot from Kakashi's hand and jumped into the water. Since water conducts electricity, the damage from Lightning Beast tripled and the area of effect increased, successfully injuring or killing those who were in the river. Another set of screams was heard across the area. To be sure that those in the river stays where they are, Kakashi threw some kunai, which had explosive tags attached to them, places where he sensed enemy ninjas. Since he was an experienced ninja, he rarely missed. And true enough, it now became quieter now when Kakashi killed those remaining in the river.

"Gotta go and check the village as quickly as possible. I hope Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto and Alicia will be alright on their own." Kakashi thought and jumped back in the village.

Back to Haruno and Sasuke.

Before jumping over the wall, they made a ram seal and said "KAI!" Purple lines spread across their bodies and then disappeared. They felt so much lighter now. Sakura then took out her father's, more like grandfather's, dirk and activated her Chishioton, creating 3 balls of blood. Sasuke already had his Sharingan on. They couldn't underestimate their foes, so they were going to fight at full power and use everything they learnt.

They jumped on the wall and looked for survivors. The smoke from explosion was slowly dissipating in the air. They were quite lucky because out of 8 ninjas, who didn't listen to their teammate, and went on the bridge, all 8 died. As far as Sasuke could tell from what he was sensing, out of 10 only one was a jounin. It seems that those who died were arrogant jounin.

"Well, nowadays most nuke-nins are arrogant." Sasuke mused.

The enemy ninjas still didn't notice the two figures on the wall, so Sakura decided to use it to their advantage.

"Sasuke, strong lightning please!" Sakura whispered as she started to do quick hand seals with both her hands. Sasuke followed her lead though slower because he knew Sakura's jutsu required much longer time to execute.

Before the attack, Sasuke approached Sakura and asked her to take the lead in the upcoming fight. Sakura was shocked at the strange request. Sasuke explained that, this way, they will have more chance to survive and Sakura knew that Sasuke tended to get a bit reckless during fights.

Sakura decided to use her strongest Suiton jutsu she learnt from the scroll using the water in the river. Well, if someone asks, Sakura will say that she found a scroll and learned that jutsu when actually one big, red, nine-tailed flurry was kind enough to share its knowledge with both Naruto and Sakura. The jutsu was A ranked and used up quite a lot of chakra (a bit less than a half of Sakura's current chakra capacity). Sakura wanted to use this jutsu because it was a wide scaled attack and it was both devastating and deadly when combined with good Raiton jutsu. The jutsu also required a long set of hand seals.

Finally Sakura finished and shouted "Suiton: Daibakufu no Jutsu!"

All the water in the river in front of Sakura rose high into the air making a huge wall made of water which cast a shadow over enemy ninjas who were staring at the water wall in shock.

"That's Daibakufu no Jutsu!" shouted one of them.

"There must be a jounin performing it! Orochimaru-sama didn't say we will be against ninjas. If we had known, we would have been better prepared." shouted the only surviving jounin.

Just as the water finally rose high enough, Sasuke performed his jutsu "Raiton: Raikyū!" A large sparkling ball of lightning appeared in his hands and he threw it at the water. The ball flew really fast and when it touched the water, the whole water wall started to spark with electricity. Then, as if on cue, the sparkling water wall fell on the enemies like a giant tidal wave. And it was coming at the enemy ninjas faster than an ordinary tidal wave would. The nuke-nins were too close to the river, near the now destroyed bridge, so they didn't have any time to run. Those who were wise enough made a Mud Wall, those who weren't merely ran away in hopes the Suiton jutsu won't reach them.

When the water finally crushed the poor nuke-nins, everyone suffered. Created Mud Walls weren't strong enough - yes they held off the attack for some seconds, but the large pressure from the flowing water was too much for the wall and it collapsed. The tidal wave took all the ninjas in its way and crushed them against trees and ground. It was even more painful because of the electricity in the water which also briefly paralyzed the victims. Those who were weaker let out a scream of pain.

When the water finally settled down, the entire field in front of the main gates was flooded and all the ninjas tried to get up. Sakura saw that and, when she stopped panting, whispered loud enough for Sasuke to hear "Another lightning ball please, though it don't need to be that strong. When it's done, try to finish them off using kunai with explosion tags. Aim for those you think are strong chuunin. I'll do the same."

Sasuke nodded and performed another "Raiton: Raikyū!" But this time he aimed to the location where most ninjas were.

When enemy jounin noticed the sparkling ball he shouted "Jump out of the water, NOW!" and followed his own command while throwing some shurikens and kunai to the two ninjas on the wall. "They are just kids... They should be genin, no stronger." he thought though he could feel some power coming out of them.

Most of the nuke-nin followed the command and jumped in the air using chakra jumps and threw some kunai at the two genin. Those who were too slow to react, though, got electrified and paralyzed again, becoming easy targets.

"Sasuke, air!" Sasuke said when she dodged all the projectiles. Without nodding or acknowledging that he heard, Sasuke started to throw explosive kunai to the targets from the air. His Sharingan allowed him to throw several explosive kunai at several targets at the same time. Sakura, on the other hand took care of those who were paralyzed on the ground. Most probably they were the weakest of the bunch.

From the ten surviving, seven were in the air and three were still on the ground.

Sakura successfully hit all three targets. Paralyzed ninjas couldn't do anything to dodge the weapons - their nerves were all messed up because of so much electricity which was STILL running in the water and they barely could move their arms. All the weapons embedded in different body parts. One in the gut, another above heart and the last one in the neck. Sakura with a heavy heart watched as the three kunai in three different ninjas exploded in gore, blood and fire, coloring the water beneath them in dirty crimson color.

Sasuke was less successful because those in the air were not paralyzed and blocked all the first wave of explosive kunai and they exploded at a safe distance. So when Sasuke threw the second wave, he detonated the explosive tag on kunai before they reached their targets. The result was better than it was. Most of them didn't expect the explosion so soon and all their hands were burned when they tried to protect their faces.

Sasuke didn't let them recuperate and launched another set of explosive kunai focusing on those who were caught off guard. Sakura, after finishing with her targets, joined Sasuke. They took down 3 more ninjas who fell dead on the ground with missing arms or holes in their chests. The water was now even bloodier than it was. Those four remaining ninjas weren't that lucky either - they had burnt arms. When they landed on water, they decided to go on the offensive. All four remaining ninjas were Kiri rogues, which meant they were good at Suiton jutsu. And there was plenty of water around.

"Suiton jutsu now! Focus on the boy!" shouted the remaining jounin and despite the pain in his arms he started to make handseals.

Sakura noticed that the enemy ninjas had now gone on the offensive, said "Sasuke, stand behind me."

Sasuke wanted to argue but he knew it wasn't the best of the times. Plus he trusted Sakura, so he did as he was told.

"Looks like all of them are going to make a Suiton jutsu." Sakura sighed "I'll have to use another large amount of chakra for this jutsu to work."

Sakura started to make her own set of hand seals, though enemy ninjas finished faster than she could.

"Suiton: Suigadan!" four voices shouted. Numerous small vortexes appeared around the four ninjas.

"Shit!" Sakura said "Sasuke! Use Katon and try to slow down the water fang jutsu!"

Sasuke immediately jumped in front of Sakura and quickly made his own short set of handseals. When he was done he shouted "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!" and instead of throwing a large fireball, he sustained the jutsu making it like continuous flame-thrower. Spinning water shot from the vortexes and combined midway to Sakura and Sasuke. Now the huge drilling water fang collided with Gōkakyū and easily overpowered it. Steam was coming from the place where water and fire collided.

Sasuke had trouble keeping it up and he couldn't sustain the fire much longer. Luckily, Sakura came to his rescue.

"Sasuke! Get behind me, NOW!" she shouted.

Sasuke listened and canceled his jutsu and jumped over Sakura.

The large spinning water continued on its way and before it collided with Sakura, she shouted "Chishioton: Tremendous Sanguine Shell!" and pushed as much chakra as she could into the jutsu.

The three blood orbs above Sakura's head flew in front of Sakura and in a blink of an eye turned into a massive blood round shield. It was an improved and stronger version of Sanguine Shell and it was big enough to cover several people behind it. Sakura saw that the incoming attack was spinning in clockwise direction so she commanded her bloody shield to spin in clockwise direction as well, in hopes that it will help. Sakura held both her hands in front of her to add more power to the shield if needed.

Suigadan finally collided with the shield in a big 'boom' and Sakura struggled to keep the shield up. That correlation jutsu was really strong. Sakura added more chakra into her shield and it started to spin quicker. Water was spraying over the edges of the shield but didn't go past it. Sakura was panting heavily because this jutsu was really chakra consuming, plus she used an A ranked jutsu before that. After some seconds, when she thought she can't keep up anymore, the water stopped spraying and there was no force behind the shield.

"Yes! I stopped it!" Sakura thought, though she wasn't done yet. Not by a long shot. "Lets see what do you think about this one, bastards!" she shouted.

Sakura made another set of hand seals and extended her arms and touched her shield and shouted "Chishioton: Crimson Bullets!"

The large shield stopped spinning and started to shoot hundred of hundreds small, blood bullets. They were quick as lightning and strong as a bullet. The shield was so large that thousand of bullets shot from it before the shield disappeared at all.

Originally all four ninjas were so shocked about the fact that mere girl blocked their combined Suigadan which was four or five times more powerful than single Suigadan. They were also surprised about the shield the girl used. It was a jutsu they have never seen before. A new element.

The four Kiri nuke-nin got out from their stupor when they heard Sakura shout her next jutsu. All of them had one thought before they were bombarded with countless small bullets "Blood release?"

Two chuunin were dead immediately because they weren't quick enough to dodge the bullets. Plus, it was almost impossible to dodge them because there was too many of them. The only thing what could be seen was a crimson wave heading their way. Two unfortunate chuunin got their chest and head pierced, damaging lungs, heart and brains. Both ninjas were dead within seconds.

The other two reacted quickly enough and started to do backflips on the water before the bullets reached them. Even then they were too slow and their arms and legs were pierced by the lone bullets which flew further. Luckily for them they got out of bullet range and were safe, compared to the other two dead chuunin, and escaped with small injuries.

When the shield disappeared and the last bullet was shot, Sakura fell to her knees and was panting heavily. They were fighting at a long range, which was her and Sasuke's specialization, and they won. Sakura was exhausted - she used two high ranking jutsu in rapid succession and even overpowered them by adding more chakra in them.

Sasuke ran to her and knelt next to her. He was amazed by Sakura's work and if Sasuke was amazed then it was a feat on its own. He didn't know Sakura could perform such strong jutsus.

"I won't ask if you're alright because you clearly aren't." Sasuke commented "Good job, though. It was really amazing."

Sakura, now regaining some strength, shook her head. "No, not yet. Two of the are still alive." She didn't even say thank you for a compliment. She was still in the 'battle mode'. "Sasuke." Sakura said and gently pushed Sasuke away. Sasuke was curious what Sakura is going to do now. Sakura took her knife and stabbed it into her palm.

Sasuke widened his eyes "No, you're too exhausted!"

Sakura merely shook her head and created three orbs for her Chishioton. She did two seals, ushi and mi (ox and snake), and asked "Sasuke, channel some chakra into each of Chishioton balls."

Sasuke didn't have to argue so he did as he was told.

Sakura muttered "Chishioton: Blood Pact!" The balls now moved over Sasuke's head. The Uchiha boy raised an eyebrow at that.

"Now these balls will stick with you. One of them will act on its own and will protect you from any ranged and rear attacks. The other two I will control. True, I don't have much chakra left, but I can control the ball using the jutsu I just performed. The balls will take your chakra and I can use it to control the shape and movement of two balls from a distance. This way I can't use my Chishioton techniques, but I can support you without wasting my own chakra. Don't worry, the chakra these balls will take is non-existent. Now go and use 'Force' formation!"

Sasuke was amazed by Sakura's thinking and strategy. Sasuke nodded and dashed towards two remaining nuke-nins who now tried to escape. Both ninja's arms and legs were bandaged.

"Looks like they bandaged themselves while me and Sakura were talking. And it also looks that they finished just now." Sasuke thought.

While still on the move, Sasuke did some hand seals and said "Katon: Flaming Burst Fists!" His hand now was covered in fire - from fingertips to elbows. It didn't hurt him and didn't burn his clothes, but it would hurt as hell to anyone he would punch. Both ninjas' had their backs turned to Sasuke.

"Perfect!" he thought and took out some kunai which were engulfed in flames once he touched them. And he threw both of them at the man on the right.

The ninja on the left saw Sasuke out of the corner of his eye, and shouted as he pushed the other ninja away. "Look out!"

Trusting his teammate, the ninja on the right, despite the slight pain in his legs, jumped to the right, narrowly dodging the flaming kunai though one of them still managed to slightly cut his left bicep, leaving a large, burnt gash. Both ninjas now were aware of Sasuke presence.

Both of them jumped forward, spun around in mid-air and threw some shurikens and kunai while still in the air. Sasuke had to dodge some of the weapons though he noticed that true to Sakura's words, one of the blood balls transformed into 5 long, thin tendrils, caught the kunai and threw them back. Both enemy ninjas were surprised by that but still blocked them with ease.

Sasuke felt that some of his chakra was being sucked away but he barely noticed it. If he wouldn't pay any attention to his chakra he wouldn't notice it at all. True to Sakura's words, the chakra these balls used was indeed non-existent.

"Looks like we can't escape." said the man on the right. "Daru, don't underestimate this kid - he and that girl killed all of our division."

"Yes, Shiro-san." Said the ninja on the left. "I hope the other division will do better."

"I won't be that sure." Sasuke said and smirked, his Sharingan spinning in his eyes.

"Sharingan!" exclaimed Daru.

"Why do you think so?" asked Shiro.

"Well, because there are two other ninja at the back of the village. There was a nasty trap for your other as you call it, division as well. Furthermore, even I and the other girl you saw here can't beat one of the ninjas' at the back of the village when we team up." Sasuke answered "So maybe we should stop talking and get things done?" he asked and without awaiting an answer, rushed towards Shiro, who he thought was a jounin. Soon his Flaming Burst Fists jutsu will end, so he had to use it while it still was blazing around his hands.

Sasuke threw a right hook to Shiro's face which he evaded by sidestepping. Shiro knew that he shouldn't try to block it because of the fire around Sasuke's fists, he still felt what that kunai did to him.

Before Shiro could counterattack, one of the blood balls above Sasuke's head transformed into a sharp tanto and tried to slash Shiro's shoulder. Shiro, already expecting something like that because he saw how his kunai were caught, evaded the slash.

Sasuke was on him again and did kick-punch-punch-punch-kick-kick combo, each accompanied with tanto slashes. Shiro dodged them and evaded attacks with some trouble. Even though he was an experienced jounin, he was fatigued and injured from Crimson Bullets, burned arms and a large gash on his bicep.

"Suiton: Ja no Kuchi!" someone, most probably Daru, shouted from behind Sasuke.

"Damn, I forgot about him." Sasuke thought. "Oh well."

A large snake sprung from the water near Daru and shot towards Sasuke, its jaw open.

Sasuke quickly did punch-kick to Shiro and few tanto slashes were enough to force Shiro to make some distance. Sasuke put his palms together and spun around on his heels and pushed as much chakra as he could between his palms. The fire around his arms intensified.

"Dragon Flight!" Sasuke roared and the fire from his arms shot forward and transformed into a large dragon made purely of fire. With a roar the dragon collided with the snake and both jutsu canceled each other in a big explosion. Fire extinguished and water evaporated, creating a large cloud of steam which hid all three ninjas. Though Kiri ninjas couldn't see much in the steam, they were masters in silent killing. Well, it won't help them here because the steam wasn't chakra made and Sasuke's sharingan saw through it.

Before Daru realized what happened, Sasuke was already in front of him, kunai in hand and arm drawn back ready to make slashing attack. Daru barely managed to dodge by jumping back, but he still got a small cut on his throat. It wasn't deadly though.

Daru wasn't prepared for what happened next. Two blood balls, above Sasuke's head, transformed into long whips and, the moment Daru's feet touched the ground, shot towards intending to grab him by his arms. Daru managed to evade one whip though, while the other one grabbed him by his left wrist. Because of that, the first whip succeeded in grabbing Daru's right wrist on it's second attempt.

Now when Daru was captured, the whips forcefully retracted, dragging Daru with them. When the enemy ninja was close enough, Sasuke slashed his throat immediately killing Daru.

The moment he slashed Daru's throat, he sensed danger approaching from behind. He rolled to the side but didn't see anything dangerous flying past him. He looked up and saw that one of the orbs transformed into six medium sized whips which were holding four shurikens and two kunai. He didn't have time to inspect Sakura's Chishioton jutsu any longer because in the corner of his sharingan eyes, he saw two similar water snakes approaching. These ones were much smaller but still could push him off balance, giving an enemy enough time time to plan his next move. In Sasuke's opinion, in shinobi fight surprise and timing were the most important things.

So instead of jumping to the left or right to evade, he ran directly towards the water snake jutsu. He felt a little drainage on his chakra reserves, so he looked up and saw how Sakura's two balls transformed into nine long whips. Now he had six heavily armed whips and nine long non armed whips. An entire army! he thought and chuckled.

Sasuke finally reached the snakes and using a chakra enchanced jump, jumped over them and landed in front of Shiro. The steam was slowly disappearing so Shiro could now see much more clearly. He didn't expect Sasuke to land directly in front of him and to have an army of whips above the boy.

Sasuke tried to kick Shiro but he quickly blocked the kick and counter-attacked with his own kick. Sasuke caught Shiro's leg and tried to kick Shiro in the gut with his feet. This time Shiro didn't block the kick, instead he caught it just like Sasuke did. Keeping balance, Sasuke tried to punch Shiro in the face with his free hand. Shiro caught that too. And so they stood there like that - Shiro holding Sasuke's leg and fist; Sasuke holding Shiro's leg and trying overpower Shiro's firm grip.

"Damn. Even being so young this kid is pretty strong." Shiro thought. That was also the moment when Sasuke's 'small army of whips' decided to play their role. "Shit, I forgot about them!"

The first to act were the whips with shuriken and kunai. They randomly thrashed around, though all the slices were aimed at Shiro. The Kiri nuke nin was forced to let go of Sasuke, he even managed to to punch Sasuke in the face before making some distance.

Sasuke didn't give him any distance and he was quick to re-enter close combat. When he got closer, all of his 15 whips started to attack Shiro at random intervals and places - some of the whips aimed for head, some for chest, whereas others aimed for arms and legs. Shiro had trouble dodging them all and some of them got him, making cuts all over his body. Being in closer range, Sasuke decided to complicate Shiro's task of dodging even more.

He did some handseals and said as he exhaled air "Katon: Housenka no Jutsu!"

Numerous small fireballs shot from his mouth. Shiro just couldn't dodge both fireballs and whips. It was impossible because the speed of whips was too fast and the jutsu was fired from very closer range.

Eventually Shiro couldn't dodge one of the fireballs and it struck him on the gash on his bicep making it so much more painful. Because of the pain, he slowed down and because of that more and more whips cut him. Finally the whips stopped the wild thrashing around. Instead, they grabbed Shiro by neck, wrists, biceps, legs and waist and pulled towards Sasuke. Once Shiro was close enough, Sasuke killed the man by stabbing a kunai, which he got from his pouch, into the man's heart and then slicing his throat open.

"Finally, it's done." Sasuke muttered and looked around. Numerous bodies laid around and river of blood flowed from them and mixed with surrounding water. Some dead ninjas had some missing parts on their bodies. And the most strange thing was that Sasuke didn't feel anything. "Strange. It was my first kill and I killed so many people today, yet I feel nothing. Nothing." he muttered and looked at his bloodied hands "Do I feel remorse for what I've done? No. Do I feel happy or excitement of what I've done?..." he thought and after a moment of thinking he answered his own question "No. Definitely not. Then why don't I feel at least something? Is it right? Is it good or bad? I think the most important question is: what should I feel in the first place and what is going to happen next when I don't feel anything when I kill?" He shook these thoughts away for a later time and went to check on Sakura. He noticed that the three blood whips had already collapsed on ground.

Sakura was much worse off than Sasuke. If Sasuke didn't feel anything, Sakura was openly crying at the sight in front of her. She didn't notice it while fighting because she had to focus on more important things, like helping Sasuke or taking out as many enemy ninjas as possible. But now, looking at all these dead and destroyed bodies, the river of blood which flowed on the field, random arms or legs scattered across the field, it was a sick sight to behold.

But Sakura's dilemma was that she killed so many people today. And she knew it had to be done. She cried and sobbed at all the lives she took today and at how many more she will have to take. She realized that the life of a ninja isn't an easy one. Even after Kakashi's speech, after her first kill, she still felt bad about it.

She was stopped from her trail of thoughts when a large puff of smoke erupted from the village and a loud roar shattered the air.

-With Kakashi, when he finished his part of the plan-

"Gotta go and check the village as quickly as possible. I hope Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto and Alicia will be alright on their own." Kakashi thought and jumped back into the village.

First, he decided to find the highest building in the village. After some moments of looking, he spotted that the highest building was Gaiko's office. Leaping from roof to roof, he reached the office in no time. He climbed up to the roof and looked around.

He checked what Sasuke and Sakura were doing and he was shocked on what he saw.

"That's Daibakufu no Jutsu!" Kakashi exclaimed and then smiled "I shouldn't be surprised by now, should I?" Then he looked at Naruto's and Alicia's side and saw that enemy forces were approaching the piles of logs. After some seconds, when all the enemies were within blasting area, the piles exploded. Kakashi watched them for some more seconds because he wanted to see what those two will do now. "I would rush in and kill as many as I could using the smoke as cover and confusion to secure kills." he mused. When Kakashi saw that Naruto did just that, he smiled "Good."

He didn't spot anything unusual so far so he decided to go and check on villagers. He didn't want to use shunshin because if Orochimaru was inside the village he could sense the spike in chakra alerting him that a ninja was in town.

Kakashi finally reached the first hiding post and went in. Just as he stepped in, some of the civilians started to scream and one of them even threw a frying pan at Kakashi. The one eyed man sweatdropped and caught the pan.

"Relax. It's just me."

One of the civilians asked "What do you mean 'me'? Maybe you're not 'you'. What's your name?"

"Right." Kakashi thought as his sweatdrop increased in size, He answered, nevertheless. "My name is Kakashi Hatake and I'm from Konoha, here for a mission."

Some civilians seemed to relax, though there were some wise people who didn't yet believe him.

Another civilian, the one who worked at inn where team 7 stayed, asked "You can easily find the man's name in the bingo book and disguise as him. I have a better question! What did I bring you and your team to eat today at lunch?"

Another sweatdrop appeared. "You brought us apple juice, green tea, rice, sushi and some salads."

The inn worker nodded his head. "He is the real one."

"At least they are not as stupid civilians as I thought they are..." Kakashi mused.

"Why are you here and not fighting?" someone asked.

"I don't want to raise panic, but there's a chance that one powerful ninja infiltrated the village and is planning something nasty. My other teammates, including Alicia-san, are fighting the enemy forces. Don't say they are just kids, because they are a force to be reckoned with. Now, did you notice any strange man coming in or out?"

Everyone started to murmur and then the inn worker (it seemed that the guy was in the leader here) said "No, I don't think so. What do you mean by 'strange'?"

Remembering what Naruto told him, Kakashi answered, "Well I know that the man wears a black cloak with red clouds. I also know that he has some kind of purple rope like belt underneath the cloak."

"No, we haven't seen anyone like that."

"I see, thanks. I'm gonna head to the other hiding places and ask around. The faster I'm done with that, the faster I can return to my team." Kakashi said and left the building.

He spent some more minutes visiting all the buildings used for hiding and asked the civilians for Orochimaru. In each hiding post he was met with screams and flying kitchen implements and questions. Some of them he even had a hard time answering; one of such questions was, 'Today in the morning you came into my shop. Before buying some fruits you checked out three things. Name what those things were, what shape they were and what color.' Kakashi almost failed that one...

Kakashi left the last building and decided to check the village for the last time from the Gaiko's office roof. When he reached said roof, he looked over the walls and saw that both fights were just finished. All the fighting was done in some minutes.

"Element of surprise. Gotta love it." Kakashi thought with a smile and looked around the village trying to spot something unusual. "Looks like Orochimaru didn't-"

He spotted something moving in the village's square. He focused on the moving figure and his one visible eye widened to unbelievable proportions "Speak of the devil and he appears! How could I miss him?"

It was Orochimaru. He was dressed in his Akatsuki cloak. Snake sannin was doing hand seals while holding some kind of scroll in his mouth. Kakashi didn't think of what Orochimaru was doing because he was already rushing to him. Orochimaru stopped doing his hand seals and bit his thumb. Kakashi's eyes widened even more! He was not going to make it! Kakashi threw some kunai but Orochimaru merely sidestepped them.

Orochimaru took his scroll into one hand and unrolled it while smearing blood with his other hand across the opened scroll. When Kakashi was closer enough, Orochimaru laughed "Ku ku ku. Kakashi. What a surprise. Didn't expect you to be here of all places."

"What are you going to do?" Kakashi asked as he was about to lift his headband and reveal his sharingan.

"Ku ku ku. You're too late, Kakashi. And I'm not gonna fight you today. After all, you and your jounin team are going to die today." Orochimaru said in his hiss like voice and before Kakashi could do anything, slammed his scroll into the ground and shouted "Heavy Scroll Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

"NO!" Kakashi screamed.

A hugecloud of white smoke appeared. Within it, was something so big as if someone summoned Toad Boss Gamabunta. A loud roar shattered the air.

END!

I re-wrote all the fighting scenes at least twice (Sasuke and Sakura scene four times) until I was somehow happy about it. I hope you like it and I would greatly appreciate feedback mainly on fighting scenes.

I hope I did well and you liked it.