-AN-

Nothing clever today. Let's get straight to it. Exam finals!

-Story Start-

The roar of the crowd, the warm sun against his shoulders, and a confident grin on his face. Sasuke was living for the spotlight at this moment. Sure they were late as per Kakashi-sensei idea, but they were here and Sasuke was ready to take on his very dangerous opponent.

"Any later and we would have called it. You already got a buy once." Genma was not amused however. Ninja were meant to be on time.

Kakashi had the decency to at least pretend to be chagrined, "Mah mah, we're here now right? I'll just move on." Kakashi jumped away towards the stands where he spotted Asuma and Kurenai. Maybe he could get an update about what had gone on so far.

Gaara was already vibrating, "So you've shown yourself. I hope you were worth the wait because mother craves blood."

Sasuke looked between the oddly grinning Gaara and then Genma who still looked bored beyond measure, "Is a sanity test not part of the chunin exams?"

Rolling his eyes Genma raised his hand, "Kid, enough of us are cracked, be happy he isn't foaming at the mouth." Pausing to amplify his voice the proctor turned his gaze to the crowd, "The next match between Sabaku no Gaara and Sasuke Uchiha! Begin!" And he was out of the ring.

Sasuke however sighed as Gaara didn't move a muscle, this wasn't going to be any fun, "Well, gonna have to take a page out of Naruto's book." Subtly releasing a seal tag on his wrist, several connected seals burned away off of his person.

Gaara however just crossed his arms and waited, "Come and prove yourself already! I'm bored." The Sasuke before him blurred and before he could react his sand rose to defend him, impacting Sasuke's round house before the boy jumped away. Another breath and another impact, this time behind him. By the time he turned, a brace of explosive note laden kunai were intercepted by his sand.

Above them Naruto watched the match with a curious eye. Sasuke had indeed gotten faster, and had started using some of his own tactics. Though he couldn't spam clones he could at least apply liberal use of exploding notes. Watching a wall of sand rise up in an attempt to capture his teammate, Shikamaru was coming up next to Naruto again. Naruto already knew it had to be some bad news by the way the over thinker was frowning. "Whats up Shika? Wanna join the cult of explosions too?"

Rolling his eyes hard and ignoring the hyperactive blonde's use of the other pain in his ass blonde's nickname for him, Shikamaru gave a quick glace to the other Sand nin, both of which seemed to be itching to do something. "Just wanted to give you a heads up, ever since the match started they've been extra jumpy." Voice low so as to not carry, Naruto immediately hardened his gaze but didn't look over.

Naruto nodded slowly, mentally commanding his clones with Hinata to be on alert. "You're the thinking type, what're you thinking?"

Shikamaru leaned on his arms over the ledge of the window, watching as Gaara built a ball of sand around himself. Sasuke tried to penetrate it with kunai and explosives to little affect. "Not completely sure. All these people, outsiders especially, normally I wouldn't think something could go down at all." Giving Naruto the side eye he voiced a dark thought, "Unless this is something really big."

Naruto shrugged, "Sounds political and not really my thing. I blow things up Shika, brutally and efficiently."

Getting the message the lazy genin nodded, "Well I hope I'm wrong, but I get the feeling you're gonna have a chance to do just that soon." Both of them were distracted as the sound of thousands of birds chirping hit their ears. Looking up at the stadium wall they found Sasuke clutching his arm while it looked like he was clutching lightning itself. Within the next moment he was racing down the wall and towards Gaara's heavy defense, electricity arcing into the ground and digging a trench along his way. As he got closer and they noticed his Sharingan activated Gaara shot forth spikes in order to impale him. With the advantage of his doujutsu Sasuke was able avoid impalement while delivering his own attack, burying his arm up to the shoulder to make contact with Gaara himself.

"Did he get em?" Naruto was leaning forward now, hand on his sword and playing with the grip.

"Don't think so, the defense is still up."

Sasuke seemed locked and place and it was a struggle before he could pull himself free, a large brown and blue veined hand trailing him. After a moment it stopped, retreating back into the hole Sasuke had made were he could just make out a very inhuman eye.

"Is this blood? IS THIS MY BLOOD! I'M BLEEDING! MOTHER!" And all hell broke loose.

Around them they could make out feathers falling, all of the present jounin catching the genjutsu and dispelling it while several chunin and most genin along with all of the civilians were caught. Notably, Hinata was able to spot the signs along with Shino and Sakura. Dispelling it for the others took a few moments, but Hinata was not prepared for 4 clones of Naruto to reveal themselves from her borrowed jacket. Each of them had hard but determined looks on their faces as three took up defensive positions around her and the fourth saluted to Sakura.

"Meet us in the arena Sakura! It's gonna be a party!" Dispelling in order to warn his boss, the clone was gone in the next moment. Already sound and sand ninja were discarding their disguises from where they were among the crowd.

Below Gaara had dropped his sand defense and was joined by Baki his jonin sensei and his siblings. Behind Sasuke he heard a two thumps and was already grinning as Naruto came up on his right and Sakura came up on his left. "Figured you'd get caught in the illusion Naruto."

Knowing he was horrible with genjutsu Naruto couldn't deny it, "One of my clones popped at the right time. Messed with my chakra and dispelled the illusion." In front of them Genma had dropped down to take on the other jonin.

Baki turned to Temari and Kankuro, "Why isn't he transforming. What's the problem?"

Temari looked frantic, "He used to much chakra, he needs a while to recover."

Scoffing he turned his full attention to the proctor, "Get out of the village and wait nearby. When he's ready enact the plan." Like a shot the three teens were gone.

Genma looked back at the kids behind him, "Go after them, finish what you started Sasuke."

Sasuke looked around as did Naruto, they both came to a quick conclusion at the same time, "Think you can go crazy for a bit?"

Naruto nodded, "I'll need a boost up, and someone to watch my body."

"We can do that!" Coming up behind them was a stern looking Hinata, shoulders shrouded in Naruto's jacket and flanked by a feral looking Kiba and a tall and stoic Shino.
"I remember Naruto-kun telling me about what happens when he uses to many clones, we can watch his back. Team 10 isn't far away as well, helping with evac in case we need backup."

Sasuke turned and offered a hand to his friend, "No time then, we gotta move." Spinning himself twice and slinging Naruto around in an arc, he launched the slightly shorter boy as high up in the air as he could. Giving a nod to Sakura, they both wished their teammate well and were off after their own target.

Naruto was grinning as he reached the arc of his flight, just making eye level with the top of the coliseum. Making his signature hand seal he poured more chakra than he ever had into the seal, this was gonna hurt later for sure. "TAJU KAGE BUSHIN NO JUTSU!" And the horde was born.

Across the village hidden in the leaves the combined forces of the sound and the sand ninja were making headway. They had the element of surprise and numbers. Against an unprepared leaf, it was close to a rout at first. Then the orange blurs slammed into them. Almost all at once the invaders began meeting the same if slightly varied fates.

On an empty street a squad of advancing sand ninja were blown into pieces, a clone had shunshined into their midst covered in exploding tags already lit. After the detonation of fire, light and sound died away a crater and a pink mist was all that was left of the group.

Further away retreating civilians and academy students were caught by several squads of sound ninja. But in the next breath a clone was there, one burying a kunai into the skull of the squad leader. One of his subordinates destroyed the clone, but it mattered little when a dozen more replaced it. With both squads soon falling to the overwhelming numbers, the surviving clones moved on, prioritizing eliminating enemies and leaving civilians to the other more experienced ninja to help with rescue.

Not far away a civilian had fallen behind with their child, caught by a grinning sound ninja. As he raised a kunai to finish them off and move on, he was dog piled and subdued. A grinning copy of the boy helping the duo up and back towards the shelter, promising they would be safe from here.

Towards the wall there came a crash and a section ceased to exist, three large snakes breaking the barrier and moving to destroy as much as they could. They would however not get far as Naruto clones were already waiting for them. Armed with jars of toad oil laden with exploding notes and seals, several dozen clones wearing the jars as backpacks allowed themselves to be swallowed whole. Each snake swallow several thinking it an easy meal, but the resulting explosions rendered all of them just as much useless meat. Left without large targets to swarm, the remaining clones near the wall turned to the cannon fodder forces trying to enter the hole. None would make it past the barrier. Several clones almost immediately forming up into squads and unleashed hell. Some using modified explosive kunai and shuriken to tear apart enemy squads, while some went the suicide route while using their specially made explosive bracelets. This freed up more leaf ninja to help with relief efforts and fortify defenses in other sectors of the village.

All over the village Leaf ninja would eventually recant various tales of the blonde clone user with assisting with ninja take downs or minor evac efforts. Many noted that the kid knew what he was good with and tried to leave the delicate work to actual flesh and blood people.

Through it all and doing his best to keep himself together and direct clones where needed, Naruto had landed on the ground in a three point stance and was holding his sword freely but loosely on his back, ready to swing if anyone got near him. Of course being at the epicenter of his swarm, the arena and surrounding stands were empty of enemy nin with exception to the very talented that the jonin sensei were taking care of. But as team 8 watched the boy, they all were slightly worried for him as they watched his eyes moving rapidly but unseeing of any of them. And what was that blood?

"Yo Hinata, is the baka crying blood?"

Hinata watched both her surroundings and the boy in question with her byakugan active, and she could confirm that he was indeed bleeding. And his purple eye, were those ripples around the pupil? What was that? "Sakura and he warned me that it's very taxing to command his clones this way. It's part of why his jutsu is labeled a kinjutsu."

Whistling and trying to follow Genma and that sand jonin fight, Kiba nodded, "No kidding, maybe I got off easy."

Shino, quiet as ever, felt the need to speak up, "He did, as they say, beat you like a dog."

"Hey!"

Coughing and dropping completely to his knee, Naruto seemed to be snapping out of it as he reached a shaky hand into his pouch and pulled free a soldier pill. Popping it and swallowing it dry, he just knew he over did it. But he was out of clones for now and hopefully he'd recover by the time he met up with his team. "Thanks guys, you know which way Sasuke and Sakura went?"

Shaking their heads they were suddenly met with the stern face of the sensei of team 7. "Naruto, good work, I'm going to summon Pakkun and send him with you to find Sasuke and Sakura, form up and take down Gaara, understand?" Kakashi knew Naruto had already done so much, but he also knew what Gaara was, and there wasn't anyone else that could stop that. Except for another container.

Naruto was already levering himself up, "Sure thing, I should recover by then." Watching Kakashi summon his favorite nin dog, the blonde Uzumaki was off and out of the arena, and wave and salute to team 8.

"What about us sensei?" Kiba spoke up as Shino waited and Hinata watched Naruto go.

"Form up with the relief efforts and help with any civilians you see on the way. Kurenai should be able to find you soon for more detailed orders." Seeing the kids all nod before jumping away, Kakashi pulled up his mask. He still had some more hunting to do.

Naruto was frowning as he made his way first over the rooftops and then over the village walls as he followed behind the nin dog. He had used a lot of time to stay behind and take care of an many invaders as he could. Hopefully it was of some help. Hearing Pakkun grunt to get his attention, Naruto focused on the now. "What's up?"

"Forces ahead, at least 5, should we go around?"

"Are they sound or sand?" Through all of the memories he had collected, he had noticed that the sand ninja were more on par with leaf standards. But the sound nin were little better than fodder, and each game.

"From the smell I'd say sound."

Naruto nodded and tightened his grip on this sword, finally having a chance to work out a theory, "Then get behind me, I'll be working through them." Creating two clones and actually feeling the dip in his reserves from it, he leapt into battle.

Told to pursue the sand squad and wipe out pursuers, the squad of 5 men were ill prepared for a boy in orange and black to shunshin into the middle of them, already in mid swing of his weapon, "Naughty naughty sound nin!" Twisting with all his might Naruto swung his blade, bisecting 3 of the ninja in quick order. The last two were further away, one in the threes and one on the ground and backing away from the boy suspiciously clean of blood. Three corpses now at his feet and a wide grin on his face full of glowing eyes.

"What the hell!" Within the next breath a clone was gripping his chest with a glowing roll of chakra paper on it's wrist,

"Boom goes the clone." Fire and viscera covered the trees and the last sound invader was already mid throw of a brace of kunai towards the original Naruto.

"Die you brat!" Launching the kunai at Naruto's back, he was unprepared for the boy to block the blades with the large flat of his completely repaired blade. "What?"

Hand coming over and holding the mans throat and mouth, the last clone was calm, "You never should have come to Konoha." Another explosion, more useless meat rained on the ground.

Naruto himself was already turning and heading in the direction they had been traveling before, Pakkun only having to correct his course slightly, "You okay kid?"

Naruto nodded slowly, mentally filing away that it was blood that repaired the blade, not just killing. "My chakra is a little low but replenishing, though I do have some trump cards if need be." He wiped away at the blood on his cheek before he could hear the sounds of fighting ahead, "That them?"

Pakkun nodded, "I can smell your teammates yes. I'll stay concealed, I can alert Kakashi if anything happens if need be."

Naruto nodded, "Thanks! Stay safe." And the boy was off, clearing some of the concealing brush and looking upon the combat zone. Sakura was down, a large hand made of sand holding her to a tree. Sasuke was locked in combat with Gaara, but he was very changed from when he last saw him, half his body covered in blue veined sand now including his face. The black eye with gold pupil that looked down on them was completely not human.

Below them Naruto could see Kankuro locked in combat with Shikimaru and a worried Temari was trying to get by him to her brother. Deciding that it seemed Shikimaru had the advantage in the forest, Naruto leapt to the same branch as a panting Sasuke, "Take a pill, I'll cut in."

Grunting but nodding, Sasuke reached into his pouch, "He's a stamina freak like you. No matter what I hit him with he just keeps coming."

Naruto was now all grins, "Oh I'm counting on that. Can you free Sakura? You both might need to make some distance soon."

Sasuke nodded, "Noted, I'll work on it." And he was off, trusting his rival to hold on till he got back.

Naruto turned his own glowing eyes on the red head, "Any chance we can talk this out?"

"Only if you're here to offer your blood to mother! I will prove my existence! I won't let anyone end me."

Rolling his eyes, Naruto pulled free three modified exploding kunai, "Well you're a nutter just like he said, guess we gotta beat the crazy out of you!" Putting on his full speed, Naruto launched his kunai as he ran. The first two were caught by his sand which detonated and blocked his view with smoke and glassed sand. The third lodged into the tree branch he was standing on, exploding and sending the boy tumbling through the air, wood and steel shrapnel tearing his legs apart. His healing factor taking over and before more sand began to cover his extremities. "Well that can't be a good sign." Launching more kunai and keeping his distance, he tried repositioning with a shunshin. As he landed some length behind the transforming boy dealing with his explosions to the front, Naruto launched another Kunai at the grotesque tail he had grown. It landed home, and another large explosion sent the sand demon container flying with a scream of rage. "Isn't doing enough, but I'm running low on the small stuff." Naruto wasn't completely sold on killing the other container. If the demon was driving him crazy that made him just as much of a victim as he was, and it wasn't fair to just write him off. It'd be easier for sure, but not right. "You know, you're getting uglier by the second!"

"I'll tear you apart!"

"We'll need to work on your taunts!" Another reposition as the tree he was standing on was suddenly lost to a ridiculous amount of sand. Running and using up what was left of his skuriken, Naruto was able to build some smoke cover to reposition with another Shunshin. This one much more stable as his chakra was returning at a great rate now, the soldier pill finally kicking in full speed.

Seeing an opening Naruto dashed forward, sword arcing downward and slicing the regrown tail clean off. Not stopping Naruto was away from retaliation and looking for another opening. Maybe an arm this time. Could he regrow one? Or maybe he could just slice off the sand and miss the real body? That body was starting to get real big now, more and more resembling a Tanuki.

Rage finally reaching it's peak, the boy's face finally became fully covers, "You want to met your end so badly? Fine, I'll send you all to hell! False Sleep!" And in the next breath the boy was gone, and an entirely new entity took control.

"Oh shit." Naruto dashed backwards, hoping to find his team. Behind him a literal wall of sand was rising above the trees. He did find his teammates, a freed but injured Sakura while a now heavily panting Sasuke was kneeling next to her, "We got a big problem."

Looking over the boy's shoulder, Sakura could see that, "Sasuke over did it too. Kakashi sensei apparently told him not to use the chidori more than 3 times. But he used it a forth to free me."

Chuckling the boy shook his head, "No one get's left behind."

Naruto nodded and turned to where he last saw Shikamaru and found the boy looking up at the demon in true fear. Cupping his hands around his mouth, Naruto put on a grin, "We're going to go fight big ugly! You watch the siblings!" With that Naruto turned to his teammates and started making handsigns.

"Are you good on chakra Naruto?"

Naruto placed his hand on the ground, welling up chakra and mentally calling up which of the toads who he'd need, "Well enough for this, hold on, this'll be a ride." In a plume of smoke all three members of team 7 rose high above the trees.

Above the forest stood the sand demon Shukaku. Screaming and relishing in being free, his container dangling from his forehead, the mountain sized demon was already turning to complete it's task to destroy the leaf village. But as more smoke cleared he was met with the stoic pipe smoking face of the boss toad himself, Gamabunta.

"Hey tadpole, You could at least summon me for a drink first? Not straight into a battle with this maniac!"

Naruto was grinning, sword on his back with bandages and bare arms crossed over his chest, "Sorry boss, but I need a favor!" Sakura and Sasuke looked on in awe, keeping themselves adhered with chakra.

Gamabunta nodded, webbed hand trailing to his tanto, "Let's hear it kid, don't think he'll give us time to plan much here."

Naruto agreed, "I'm gonna keep it simple! I just need that bastard a little bit further away from the village, maybe another mile, and then I just need you to launch a water bullet at him. That doable?"

Grinning the toad nodded, "You got it!" Launching himself forward, the giant toad slammed feet first into the unprepared Shukaku. Then with another kick he was launched away from the village with some speed to land in a forest destroying trench, struggling to get up.

Naruto had unsealed a certain scroll with 3 black bands holding it closed, then created a clone with much more chakra than normal. Hoping the extra chakra would help it survive it's journey. "You got this?"

"We got this boss." The clone leapt down to the boss toad's nose.

"Hope you know what you're doing kid!" Gamabunta began forming the water bullet in his mouth, the clone sinking itself into it and protecting the scroll as best as it could. And with a cough, Bunta launched the bullet while Naruto recommend him to jump back to protect the team on the ground, which he did.

As the Tanuki righted himself finally and leaned forward in order to charge forward again, he was slightly late to stop the ball of condensed water from impacting his gut. It wasn't enough to put him down, but that wasn't the point as the clone and it's cargo were buried deep into it's center mass. Injecting the last it it's chakra, Naruto's clone did his duty.

Naruto's more experimental scroll had a simple set of features if one was to explain it. First, the heavy metals he had sealed were broken down into the atomic structures. Then, the storage seal that held them was inverted or essentially turned inside out. The thought to Naruto was that all that stuff coming out from such a small space would be an explosion like no other. However Naruto was not aware of what suddenly freed atoms with lots of space to suddenly move did to each other. And as the storage seal inverted and the compression seals failed, all those compressed atoms crashed into each other, splitting and forcing out more smaller components to complete the process again. And again. And again.

Everything within 150 meters of the scroll did not just explode, mass almost instantly just ceased to exist. Next came a wall of light and then extremely sun surface temperature heat. Everything from Shukaku's slightly curled tail to his bent over head were thrown away in a wall of hell, just a quickly turned to molten glass. What little of his head remained was flash dried out a cry of anguish as he connection to his container was forcibly severed. Gaara was spared death from fire only because the sand turned glass absorbed so much heat, but the ensuing launch through the air and crashing through the forest nearly did him in. Break bones and leaving him in a heap just below the feet of the aged boss toad who was covering his face from the light heat of the explosion that was now rising into the sky. And then the shock wave hit, throwing anyone not Bunta to their knees and forcing them to adhere to the ground with chakra. The wave would last for roughly 10 seconds, before a second less powerful wave of air sucked back into the other direction.

Through it all Naruto had watched the whole thing, eyes wide as he took in the largest explosion that he had ever concocted. It had worked, so much better than he had thought it would! And that was with improvised materials. Now it only he could find some truly heavy stuff to break down. And the oranges and reds and yellows of the flames danced in the sky, he smiled that this was something truly beautiful. In his mind, a fairly pleased fox growled in approval.

'This victory is satisfactory. To think a human could do such damage on their own.'

Sakura and Sasuke were just standing and looking at their teammate as he watched the mushroom shaped cloud rise into the air. Where the sand demon had been, there was now a several hundred meter wide crater covered in glass and molten rock. And as they watched Naruto jump down off of Bunta to confront the sand genin, they both shuddered and preyed Naruto never used that again. They jumped after their friend however, weak but ready to back him up. Behind them, Gamabunta bid them all farewell and returned to the summon realm.

Naruto was tired and knew better than to try and down another pill. Hopefully the fight was all out of Gaara by this point. Walking up to the kid laying in a pile of sand and trying to crawl away, Naruto grabbed and hefted his sword, "Have you had enough yet?"

Looking back and up at the blonde, into those glowing mismatched eyes and the sword that would soon end his life, Gaara panicked, "Stay away! You can't end my existence! I've had nothing! Why do you fight so hard for these nothing people?

Lowering his hand with a sigh, Naruto looked left, and then right as Sakura and Sasuke joined him. "They aren't nothing. They're my friends, my precious people. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't be here. So I fight for them, not just for myself. That's why I can keep fighting, why I will keep fighting. So that I know they are safe."

Something untouched in years cried out inside Gaara, the scared little boy who was first betrayed by his family, "I can't have anyone precious, they'll betray you. Try to kill you. How can you trust them."

Naruto shrugged, "That's what it means to understand each other as family. I know they'd never betray me, and I'll never betray them." Naruto looked at the scared boy, seeing in himself, another scared boy who had only wanted to be noticed and loved by someone. He wondered if this is what he would have been if no one had reached out to him eventually. "Maybe you need to learn what it means to have a friend. So how about it? Me and you, let's be friends?" Naruto was holding out his hand now, a smile on his face as he adrenaline started to come down and his body started to relax.

"Friends?" The voice was small, scared, but Gaara's gaze was locked on Naruto's outstretched hand.

"Don't hurt my brother!" Temari burst out of the tree cover. Fan in tatters and in no shape to fight, but she stood over Gaara anyway. Kankura wasn't far behind, arms with a severed poisoned blade from his puppet.

Looking at the worried look from his brother and the terrified look from his sister, willing to die for him in that moment, Gaara struggled to his knees. "Temari, Kakuro." Both of the older teens looked back to their younger sibling with fear, "Let's stop. It's time to retreat." Locking his gaze once again on the Uzumaki and Kakura helped him up, Gaara nodded, "It's a new word for me, friend."

Naruto nodded, hand dropping to his side, "Well get used to it, I like to collect them and you're now one of mine. I'll send ya a letter once our villages figure this all out."

Sasuke leaned in, "We can't just let them go Naruto."

Pakkun with Shikamaru rushed forward, the small dog taking the lead, "You can, actually. Kakashi just sent word, the sound had betrayed the sand from the beginning. They were used as pawns to make the invasion happen. Order are to let to sand siblings go."

Sucking his teeth Sasuke nodded and relax, "Well that's that then."

Sakura nodded and started to look a groaning Naruto over, "Hey, what's with the blood on your face, you get hit?" Checking his eyes they seemed fine, still just as mismatched but nothing else.

Naruto tried and failed to push a fussing Sakura away from him, "Well you heard em, get going Gaara, we'll catch up later, as friends." Watching as his fellow container nodded, the silblings were gone and away. Soon meeting up with the retreating sand ninja and rushing back to their village.

Dropping to the ground with a thud, Shikamaru rubbed his shoulders, "That was way more of a hassle than I ever wanted. Can I just sleep here."

Naruto sat down himself finally, holding his sword over his knees and letting Sakura check him over as much as she wanted. She really was taking the first aid stuff seriously. "You know I agree Shika, a nap sounds good. I don't think I've ever used so much chakra in a single day."

Sasuke completed the circle, sitting cross legged as a finally satisfied Sakura moved on from Naruto to Sasuke. "Other than some scrapes I think I'm good Sakura."

"You'll let me check you over anyway if you know what's good for you."

Sasuke gave up with a sigh, at least now she was actually doing something, her own training this last month finally showing through. "You've been busy while we were training for the finals."

Sakura nodded as she bandaged up his burned and injured hand, burn cream applied to help speed along it's recovery. "Well I had to lean into my skills somehow. And I'm really good at memorizing knowledge and analyzing situations. Seemed turning towards the support route wasn't such a bad idea. I'll catch up to you in combat soon enough, just you watch."

Naruto nodded, "I have complete faith in you Sakura."

"Yeah, we still have to talk about whatever the hell bomb you just used back there. What was that?" Sakura was just finishing up the bandage and looked over to Shikamaru who waved her off showing mostly clean arms.

"Pure beauty."

Sasuke frowned, "That's not really an answer."

"Wasn't really a question."

"I still have some chakra left, want an ass kicking smart ass?"

"Oooh you think I'm smart, hear that Sakura? Teme thinks I'm smart!"

"Nope, I'm done with you both, I'm taking Pakkun and going home."

All three genin stared at each other for a few moments, but laughing and coming together in a team hug. Pulling away and wiping tears, Shikamaru was looking at them as if he had never seen their like before.

"You three are weird."

Sakura flicked him in the forehead, "Stuff if lazy bones." Standing and dusting off her battle dress and shaking her shorter hair free of sand, Sakura grinned, "Let's get back, I'm sure there's lots of clean up to do." Naruto and Sasuke nodded, levering themselves up with a groan and Shikamaru debated it before getting up with them. As they made their way back to the village, escorted by the summon dog and eventually some grateful anbu for some reason, they would not find a fully happy reunion once they re-entered the walls of their home. Because though they had escaped the invasion with much few casualties than what would be normal, there was still a major one that crushed all of them.

The third had fallen to Orochimaru's blade.

-AN-

And cut! We've reached the end. For those who caught onto me building up to a nuclear capable Naruto, just wait, we're gonna get even more nuts as time goes on. But we have intrigue to get to in the coming chapters, and the search for a certain drunkard blonde.