SO…thanks tooooo Lady Rini, Rena, Hellcleaner, Malix2(will try to cut back on nameless dialogue ^_^;), Claamchowder, ANNNDDD Tobilollipop. This is quite the early chapter hm? Well, all we can say is enjoy, cause we most CERTAINLY enjoyed writing this.

Nara plunged her jutsu into a rather shocked Akano.

Unfortunately, he was once again, a clone.

That left two clones and the original.

That is, until the original Akano made some more handsigns and summoned six more clones.

He stared at Nara in shock.

"That…that was the rasengan!" He said incredulously. "you…you…you're Nara! The demon's spawn!"

Haruna stared at Nara. "How does he know your name?!?"

Damn it. He must have connections to Itachi. "Nothing. It's nothing." Nara said quickly. "Just run!"

Haruna looked around her. Currently, Keitaro and Sarunte were bleeding heavily, Ryoga was badly burnt, and Miyaki was struggling to get up from the impact of the fall.

"I'm staying here Nara. You can't handle this on your own."

"Haruna! Listen to me! The mission HAS to succeed. We MUST get this saunter grass to the Kazekage!"

"Then…then let me do it."

It was Ryoga. "I still have some chakra left. I'm faster than any of you blokes anyway. I don't want to fight."

"Fine. Go! Just…bring back help!" Nara said.

Ryoga nodded, and checking his pack quickly to make sure he still had some of the cure on him, he vanished.

"Nara, there's no telling if he'll come back or not. It will still take at least half a day for him to get anywhere, not to mention we're practically lost."

Nara sighed sadly. "I know."

"…Nara…is Kankuro-sensei…dead?"

"I don't know…this man had to have broken free somehow…"

"…but…that means that no one is coming…"

"Yeah."

Haruna gulped and tugged on her headband. It wasn't fair. She didn't want to die a genin. She still needed to become a chuunin, and a jonin, and beat Reniko in a fight…

"Haruna." Nara said quickly, noting the worried girl's face, "We'll get out of this."

Nara wasn't going to let anyone die in this fight. She would protect them all. Sarunte, Miyaki, Keitaro, Haruna. All of them, even if she suffered for it in the end.

Akano laughed a bit. "What's with all the sentimentality? I'm not going to kill any of you! I have much more money related causes for fighting you. Especially you." He said, pointing to Nara. "I know a certain man who would love to see you in chains."

Nara growled. "Not gonna happen."

"Listen." He said loudly, as he saw out of the corner of his eye, Miyaki getting up and coming closer to the location, looking ready for a round two, as well as Keitaro mending himself with the odd pink gunk that came out of his metal clasps.

"Surrender now, and I won't kill you. I can't guarantee anything if you fight back."

"Oi. Numbnut." Miyaki said evenly, as Keitaro cocked his head towards her in response. "Heal the Uchiha when you're done. I don't know about you softies, but if I'm gonna get captured for money, I'm sure as hell gonna make sure I get some scars on you first."

Haruna nodded. "I second that."

"Thirded." Sarunte sobbed as he grasped his leg which was bleeding heavily.

Keitaro gave a grunt of agreeance.

"Haruna," Nara said worriedly, "You should just stay out of this fight. Your Zajigan is obviously no use against him…"

"I don't care! I'm a shinobi!" Haruna yelled out.

Akano sighed. "Fine then." He twirled his swords around, "By the time I am done with you brats, you will be BEGGING for death's embrace."

Miyaki clasped her wrists together. "Die you ham. Slicing sound wave!"

Sound erupted from her fingertips, but the clones dodged.

"Let's take out the fox girl first." Akano yelled, and he started to spin his katanas around rapidly. "Thunder Disk; Lightning Style!"

Two very large disks of lightning came into contact with Nara. It knocked her back, and left her with a very bad, and very deep gash along her waist. The blood seemed to come out way too easily. Nara felt slightly queasy.

She forced herself to get up. Activating her byakugan she yelled "EAT GENTLE FIST!"

She charged and, dodging the waves of lightning, successfully came into contact. She started to seal off the chakra points. But very quickly, Akano disintegrated into lightning, and shocked Nara.

Blood loss already taking its toll, Nara fell to her knees. This was not good. What was wrong with her? She had successfully evaded Itachi for years now! Of course, she never actually fought with Itachi…

Reaching into her bag, she fumbled for her chakra balls. Any chakra balls. Her hand slightly trembling, she saw that it was a fire chakra ball. She threw it.

One explosion of fire later, while it didn't get rid of any of the clones, certainly served as a good distraction for when Miyaki used her sound slicing jutsu again.

Some lightning later, and one more clone had bit the dust.

Keitaro's wound had been clumsily sealed, and so had Saruntes. Keitaro stumbled over to Nara.

"Here, lemme see your wound." He muttered.

He lifted up Nara's shirt, but paused. There seemed to be no more blood coming out. He raised an eyebrow. "Well, guess you're o.k. then."

Sasuke slowly got up, although he was a bit woozy from the blood.

Miyaki and Haruna had been attempting to tag team against Akano, but it wasn't going well. Haruna severely lacked any physical strength, and Miyaki was better, but not enough to match up against a jonin. However, they managed to work out a system where they would use the Zajigan and Miyaki's echolocation to distract the missing nin, and then Miyaki would use her sound slicing jutsu, and Haruna would use her kunai.

It worked to take down one clone, but after that, Akano focused all of his energy on the two, and it wasn't long until Miyaki and Haruna spent more time dodging lightning than taking down the culprit.

This wasn't working. They needed to take down the real Akano. But, not even Nara's byakugan could do that task. All the chakra had been evenly distributed. They all looked exactly the same.

Crap.

So, they did the only thing they could, attack any and all of them. But it was futile. Akano was only toying with them. Wearing them down till they collapsed. Then he would tie them up and profit.

Never before had any of them felt so…out matched.

Even Nara hadn't felt this way in a long time. Even when she had been running away from Itachi, she had always had faith in her ability to get away, and avoid fighting. But here, she couldn't run away. She had to make sure the others got away. But they were so stubborn.

At this rate they were ALL going to be captured. Where was Kankuro-san? If he hadn't come by this point…was he really dead? Kankuro was a jonin, and the brother of the Kazekage, no way he could lose that easily. Of course…there HAD been two other ninjas. Maybe he had been able to take those two down, and had been so weakened that the kumo ninja took him down easily.

She couldn't think about this now! She needed to defend everyone! Somehow…

"Shadow clone!"

Using every amount of chakra she possibly could, she surrounded the entire area with shadow clones. She used her invisibility jutsu next, and then prepared to use gentle fist. Thank goodness for the demon fox, it gave her near unlimited chakra.

Akano saw this, and was quick to act. One jutsu later, and his clones and himself had some sort of lightning armor.

Nara's clones started to drop like flies. But she kept trying, in hopes she could wear the kumo missing nin even a bit.

At one point, one of the clones, or perhaps, the real one, reached into a pack and retrieved some brown pellets. Soldier pills. NO!

He restored his chakra. DAMN IT. This was not good. This was impossible. She could try and use rasengan again, but most likely, another one would deplete way too much of her chakra. But she had to try, since nothing else was working. Not to mention her version of the rasengan was imperfect. Sure, it was powerful enough to take down a clone, but she used far too much chakra for far too little fire power.

Miyaki gave a low whistle. "Ooo. And I thought this rogue ninja had a lot of chakra."

Forming another rasengan, Nara charged at the kumo ninja who had eaten the soldier pills. That had to be the real one. The rasengan made contact with the man.

For a split second, Nara thought this was it. They had won…

But she then felt an odd warmth. Looking down, she saw that a katana was sticking through her stomach. From behind her, a clone had charged and attacked. The missing ninja had a wound where the rasengan had hit, but it was nothing fatal, or even that worrisome.

The katana was withdrawn, and Nara collapsed onto her knees. Shit. She had found the real one, but she wasn't going to be alive much longer.

At least she wouldn't be captured, she thought somewhat dryly.

"NARA!" She heard a voice. It was a combination of Haruna and Saruntes reactions.

"KATON!" She felt a warmth go over her head as Sarunte blew out a massive fire ball.

"You bastard." The Uchiha hissed. Holding a kunai in each hand, he gritted his teeth. "I'll kill you."

"Chakra wave; Lightning Style!"

"Chakra Wave; Lightning Style!" Sarunte repeated and as the katanas emitted the waves of lightning, Saruntes kunais responded with the exact same move.

It was much more weak, and much less powerful, but it shocked Akano enough for Miyaki to kick him in the jaw.

Akano responded by slashing at Miyaki, and Miyaki fell to the ground with a wound to the shoulder.

Sarunte turned to Nara for a split second. "Nara! Nara! You're alive right?"

Nara paled. Sarunte…

Sarunte…his eyes…

He had the sharingan…

She felt a presence beside her, which she registered to be Keitaro. She felt him lift her up, and they moved as a powerful blast of lightning came their way.

Sarunte started to make hand signs. Suddenly, he disappeared.

Akano craned his neck. "Copy cat brat. Fucking show your face!"

Suddenly, he widened his eyes, and looked down, and a large deep gash appeared across his chest. Another one appeared. And another. And another. And another.

Sarunte appeared behind Akano, covered in bruises himself that were not there before, and collapsed.

Akano started to pant heavily. He took a step, but found that it was too much for him, and a couple of seconds later, he was impaled by a furious Haruna.

He fell to the ground. Dead.

Keitaro cursed as his stomach wound opened up again.

Haruna was the only one still up. Panting heavily she rummaged through the dead missing nins pack. She clumsily retrieved a couple of soldier pills. There weren't many, only one each, but it would be enough.

Inserting it into everyones mouth, she noted mournfully that Sarunte's wound had opened up as well, and had practically torn itself up even more.

She looked at Nara next, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Nara actually didn't look nearly as bad as she though. She clearly had a deep wound, but the bleeding had stopped.

Miyaki's wound wasn't serious, but she would need medical attention, and she had taken a lot of trauma as well, back when she had fallen.

Keitaro's wound had opened up again as the pink glue he had used dissolved, but he seemed to be intent on fixing it again, as he now had more chakra in him, but the blood loss soon became too much for him, and just as he managed to seal himself up, his arms fell numbly to his sides.

Haruna was not a medical ninja. She stumbled to Nara, and started to desperately search her bags. She found some chakra balls, but she had no idea what they did.

After a couple of failed tries of them blowing up in her face, she successfully managed to throw them up in the air, and cause a fancy array of lightning, ice, fire, and smoke. She also used one of the ice chakra balls to create some water to fill the canteen once it melted.

Finally, she grabbed a kunai, and started to cut strips of clothing from the mystery ninja, and use it as bandages for Sarunte and Miyaki.

She needed to find shelter or something. The sun had gotten painful, but there was no shelter in sight. If only Nara was awake, she could use her shadow clones. Or anyone for that matter.

She felt flat out exhausted. Her entire body had been singed from the battle. Her right hand hurt when she tried to close it, and her ankles were killing her.

She shouted hoarsely a couple of times. But to no avail. As a last resort, she looked through the missing ninjas equipment. Other than the two katana, he really didn't have that much on him. Some shuriken, a couple of chakra tags. A bingo book.

She stared at the katana carefully. It had been specifically made to conduct chakra. Experimentally, she surged her chakra to the katana. Feebly, it began t o flicker a bit. She put in ever last amount of her chakra through the katana, and a beam of chakra shot up into the sky. The last of the energy leaving her, she promptly collapsed.

xXx

Kankuro's search had not been going well. He might be a jonin, but he wasn't a ninja who was meant to search for people. They could be anywhere. His only hope was to sense their chakra. Or Akano's chakra. He kept his eyes out for any lightning jutsus, but to no avail. If Akano had found those brats he would never forgive himself. Shit…

Haruna's last attempt to signal anyone had paid off. Kankuro saw the beam, and after an intense sigh of relief quickly made his way to the area.

He came to a rather bloody sight, but noticed that everyone was feebly breathing. Except…for Akano. He was dead. Kankuro looked at the collapsed genin in amazement. They had actually done it.

He then realized Ryoga was nowhere to be found. A best case scenario was that he had gone ahead to deliver the antidote. A worst case scenario was that he had been completely disintegrated. Another more likely worst case scenario was that he had run away.

The last thing he wanted to do was yell at Ryoga for being a coward.

Summoning his puppets, Kankuro placed his genin and Sakura's genin into salamander, and after examining them to make sure they had nothing in immediate need of attention, he made his way home.

xXx

He was a couple of hours away when he ran into some other Suna jonin. Apparently, Ryoga had made his way to Suna, handed over the saunter grass, explained the predicament, and promptly collapsed from exhaustion. It hadn't helped he had gotten lost about twice, while using a lot of chakra to travel as fast as possible.

Kankuro didn't blame him. He was proud of his student. He handed the currently wounded genin over to the medical ninja who had met up with him, and they did some short term healing on everyone. As it turned out, Nara was practically conscious and was already stirring.

She was one fast healer, Kankuro thought. Guess she wouldn't be needing much medical attention. Now it was time to head to his home, lounge around as Gaara and the other ninjas were healed, and more importantly, breathe a sigh of relief that the mission was over.

To Be Continued