The resplendent beam of pure chakra tore up the ground, gouging a deep trench as it slammed into the first of Orochimaru's summoned Rashoumon gates. The beam didn't even slow down as it tore through the first of the demonic faces and continued onward, but that split second caused a flash of power which further deepened the massive crater formed when the beam fired off. The first gate was intended to take an attack head on, but should it fail the second gate was to make up for it. But second gate fell soon after the first with no better showing, and it was not until the third gate that the beam finally met it's match.

Having bled off too much power through the second gate, which had been intended to weaken a strike, the impact against the third gate, which was intended to disperse the pressure, caused an even greater blast that nearly completely replaced one crater with another one of greater size. Violent winds once again shook through the trees and kicked up a massive dust cloud that hung thick in the air. Naruto stared straight ahead, only barely panting despite the attack. It took only a small bit of chakra to trigger the attack, gathering most of it's power from outside. In many ways it was similar to Naruto's trademark rasengan; a self-sustaining chakra reaction that took surprisingly little chakra to initiate and was limited instead by the severe level of control required.

Perhaps, in a feral way, this similarity was not unexpected. After all, the nine-tailed beast sealed into Naruto had shaped his chakra coils as he grew. Perhaps, and just perhaps, there was more to that then met the eye.

He surveyed the devastation with little emotion; the complex thought escaped him as the demon chakra coursed through and over him. With a low roar he pushed away the cloud of dust and dirt, eyes scanning for the sign of his prey. Feral pleasure ran through him as he failed to find it, not even a single trace of the snake remained; his summons were gone, his body completely blown away. His four tails flailed in delight as he prepared to let out a victory roar. Naruto had just enough time to look down as the ground cracked under him and a sword tip drove straight at his chest

The blade struggled against the cloak of red chakra and sent him flying back, extending constantly it drove Naruto upwards. His claws wrapped around the blade in reflex, unable to understand the danger of such and action and yet not finding any fault it either. Soon after the head of Orochimaru broke to the surface, green snake jutting from his throat and sword blade jutting from that. The snake felt strangely smug; he had just faced his own death, an unfamiliar experience. He could feel his body weakening and knew he'd burned of quiet some time with it as a result of his actions here. But he was still alive, and he had caught the Naruto-kun at last.

Or so he thought. Orochimaru soon realized that the blade was not piercing into the young ninja, instead driving him back. It was with a mix of annoyance and entertainment that he realized that even the Kusanagi no Tsurugi, Long Sword of the Heavens, was unable to pierce the cloak of red chakra that surrounded the boy's body. Truly remarkable, and a shame that such power was wasted on the brat. Orochimaru pondered what sort of host the boy might have made had he not a healthy amount of wariness when it came to attempting to possess such a body. Perhaps some day, but such a thing was beyond him now.

He pushed himself upwards out of the ground, body still wet from his earlier 'shedding' to avoid a death blow from the massive attack and continued to drive the blade upwards, hoping to perhaps wear down on the magnificent defense. After all, it couldn't stop everything, could it?

Sai watched with a mix of concern for his fledgling friend and mild satisfaction as Naruto was pushed off into the air, assured, at least, that he would likely be safe behind that protective cloak of his. He shunted the thoughts from his mind, remembering back to the methods of purging his emotions that had been drilled into him. He silently retrieved the sketchbook from his bag and began to draw, pausing a moment after he had. Looking off into the direction of his teammates he let his stoic face slip ever so slightly. And then, without word, he returned to his drawing.

He would ask for forgiveness later. That was what Shin would do. Wasn't it?

Some distance from him, another figure watched the exchange in hidden silence, contemplating his next move. The figure crouched and pressed himself closer to one of the stouter tree trunks that had been able to weather Orochimaru's prodding of the feral beast. His next move would depend on what the newest member of Team Kakashi did, he supposed. Yes, it would depend all on him.

Hinata's byakugan let her see many things, but sometimes there were things she truly wished she could forget. Seeing Naruto in that state, and knowing what it was doing to his body underneath. The seething red chakra almost stung to watch, even from the vast distance. She had seen what it was doing to him before, burning away at his body, and the pale-eyed girl began to fear that perhaps that would be it; there would be nothing left of him when that horrible chakra receded. The thoughts of what was happening to him was tearing her up inside, and yet she couldn't turn her eyes or mind away from it.

Her kekkei genkai had activated as an afterthought as the three Rashoumon gates rose up from the ground, only to be nearly blinded by the bright flash of the attack they'd been summoned to defend against. The edges of the blasting wind reached even the ruined remains of the bridge, causing the young girl to duck her head away, just for a moment, as the wave of pressure washed over her. It was an instinctive reaction, and her special eyes deactivated the moment she did. And just in time.

"Well, it seems Naruto-kun is putting up quite a fight." Kabuto said, causing both Yamato and Hinata to snap their heads towards him. He was standing by the broken bridge, acting so peculiarly nonchalant as he stared off into the distance. The pair of Konoha ninja found themselves caught off guard, but recovered quickly.

Several wooden beams shot up from the ground, spiraling around in an attempt to grapple onto the Konoha traitor. Kabuto's hand was in motion almost faster then could be seen, blue glow surrounding it in his Chakura no Mesu jutsu and slicing cleanly through the beams. Light flashed on Kabuto's glasses as he spun, cloak fluttering, "Oh, I was expecting more from one of Orochimaru-sama's old experiments."

Yamato responded without words, causing another group of pillars to shoot up from the ground, chasing after Kabuto as he leaped backwards and evaded them, slicing through those that got too close. He was just about to speak again when he felt a sharp and precise pain in his shoulder. Glancing, he noticed a glowing needle of chakra, shaped in the form of a simple senbon, sticking out from the side. It stuck for a moment before dissolving into a tiny bit of water. His eyes snapped to Hinata, noticing and she began the windup for another set of throws.

"Impressive control and accuracy. To be expected from a Hyuuga." Kabuto said with a grin, somersaulting back as the needles and wooden growths continued to chase after him. But he was too fast, they'd never be able to catch him at this rate. They hadn't enough people to do so. Kabuto was a master spy and a medical prodigy; both of those meant he had to be very good at evasion and he'd taken those lessons to heart. It was a shame, but the two simply didn't realize they were out of their league. Yes, so sad.

His body froze up as he felt a sudden pulse of chakra from behind him, unable to evade. His head turned just enough to see a pale-eyed girl, one he suddenly realized looked very much like the same girl he'd healed all those years ago during the Chuunin exam finals. Her hand was glowing blue and she was moving far too fast to evade. And, knowing the Hyuuga, there would be no blocking. You couldn't block. She thrust her palm forward, and he felt his body go rigid as chakra was forced through it even before the palm struck in the very center of his back.

"Hakke Seikishou." she whispered, leaping back as Yamato's wooden bindings shot up and wrapped around him, binding him in place. Kabuto watched, paralyzed, as the Hinata he'd seen in front of him dissolved into a puddle of water, causing him to grin. A Mizu Bunshin. It created water needles out of it's own body. Clever. Very clever. He struggled against the bindings, attempting even as the pale-eyed girl's chakra coursed through him.

The impact caused them all to turn in shock. A scant few meters away, still shrouded in the seething red chakra, Naruto Uzumaki had impacted, tip of an impossibly long sword attempting, unsuccessfully, to pierce through his cloak.

Thousands of miles away, in the Land of Earth...

Kisame brought the massive sword Samehada up in front of him, barely shuddering as stream of lava impacted it. The smell of burnt cloth filled the air as the sword's wrappings began to burn away, revealing sections of the monstrous weapon as they fell away. Kisame simply smiled and swung the sword in a wide arc as the stream came to an end, flicking the remaining lava off the blade and into the wall of the canyon with almost contemptuous ease. This jinchuuriki was just barely making things interesting, which Kisame supposed was at least something. He hadn't had a good fight in so very long.

"Ah, come on then, Roushi-san. You'll have to do better then that." the blue man said swinging his sword back around and resting it across his shoulder. He grinned, sharp teeth glinting as he did.

"Hmph." was all the red-haired man said in replied as he assumed an unknown stance, mouth and nostrils still smoking lightly from his earlier attack. His fingers stretched slightly as he adjusted the grip on one of his unique curved kunai. He was easily well into his fourties, but Kisame had to admit he moved like a man far younger than that.

As if inspired by the blue-skinned man's thoughts, Roushi launched himself towards the swordsman at a remarkable pace, chest puffing slightly and cheeks bulging as he ran. Kisame brought his sword back into a defensive position as Roushi spit a number of orange globs at him. Reacting quickly, Kisame puffed up his own cheeks and began shooting out bullets of water, intercepting the blobs as they flew. The orbs of lava hissed and steamed as the water struck, abet not with the results Kisame was hoping for. The cooled orbs had hardened into balls of razor-sharp obsidian and continued racing towards their target.

Kisame had only a few moments to duck out of the way as the first of the projectiles neared him, letting them pass around him. He let Samehada's tip fall as Roushi moved in with that unexpected speed, but sent the old man back as he swung the massive sharkskin sword upwards, cutting off Roushi's charge and forcing him to backflip away to avoid the attack. Kisame was still grinning ear to ear, having realized that perhaps he had underestimated Roushi as well. Perhaps the fight would be even more interesting then he thought.

He had arrived not long before, having finally tracked Roushi down after quite some time spent hunting the jinchuuriki of the Four-Tailed Monkey. The old coot had been particularly hard to track down, long having left his village and taken to seclusion. He had spent decades training to control the tailed beast sealed inside of him, as well as the gift and power he possessed as a result of that sealing. Although Youton, or Lava Release, was not the rarest of the elemental combinations found it some ninja, it was still a powerful one and Roushi had been gifted with a particularly powerful manifestation of it. But his manifestation was also somewhat unstable, given the nature of the same tailed beast that gave it to him. That was why he had spent so many years in solitude, mastering the beast sealed into him.

This training, combined with his age, actually made him particularly more dangerous then many Jinchuuriki who could only control the barest minimums of their tailed beast's power. But not so with Roushi. He had achieved a whole different level of control.

Itachi watched from a distance, standing from the branches of one of the trees lying on the edge of deep canyon that Roushi had chose to fight in. The elder Uchiha knew it had been a conscious choice, as well. His youton and katon, or fire release, techniques benefited greatly from the enclosed space, and the rocky terrain gave him access to materials for doton, or earth release, techniques as well. That level of planning also meant he had realized he was being hunted, which made the fact that he had been so hard to find far clearer; he'd been avoiding them. Realizing he couldn't so so forever, Roushi had decided instead to pick the battlefield and stack the deck in his favor.

It was clever, and against most foes it would be enough. But, Itachi knew, Kisame was not most foes.

Roushi leaped to the right, sticking to the canyon wall, fingers flying through a number of complicated hand seals. Itachi smiled as he watched, sharingan breaking down the move even as it was formed, but knew that he would never be able to perform it.

"Youton: Daiyouhou no Jutsu." Roushi said, "Great Directions Technique!"

Another massive plume of lava burst from his mouth with tremendous force. This one, however, was larger then before, and Kisame knew that he'd be unable to fully block it with Samehada. The blue man slammed his blade into the ground and pried up the ground, causing a large slab of stone to upturn itself and absorb the impact. Droplets of lava shower the area around Kisame, but never struck him.

He began gathering chakra in his mouth, eventually letting off his own stream of water as Roushi closed in. But he wasn't targeting the jinchuuriki, but rather the stone he'd used to block. The water struck and began to rapidly cool it, causing the stone to explode with concussive force right as Roushi leaped over it. The red haired man was thrown back and came to a skidding halt, though he managed to recover right before Kisame brought Samehada down where his head has been a moment ago.

Roushi rolled as Kisame slid his sword forward after him, hands moving even as he rolled. During one of them he pressed his hands against the ground, the sound of hims saying 'Doton: Doryūheki' not even making it over the sound of grinding earth as a wall of stone and dirt shot upwards, cutting off Kisame's advance and giving Roushi enough time to pick himself up. Just in time too, as moments later Kisame darted around the wall and brought Samehada around in a wide slashed. Roushi bent back and let the blade pass over him and lashed out with one of his own kunai, only to have it blocked as Kisame let the attack continue and spun around, moving his weapon to vertically and blocking the strike. Kisame pushed off, driving Roushi back. The red-haired man back flipped once more, acting very much like monkey sealed inside of him as he moved.

Kisame began to form a number of hand seals as Roushi flew back, cheeks puffing up as he gathered his chakra. He threw his head forward and wreched, a torrent of water flowing from his mouth and tearing through the canyon at breakneck speed. In the distance, Itachi watched with great interest. It was not often that Kisame resorted to his powerful ninjutsu. His suiton techniques were massive in power and scope, and the Bakusui Shouha was one of the largest. Kisame was riding the wave, cackling as it bore down the four-tails Jinchuuriki.

Roushi continued his acrobatics, trying to put distance between the rushing wall of water and himself as he flew through his own hand signs. The roar of the water drowned out his audible call as well, but he said it out of habit anyway.

"Youton: Youyou no Jutsu." he said, "Lava Calamity Technique!"

Once more his chest and cheeks began to puff up as he gathered his own chakra, he took one final jump and spun halfway around, spewing a cone of glowing lava from his mouth down towards the ground in front of the approaching wave. The water impacted the lava, causing it to evaporate and harden the rock, quickly weakening the massive wave as it ran over more and more of the lava. Roushi continued to expel the magma, eventually forcing Kisame to leap from his own wave as it went up in steam. The momentum lost, a wall of black obsidian suddenly stood between two pools; one of foaming water, the other of bubbling lava. Kisame landed on the water and slung Samehada onto his shoulder, chuckling.

"Alright, so you've got a bit of fight in you." Kisame said, "You're not bad at all, for a monkey man."

"You're not so bad yourself, for a freaky fish guy." was Roushi's reply, Lava forming into stone beneath his feet as he walked on the surface of the lava pool. The blue Akatsuki couldn't help but be a small bit impressed by that; any normal person would be roasted alive by sheer proximity to the lava, but Roushi had indeed become quite adept at using his gift. "I'd like to see you come and get me here, then. If you can stand the heat. I always did like my fish seared."

"Funny." Kisame replied, still grinning, "How do you do that?"

"Youtei no Jutsu. Important Point Technique. And many years of practice."

"It's really quite clever, Monkey Man."

"Glad you think so, Freaky Fish Guy."

They paused for a moment, both grinning ear to ear. Roushi, because he thought he had the foe right where he wanted them now. And Kisame, because he was having more fun then he had in a long time, at least when it came to fighting. Almost simultaneously they began running through hand seals, both of which showed both great similarity as well as key differences. But the end result was the same. Curling up behind each of the combatants formed a pillar of their respective elements. The towering spires began to form as they grew in size, first simply a crude similarity before they took on their true and final forms.

"Youton: Youyuuryuudan no Jutsu." Roushi said as the spire took the form of a magma dragon, globlets of lava spilling from it's open jaws. "Calamity Calling Dragon Missile Technique."

Kisame simply kept his trademark grin as a massive shark formed out of the water, thrashing about in barely contained rage, "This is my Suikoudan no Jutsu. Water Shark Missile."

The two let their beasts roar one last time before they dove at each other with deadly intent.

Meanwhile, in the Land of the Waterfall...

Two black and red robed men walked down a jungle path, familiar territory for one while completely new and, as it would be, unbearable to another. The first had not stepped foot inside his native land for many years, not since the day he had left in such a bloody manner. He grew to hate his village, and rather unamused to find himself sent back to it. But Fuu, Jinchuuriki of the Seven-Tailed Horned Beetle, was there waiting for them and so it was back to his home that Kakuzu went.

"Goddamn, why is it so fucking humid? I feel like I'm fucking drowning here." Hidan shouted, throwing his hands in the air for effect. "If I wanted to crawl around in steamy I would have stayed in my fucking hometown."

"Shut up, Hidan." was all Kakuzu said, taking the lead as they walked the roughly worn path towards the Village Hidden in the Waterfall. The masked Akatsuki was in a particularly foul mood, unwilling to banter with the partner he was stuck with. The genius of sticking him with a partner he couldn't kill was sure brilliance on the part of Pain. He'd gone through too many other partners before. At least, Kakuzu had thought, they were missing-nin and thus had a fair bit of bounty on their heads. Pain had him toss the reward money for killing them into the group coffers too.

But now they'd stuck him with this foul-mouthed religious nutjob who had proven time and time again that he was simply unkillable. Supposedly, this was because of some secret religious ritual performed in service to his god Janshin. As far as Kakuzu was concerned, Hidan was simply too stupid to die, and he confirmed it each and every day.

"No, seriously! What the fuck is with this heat? You used to live here? What a fucking dump! Who builds a fucking villa-."

Hidan's arm suddenly found itself lying on the ground, the momentarily confused zealot staring down at the ground before he spoke.

"Fucking hell, that fucking hurt you fucking asshole prick! Goddamn!" Hidan shouted, his partner simply continuing on walking.

"I said to shut up."

Back in Konoha...

Otter-san was a relatively new member of the ANBU, having just received his mask a short time ago. The ninjatou strapped to his back was fresh, not yet having been drawn in anger, and in truth he had yet to go on a real mission even. But, he had been clamoring for his chance. Now he was standing in the office of the hokage, grinning like mad beneath his mask as Lady Tsunade herself informed him of his first assignment, an assignment she'd hand picked him for due to what she called 'loyalty and unique skills.'

He could feel his nose twitching in excitement. Beside him, senior members of the ANBU stood. Panda, a purple-haired female he knew was deadly with the katana that was strapped across her back, and a relatively unknown ANBU with what appeared to be a Whale on his mask. Perhaps a water user?

"Your mission is simple, on the surface." she began, "I'm sure you have heard of the attack on hidden ANBU prisoner facility. In fact, I believe Whale-san was amongst the response team."

So it was a Whale, alright. Otter noticed Whale softly nodding, but his attention was quickly returned to the Godaime as she began speaking once more.

"You are to track down those responsible. However, I want you to exercise extreme caution. These are dangerous and clearly powerful shinobi we are dealing with. They managed to, apparently without injury, take down over a dozen ANBU operatives."

"Well, they weren't exactly the best of the best, ma'am." Whale suddenly said, causing the three others in the room to turn and stare at him. Silence reigned for a moment before he continued, "What? I call it like I see it, I'm the Whale ANBU."

A vein momentarily bulged on Tsunade's head before she continued, managing to restrain herself from sending the yappy operative flying through a wall. She needed them to be in tip top shape for the mission, and at least she knew she could trust these three. None of them had any association with Danzou or the bastard's little Root pet project, and all of them had, in their own ways, the utmost loyalty to the village. Given the threats they faced, it was Otter, in particular, she trusted, despite his newness.

"As I was saying." Tsunade said with authority, bringing attention back to her, "Your mission is to locate, but not engage, these shinobi. Report back constantly, and for the love of God don't try to be a hero. You're no good to anyone dead.

"Otter." she said after a brief pause, "I want you to stay for a moment. Whale, Panda, you are dismissed."

They disappeared after a brief bow, fading into a swirl of leaves, Tsunade walked back and took a seat at her desk, sighing heavily. "You may remove you mask, Otter."

The fresh ANBU nodded, pulling up the mask slowly. His face was, despite his age, still somehow playful and boyish, the red fang-like markings on his face giving evidence to his Inuzuka heritage.

"These are the ones after Naruto, aren't they, hokage-sama." the ANBU said with a feral grin. Tsunade simply smiled.

"Yes, Kiba, they are."

Shikamaru watched as Chouji reached across the table and took up yet another strip of meat from the grill, inhaling it's delectable smell before nearly literally inhaling it as well. The Konoha chuunin was still dressed as he often was, standard chuunin outfit and standard chuunin vest. Shikamaru liked to consider himself a very standard chuunin, as a whole, perhaps the most standard of his generation. He liked being standard, and compared to the bottomless hole that was the lovable Chouji Akamichi and the now even more scary Ino Yamanaka, he was very much standard.

Chouji had gone from a slightly chubby kid to a literal wall of a man. Towering over nearly all his friends, the portly Akamichi had strength to back up his size and had become unsurprisingly effective with this clan's hiden techniques. Shikamaru had always believed in Chouji, knowing full well the potential he had, and the level of loyalty and friendship he possessed. He was, by far, Shikamaru's closest and best friend. His other teammate was...

Well, complicated. Troublesome didn't even begin to explain it.

Ino Yamanaka had started off as a fairly standard female graduate of the generation. Which is to say she started off as an extremely annoying and fairly weak kunoichi who obsessed over an iceburg of a boy who had absolutely no interest in her nor any other female, which gave great question to his sexual orientation in many peoples eyes. Shikamaru was not one of those people. He was smart enough to know Sasuke was simply an emotionally traumatized person who went about dealing with it in a very wrong way. But that was his place, and Shikamaru had long since realized that it was going to take something far greater then Shikamaru could muster to shake him out of that little emotional tangle.

And, of course, that he didn't honestly care.

But back on subject, which was... oh, yes, Ino Yamanaka. A very annoying girl who had quickly become a very annoying and scary girl in a short few years. Which, incidentally, was the fault of one Sasuke Uchiha. Some might say it was more directly the result of the actions of her best friend, Sakura Haruno, but in truth Shikamaru knew that Sakura's own change was directly related to that of Sasuke, and therefor could be directly linked back to him. For this reason, Shikamaru really wished he'd have succeeded on that retrieval mission to avoid the troublesome changes Ino would go through. Changes he really hadn't seen coming.

She sat across from him, dressed the latest version of her new outfit. She had, at first, simply taken to wearing the gray trench coat of her teacher, the terrifying Ibiki Morino, wore. But she had taken it a step farther after she officially became a member of the ANBU Torture and Interrogation Force. Namely, she took the whole gray uniform. Abet, of course, with her own modifications. The uniform was fitted to her and rather tight at that; apparently she'd learned to use her body as a weapon in yet another manner, and had learned instead to tease and taunt in place of flaunting. And, in place of a pair of gray slacks she wore a miniskirt that came up a few inches above her knees. The sleeves were rolled up on the top as well, fishnet on both her knees and her elbows, 'a little bit of extra seductive oomph' she'd once refereed to it as. Oh, and the trench coat, of course. She'd kept that. Her hair was cut the same, one oversized bang covering half her face and the rest hanging down behind her. She seemed like a walking contradiction.

Shikamaru was very nervous around her, and he did not know why.

Which, of course, was picking up again. The old Team 10 was the only team from the Rookie 9 to have actually survived fully intact. There was little point in discussing the fate of Team 7, but Team 8 was at least a bit more interesting. Kiba Inuzuka was ANBU now, and Hinata was reassigned to Team Kakashi, apparently by the hokage's request. She had been Tsunade's apprentice, so that wasn't too surprising. Sometimes Shikamaru wished Ino would have been taken on as an apprentice. Would have made things so much easier.

Instead, now she was even better at getting inside minds and reading people then before, and far better then any one person had a right to be. Shikamaru could think. He was a thinker, and a damn good one at that. But, where Ino lacked his raw genius she gained in manipulative mind games. And even he was vulnerable to them.

Case in point...

"So what do you think is taking Asuma-sensei so long?" Ino asked innocently, picking up a piece of meat of her own. Shikamaru couldn't help but notice she was at least eating better since she took her place as Ibiki's apprentice. But he also couldn't help but notice that even Chouji was eating slightly less, and leaving a fair bit of it to her too. That was surprising, or perhaps not.

"Speak of the devil." Shikamaru said as their teacher arrived, sliding into his seat next to Ino with a grin. It was then that the show began.

"You're late, Asuma-sensei." Ino said matter-of-factly, almost offhand in the way she said it. She tucked a small bit of rice into her mouth, looking at the bearded smoker with those expectant eyes that seemed to draw you in and...

Moving on. Asuma simple chuckled, "Sorry about that, team. Was pulled away for something important."

"Important, you say?" Ino said quickly, but yet never changed her tone. Asuma paused only a moment before nodding in reply.

"Yes, jounin business."

Ino never let more then two seconds go by after her spoke without replying.

"So you were with some other jounin?"

"Yes."

"A lot of them."

"No, not many."

"Oh." she said, with a distinct tone that said it was less a question and more a statement. Shikamaru saw what she was doing and found himself both impressed and annoyed.

"Er, yes. Just one, really." Asuma replied with a barely visable blush that Shikamaru was surprised anyone could notice. Chouji wouldn't, he knew, so focused on his food. He had only barely, and it made him wonder how long it had been there. But Ino... Shikamaru knew she had seen it long before.

"Ah, how is Kurenai?" she asked suddenly.

"Doing wel-l..." he said, and then turned off with a cough. Ino simply grinned. The secret was hard to keep with people like Shikamaru and Ino as some of your closest friends. And they were friends, even if he was their teachers. Long had passed that, though, as it so often did with teams. Still, it was very hard to keep anything secret around them, a flaw, he supposed, in that little relationship.

Satisfied, Shikamaru frowned as he saw Ino turn her attention to him. He was dreading this.

"So, Shikamaru. I hear the chuunin exams are about ready to start again."

"That's right." he replied simply, trying to avoid this but knowing good and well it was impossible.

"Soooo... how is Temari?" she asked, and he noticed a strange and almost hostile tone to the way she asked it, subtle, but there.

He sat in silence for a moment before grumbling.

"How troublesome."

At the ruins of the Tenchi Bridge...

Hinata simply stared Naruto, byakugan activated and watching the seething chakra boil away. It was an impossible sight for her to describe, as so very much was for someone who possessed the Hyuuga's legendary eyes; when activated, they saw the world in a fundamentally different way that even their brain found it difficult to comprehend. This was why they trained their bloodline trait, to train their brain in it's own ability to comprehend. Hinata was learning right now, seeing something all new as she stared at the very unexplainable and uncomprehending thing that was the man she was growing to truly love.

She was running towards him, she realized, watching as the strange symbols appeared in her vision, glowing bright blue against the seething mass of red. She was running towards him. Yamato was shouting to her, struggling to keep his hold on Kabuto even as he did.

The tails were lashing about, but she was running towards him, and she couldn't stop. It was the right thing. She did not know why. But it was the right thing.

The tail lashed out at her as she closed in.

Author Notes:

This is mostly a language note. You may have noticed I tend to use uu in place of ū and ou in place of ō in many of the words, though in a few previous chapters I did not. From now on, I will be using the long hand versions in place of the accents, mostly due to their ease of writing and, amusingly, because I used Hyuuga from the start rather than Hyūga. Both of these are correct, mind you and are pronounced the exact same way.

Also, the following technique names are quite crude, based upon my loose understanding of the Japanese language. However, given my research, this is what they should mean, and if anyone can correct me, that would be great. You'll note many of these are my crude attempt at Japanese language puns, one of my favorite parts of the language. This is because the only other named Lava Release technique is a sort of pun as well, and I felt inspired to try my hand at it.

Mizu Bunshin is, of course, Water Clone. The needle technique is Mizu Hari, which is a water-elemental version of the Chakura no Hari, or Chakra Needle, that Hianta uses in one of the filler arcs.

Hakke Seikishou is Eight Trigrams Spirit Palm. It is based upon a game technique and adapted to my own uses. Essentially, it is a swirling pulse of chakra that strikes even before the palm, forcing a wave of debilitating chakra into the enemies body, as opposed to sealing off the system as many other moves based upon the Gentle Fist style of taijutsu do.

Youton: Daiyouhou no Jutsu (Great Directions Technique) could also be translated as Big Lava Gun. The technique is simple, involving gathering up chakra and then expelling it at high speed in the form of a stream of lava. It can also be used to spit small globs of lava instead.

Youton: Youyuuryuudan no Jutsu (Calamity Calling Dragon Missile Technique) could also be translated as Melting Dragon. Similar to other dragon techniques, the Calamity Calling Dragon Missile Technique forms a massive dragon shape out of lava and slams it into the foe.

Youton: Youyou no Jutsu (Lava Calamity Technique) could also be translated as Boundless, Vast, or Overflowing with Water (which I felt was particularly and suitably ironic). It creates a massive sea of lava.

Youton: Youtei no Jutsu (Important Point Technique) could also be translated as Lava Stopping. It basically involves causing the lava in an area to harden suddenly, used for creating landings or barricades, as well as deflect the heat away from his body.

And, of course, Youton is Lava Release.

Doton: Doryuuheki is Earth Release: Earth Style Wall. It's exactly what it says on the tin: a wall formed out of earth.

Suiton: Bakusui Shouha is the move used by Kisame in his doppelganger fight with Team Guy. Means Water Release: Exploding Water Colliding Wave. Essentially, Kisame expells as massive amount of water and rides the wave to crush an opponent.

Suiton: Suikoudan no Jutsu (Water Shark Missile) is Kisame's form of the Water Dragon Missile, and is more or less the same thing, except in the shape of a shark.