Okay, before we start: thank you all for the encouraging reviews. I believe I answered all the reviews I could already, however there was a question concerning Sasuke's Mangekyou Sharingan: yes, Sasuke did use a Sharingan in the fight against Karuto and Ryu, however I never said it was the higher level one… and still Sasuke grew a lot stronger then he was (it's been around fifteen years since the current events in the manga)… however all the aspects of Sasuke's Sharingan will be properly answered later on.

Before we start, I just want to encourage you to review, coz your opinions means a lot to me.

And now on with the show:

Chapter #34: Kumiko's Strength

Title Page: Kai is walking with screws in his neck, pretending to be Frankenstein's monster

"Use the enemy's strength for your profits… that's one of the basic ninjutsu rules…" announced Kumiko as she picked out a kunai and wrapped it with an explosive tag. "And guess what, I've just found your weak spot… better get ready, coz your ass is grass…" and with that she threw the knife right at the Kusa shinobi.

The Grass leader jumped back, easily avoiding both the kunai and explosion, but the dust that was lifted at the same moment blocked his view for a moment. As the dust cleared, the grass-nins noticed a bunch of knifes all with tags on them coming right at them. Some jumped into the air just to be attacked by more throwing knifes, also with explosive tags.

Kusari also go a heart attack as one of Kumiko's knifes flew right pass his right cheek and stuck in the tree only a meter behind him. He turned around and noticing a tag attached to that knife too his eyes widen.

"And I thought you were the smart one…" sighed the Grass leader as he, along with two of his teammates, landed on the ground. The other two stayed on top of the trees, having tied up Kusari and Takaru right behind them. "Attacking blindly… how stupid… most likely you already used all of your explosive tags along with all the knifes… you didn't even used the dust you created to free one of your teammates… I guess I'll just end your stupidity here and now…" and with that he bite his finger while taking the scroll of his back.

"Is Kiro-kun really gonna use that technique on just one opponent?" asked one of the other Grass shinobies. "And such a weak one too…"

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"" called out the one called Kiro. "Come forward Zassouku!" and in an instant a huge cloud of white smoke covered the scroll. As it cleared, it revealed a large sundew with leaves used as legs and a huge jaw: "Eat her…" commanded the grass-nin and immediately the living plant charged at the Leaf kunoichi.

Kumiko tried to jump out of the way, to her surprise however her legs were grabbed by tiny roots that came from under the ground: "That's why I said you were pathetic!" laughed Kiro. "When you lifted tons of dust I performed a quick set of hand seals to control the roots! I made them wait under the ground for the right moment to come up and grab you! You didn't expect that, coz you never saw me performing hand seals! And now you're death!"

But to everyone's surprise the plant just ran through the leaf kunoichi, leaving the Grass shinobies eyes widen. "Who said that you're the only one who performed the seals while dust lifted?" came Kumiko's voice and instantly tens of her jumped from every part of the bush surrounding the battle ground.

"A simple bushin?" Kiro looked around a bit nervous. "What is she trying to do by confusing us for a second? That won't help her at all…" and with that he performed another set of hand seals: "Jump up!" he commanded his teammates and the second they did so, he called out: "Mokuton: Ibara Niwa!"

In an instant tens of thorns grew from under the ground and fire their spikes at all Kumiko's bushins, yet they flew right through every one of them: "The original's no here?" Kiro's eyes widen again at the discovery.

"Boy you're dumb…" he heard Kumiko's voice again and before he knew it his teammates fell from the tree and hit the ground hard, falling into unconsciousness. "What the…?"

"Let me explain…" asked the real Kumiko, who just walked out from behind a nearby tree. "When you thought that at the beginning I did nothing then throw kunais blindly, you made the biggest mistake: all off that was just a simple cover… heck, you didn't even noticed that not all of the tags attached to the kunais were explosive ones… if you'd look around closely, you'll see many of my knives laying around not blown to bits…"

Kiro looked around and noticed that what she said was true and a moment later the Leaf kunoichi continued: "I'm a genjutsu specialist and being such requires good chakra knowledge… I'm not an expert like Kusari, however I can tell when chakra is expelled in most of the times… that's how I noticed that in order to keep those lianas and roots imprisoning my friends you needed to keep releasing chakra into them… that requires concentration, so I figure that if I disturb it, you won't notice when they're cut. I also forced your teammates to jump into the air so I'd have an explanation to throw kunais into the tree tops as well… one of the knifes had a tag attached to it. I threw it close to Kusari, so that he could read it…"

At hearing that the Grass shinobi looked up and noticed all four of Kumiko's teammates standing on the branches. Soon after he turned to the genjutsu specialist who kept explaining: "Kusari's abilities don't require hand seals to work, so as long as his chain is free, he can act… since he's using his chain by filling it with chakra, I figure he will be able to cut through the lianas. In the note attached to the kunai I threw next to him I asked him to do that, free the others and told them to hide in the tree tops. When they were doing that, I performed bushin while dust was still covering the area. With so many phantoms you didn't realize that I also cast another genjutsu…"

"What do you mean?" asked Kiro.

"Didn't it surprised you?" Kumiko seemed surprised. "You ordered you teammates to escape into the tree tops when you performed that thorn technique, coz the spikes fired at every place near the surface. Ibuki was trapped by the roots so she was tied to the ground. Basically she should be killed by all the thorns and yet she's fine… that's because she, as well as all my other teammates from the moment the dust cleared were just the genjutsu that I cast after performing the bushin…" and the moment she said so the pictures of Konoha rookies being trapped by lianas, tree branches and roots faded away, leaving the real ones that stood on the tree branches.

"The instant your team jumped onto the branches, we took care of them…" announced Takaru with his arms crossed. "How the tables have turned, now you're the one who's outnumbered… however Kumiko's fight is still not over…"

"What do you mean?" asked Kiro confused.

"Simple…" replied Ibuki. "It's still one on one… she'll kick you butt anyway…"

"Of course…" nodded the other Leaf kunoichi. "Come on, the chances are even, lets check how good you are without your friends to help you and no hostages…" and with that she reached for her shurikens. "With all that I have only one kunai left and seven shurikens… should be just enough…" and with that she threw the shinobi stars right at the grass-nin.

Kiro easily dodged by jumping to his right and threw shurikens of his own. As they came closer to Kumiko, she rolled on the ground, making them flew right above her. The Leaf kunoichi reached to her hostel once more and picking out three shinobi stars this time, she threw one right before the grass-nin's face.

As Kiro came to a stop, he turned his face to his opponent and a large smirk appeared on it. Kumiko instantly jumped to the left as Zassouku missed grabbing her with his jaws just by few inches. The kunoichi threw another one of her shurikens at the living plant and as the star reached the target, the 'creature' hissed and some green liquid escaped it's mouth.

Meanwhile Kumiko threw another shuriken at the grass-nin, but this one missed him by a mile (A/N: not literally, but you know…) and stuck in a tree. "Two left… damn, I miscalculated! I need one more…" and with that she picked out her last, two shinobi stars throwing them above surprised Kiro.

"She's up to something…" he concluded as he began a new set of hand seals. "She may be weak, but her aim can't be THAT bad… she was good with throwing those kunai's before…" and with that he finished his chain of seals and called out: "Mokuton: Hongen Hitoya!"

Before anyone knew it, roots shoot from under the ground in order to trap the kunoichi. "Not good…" Kumiko cursed in her mind as she jumped into the air and reached for her last kunai: "This will have to do then…"

As soon as she was above the ground she threw the knife with a rope tied to it into a large tree branch few meters above her. The moment she began to fall down back to the surface, she grabbed the rope and stopped right out of the roots reach.

Only then did Kiro noticed thin string attached to every shuriken Kumiko threw at him and his eyes widen as he realized that the strings were all around him: "Shi…" was all he managed to say before trying to avoid the trap. It was too late however.

In an instant Kumiko started spinning, using the rope tied to the kunai and all the shurikens with strings got ripped of from the places they were stuck in and started to tie the grass-nin.

Seeing that the strings were practically everywhere, Kiro figured that the only way to avoid the trap was to cut them. He reached out for his pocket, picked out a kunai and aimed to cut the string that was the closest to his body, however just then Zassouku flew right into him, making him lose his balance as well as the kunai.

A second or two later, the grass-nin was completely tied up by the strings and Zassouku got dispelled by the hit against him. Kumiko landed softly on the ground and walked closer to the Kusa shinobi and only then did Kiro noticed that all the strings were attached to the kunoichi's belt: "You…" he began, but shut up almost instantly.

"Kumiko-chan, that was so awesome!" yelled Kusari as he jumped down from the tree along with the rest of the team. "You really beat him! That's what I call choosing the right girl for being your future wife! Come on, a hug to celebrate the victory!" and with that he jumped at the kunoichi with his arms opened, the genjutsu specialist however managed to land a kick on his face before he was able to close the embrace.

"You dumbass, just when I was about to praise you for a job well-done too…" Kumiko sweat dropped as her foot was stuck in the chain master's face.

"I knew you can make it…" announced Kai as he gave the girl a pat on the back. "Now lets get out of this place before more people will get a desire to steal our scroll…"

"Wow, you actually made a good point…" joked Takaru and with that all, five Leaf gennins headed towards the exit.

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Shikamaru was laying on one of the roof tops and stared at the starry, night sky when Temari joined him and sat next to the lazy jounin. They both stayed silent for a while before the Sand kunoichi decided to speak: "It seems that both our teams made it through the second test…"

"I know, Ino already told me…" replied Shikamaru. "To be honest I was a little worried that they may end up failing that one… but from now on it's only going to be harder and harder… the next test will require a lot of skills…"

"Ah yes…" the Sand kunoichi smiled a bit under her nose. "It's that exam next, is it?"

"Yeah…" nodded the lazy jounin. "Next is the Forest of Death…"

And for the time being that's that. Hope you enjoyed it and that you'll leave a review once you're done, coz I won't update until you do.

And now for another part of jutsu encyclopedia:

Mokuton: Ibara Niwa (Tree Element: Thorn Garden) – it was already described in chapter 21, this is just a reminder.

Mokuton: Hongen Hitoya no Jutsu (Tree Element: Root Prison Skill) – quite similar to Root Control Skill used by Kouba (check chapter 19), the only difference is that this jutsu can be used only when near plants with roots and that once the roots pop up from the ground, they automatically imprison the target without the will of the user.

As for the character profile, most of you wanted some details about "the sand kunoichi that uses the same techniques as Gaara"… well, since you asked, here you are:

Name: Sabaku no Sabure

Name origins: the whole name is translated Sabure of the Sand (duh) and 'sabure' itself means simply 'sand'

Age: currently 14 years old

Birth Date: 5th of June

Blood Type: B

Height: 151,3 cm

Weight: 46,9 kg

Favorite Food: ramen (surprise… and I'm not joking!)

Village: Suna (Hidden Sand)

Current rank: gennin

Bloodline limit: none

Family: her father is Sabaku no Gaara, current Kazekage… when it comes to her mother… well, that's a secret for the time being

Techniques (used so far): none

First appearance: 29th chapter

And I think that's all for the time being. Hope you enjoyed it and that you'll drop by another time.

Best wishes and have a great day.