It took a long time for Nawaki to start feeling again. He walked for an hour, no real clue where to go, just kept walking north. He was numb from his fight with Hisa. Numb because he couldn't cope with what he had done. He had almost killed Hisa with his Rasengan, disobeyed her orders when Konohamaru had clearly left her in charge, and practically destroyed any chance they had of completing the mission. All so he could have the chance to fight a huge band of missing-nin and perhaps rescue Oki if he was lucky.

But looking back on it, Nawaki had no regrets. He was pretty sure that was his ninja way: Live your life to the fullest, have no regrets, look after the people you love. Something like that anyway. It was probably a stupid ninja way, but it wasn't like Nawaki had chosen it. It was just the way he was.

After a while, he began to mark branches with his kunai, half to pass the time, half to make sure he wasn't walking in circles. He was pretty certain that he was walking in a straight line, but his head hadn't fully recovered from the last attack he had done. Going head to head with an Almighty Push after already doing three Rasengans was enough to leave him dazed.

But soon, he began to focus. There was no point to walking around dazed. He had fought Hisa so he could rescue Oki, so he needed to do that. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head upwards to activate his sharingan. It took him a full minute to build up enough chakra, but he managed it in the end.

Now, as he looked around with his red and black eyes, he was able to see things that he had previously been unaware of.

Like the three missing-nin that were tailing him. He was able to see their expression from where he stood, half shocked, half gleeful. He could guess why-his sharingan was on full display.

He pretended that he hadn't noticed them and continued walking. He would have to wait for a while before he could build up enough chakra to fight them. They seemed content to tail him for now, probably waiting to see what plan he would come up with. Maybe they were all in shock of seeing another Uchiha.

A completely irrational worry hit him then. How would Oki react to his sharingan? Would she hate him for keeping it a secret? If Hisa's reaction was any indication, then Oki would probably feel completely betrayed.

But that didn't mean that he was going to give up. Even if she would hate him, he had to rescue her. The full impact of his decision finally began to sink in. By showing Hisa his sharingan, he had betrayed his mother's trust (He knew that she wouldn't hold it against him, but it still hurt), and when Hisa got back to Konoha, there would be no more covering up. The truth would be out, and Nawaki would be forced to deal with the consequences.

But as he had been doing all day, he put aside all those thoughts and focused on rescuing Oki. Luckily, he had managed to come up with some sort of a plan.

He reached into his pocket and took out a crystal ball. It was smaller than the one the Third Hokage had used, but after Nawaki had discovered the key to using them, Konahamaru had gotten him his very own crystal ball as his birthday present. Nawaki didn't use it much on missions, because it looked a bit ridiculous, but right now he didn't care about things like that.

He focused on the murky image he could see in the ball. Oki Yamanaka, Oki Yamanaka. He thought about her chakra pattern-which he had memorized a long time ago- and let it fill his mind. He pushed his thoughts downwards into the ball, and it began to swirl. When the image had settled, Oki was sitting trussed up and lying against a stone wall. It looked like she was in some kind of cave. Nawaki couldn't see any missing-nin anywhere, but Oki looked terrified. For a second, Nawaki worried that they had done things to her, but then she frowned and mumbled something about déjà vu, and Nawaki knew that she was fine. (They had all accepted the fact that Oki's 'déjà vu sense' wasn't going to go away and had begun to use it on missions. She didn't get it very often but when she did, she was scarily accurate.)

He used the crystal ball to scan the area around Oki. It was dark, and the walls sloped upwards to create a hemisphere shaped room. There appeared to be light streaming from the one exit that Nawaki could see. He drifted out and found himself standing in a small clearing. Behind him was a fort made from stone. Nawaki focused on the scene, and absorbed anything he could. Residual chakra traces, chakra signatures and patterns, ninjutsu that had been cast recently-he took it all in and stored it. Then he let the ball go blank and put it back in his pocket.

He looked around the place where he was standing now. With his sharingan, he was able to see the same things he had sensed in the crystal ball. He let his eyes scan the ground and the trees, searching for a chakra pattern that matched one of the ones he had sensed in the ball. It took him two minutes, but he finally managed to pick up on a faint trail. A missing-nin had been here and wherever Oki was. Nawaki hoped that he had gone directly from here to Oki, it would make it easier for Nawaki to follow. Keeping his eyes on the trail of chakra, Nawaki climbed onto a tree and began to jump.

Behind him, the missing-nin followed.

!

Hisa groaned and shook her head. Pain exploded through her brain, and she let her head drop back onto the forest floor. This wasn't the first time she had woken up with a headache caused by a chakra overload, but it rarely managed to leave her whole body aching. Still Hisa was pretty sure that after suffering through this, hangovers wouldn't scare her in the slightest.

Focus Hisa. Why exactly was she lying in the middle of a forest?

Her memories began coming back to her, and Hisa pieced together what had happened. The mission, Oki's kidnapping, Nawaki's sharingan, the fight with Nawaki, the end of the fight…

He had beaten her. The one time she had actually given it her all because she needed to beat him, and he had beaten her. If this was the way karma worked, then karma was a bitch.

She groaned louder as she pushed herself upwards. Everything hurt. The worst pain was in her right hand, she couldn't put any pressure on it without almost keeling over from the pain. She sat there for a minute, not trusting her legs to support her.

What should she do now? It was abominably clear to Hisa that there was no way that she was going to complete the mission. She needed Nawaki with her to have a chance of rescuing the children, and Nawaki had made it very clear that he wasn't going to go along with her. Nawaki was probably traipsing across the forest looking for Oki, and unless Konahamaru managed to rescue the children, she was doomed. It was time for her to accept the fact that she had failed, and focused on what she could salvage.

Oki. Even though the villagers would glare at her and scoff at her for failing, she could still manage to save her best friend. Nawaki was low on chakra, and probably feeling pretty awful after the fight. He didn't have a hope in hell of rescuing Oki on his own. Of course he was still stubborn enough to try, and he'd probably get himself killed.

Unless Hisa went to help him.

Hisa was still unsure about what she felt towards him. Yes, she was furious that he had hidden his sharingan from them, but at the same time she sort of understood why he had done so. She was too confused to figure out if he was her teammate or an untrustworthy backstabber. But if he was going to rescue Oki, and Hisa was going to rescue Oki, then teaming up was the best plan.

Sighing, Hisa pushed herself onto her feet, wincing slightly. Her feet were stiff, but she could stand and walk. She closed her eyes and focused on the chakra around her. Although she couldn't do senjutsu, Naruto had taught her a bit about narutal chakra. She had learnt to sense it better than an average jonin, but that still wasn't much. Nawaki trail was fresh though, so she was able to sense it almost at once. Following it wasn't much harder.

Should she really help him? He had pretty much tried to kill her, and her face still hurt from all the times he had punched it. Then again, she had basically tried to kill him too, and his face probably hurt just as much. She hoped it did.

Besides, she had a better chance of rescuing Oki if they teamed up. Nawaki must have had a plan of sorts, it was hardly likely he had fought her just so he could wander around in the forest.

Then again, this was Nawaki. And it was about Oki. When those two names came together, Nawaki didn't tend to… think very much. Still, it wasn't like Hisa had any other options. Well, none that she could think of at the moment.

Her, taking the moral high ground. Who would have guessed it? Then again, every shinobi had a different set of morals. In fact to most shinobi, she was doing the exact opposite of what was right. So to be accurate, she was following Nawaki's lead. That was even more shocking.

Slowly and carefully, Hisa began to walk.

!

After an half an hour or so of jumping from tree to tree, Nawaki began to worry. The chakra trail was slowly fading, and if he didn't find Oki soon, he would be wandering around the forest blindly. Well, as blind as you could be when you had the Sharingan.

He sped up slightly, keeping tabs on the missing-nin that were tailing him. He would have to fight them before he reached Oki, but he still wasn't confident in his chakra levels. He'd keep jumping for a bit longer, unless they decided to attack.

You just had to jinx it, didn't you? he thought as he felt one of the missing-nin's chakra spike. A few seconds later, he felt the presence of a genjutsu.

Seriously, did they not see his eyes? Maybe they were checking if they were real. He grinned slightly. If they thought his eyes were fake, they were in for a surprise.

He turned around and flung two kunai. The missing-nin who had been casting the genjutsu was forced to stop so that he could jump out of the way. The expression of shock on his face was priceless. Nawaki's grin was quickly wiped off his face as they surrounded him.

He waited for them to make a move, but they just stared at him in shock.

"You, you really have the Sharingan!" one of them said hoarsely.

"We thought it was all an elaborate ruse that you and the tiny one planned. Ya know, the whole fake fight thing?"

Uh oh. Maybe revealing that he had the Sharingan to a bunch of criminals wasn't the best way to keep it a secret, especially since he didn't plan on killing them unless it was necessary. Hah, like he could kill them even if he tried.

Quickly he deactivated his sharingan.

"Oh no! The elaborate genjutsu that my tiny friend placed on me has worn off! Whatever shall I do now that you are no longer intimidated by me?" Nawaki held his breath and hoped that they would buy it.

One of them narrowed his eyes. He glared suspiciously at Nawaki with blue ringed eyes.

"D'you think he's telling the truth? I mean, I really don't see any way for him to have the Sharingan."

"Yeah, but he sounded like he was acting- really, really bad acting." another one said with a whiny drawl.

"Maybe I was pretending to act badly to throw you off the scent." Nawaki put in, not quite sure what he was saying.

None of the missing-nin seemed to understand either. The one with blue rings around his eyes pulled out a kunai.

"Attack!" he yelled.

Nawaki-low on chakra, outnumbered and no Sharingan- against a group of missing-nin- probably better skills, outnumber him and have him surrounded.

This wasn't looking very good.

Just before they attacked, he jumped into the air. Suddenly, he noticed something. All the missing-nin were balancing on tree branches. Most of them were in the exact same position as the targets he used to practise his shuriken-jutsu.

Quickly, he reached into his pocket and closed his eyes. He still hadn't mastered this technique with his eyes closed, but he didn't have the luxury of using his sharingan. He managed to hit ¾ of his targets on average with his eyes closed, which should hopefully be enough for now.

He spun around in mid-air, before flinging the kunai and shuriken at the targets, which in this case were the missing-nin.

He knew he had hit at least one of them when he heard a scream. Soon, the air was filled with screams and yells. Nawaki opened his eyes as he landed, just in time to dodge a sword swipe. As he ducked and weaved from the remaining missing-nin, he tried his best not to see what had become of the ones he had hit. His eyes swept over one accidently, and he was relieved to see that the shuriken sticking out of the man's stomach didn't look fatal-just sharp and painful.

Judging from the amount of missing-nin left, he had managed to hit at least half of them with his weapons. There were six left, including the blue eyed leader. The first one threw two kunai at him, forcing him to backflip away to avoid being hit. Nawaki pulled out his sword and blocked another kunai. He wasn't as skilled in kenjutsu as Hisa or Oki, but he was better than the average chunin. He had also inherited his father's speed.

He ran behind the first missing-nin and swiped at him before he could figure out where Nawaki had gone. The cut was shallow, but the missing-nin still fell to the floor with a yell. Nawaki heard something coming towards him, and ducked just as a brace of shuriken slammed into a tree. He turned around quickly to face his opponents. One down, five to go.

The next two rushed at him with a length of barbed chain. Nawaki quickly made a substitution, and the chain ended up wrapping around a log. While the two were tangled up with the chain, Nawaki kicked one of them in the head and knocked the man unconscious. The second one dropped the chain and tried to put some room between him and Nawaki, but Nawaki's hands flashed.

"Katon:Gokakyu no Jutsu!"

The missing-nin fell to the floor with a scream, burns covering every available piece of skin.

Would you look at that, Nawaki thought as he dodged another kunai, it looks like that jutsu can actually hit someone.

Three down, three to go.

But Nawaki's chakra still wasn't back to full strength. Using the two jutsu had taken more out of him than normal. With three missing-nin left, he calculated that he had enough chakra for two more jutsu.

Suddenly, the sound of the three missing-nin disappeared. Nawaki felt a different chakra signature enter the fray, but he didn't have time to see if it was friend of foe. The blue eyed leader appeared behind Nawaki and kicked him in the back, slamming him into a tree. Nawaki dropped trembling onto a branch.

The missing-nin strode towards Nawaki, his blue ringed eyes glaring triumphantly at Nawaki. Nawaki didn't have enough energy to control his facial expressions. As the missing-nin grabbed him by his collar and drew a kunai, Nawaki was pretty sure he looked terrified.

The kunai came down, aimed at Nawaki's bare neck. Nawaki closed his eyes and pictured his mother's face. He didn't want his last image to be of a random missing-nin.

Suddenly, the missing-nin was jerked to the side, and Nawaki dropped onto the branch, landing on his hands and knees. He looked around wildly, and saw the missing-nin slam into a tree trunk, before collapsing on the ground. He looked for the other two, but found both of them in a heap. They didn't look like they would be getting up any time soon.

Suddenly, a familiar voice rang out.

"So you can beat me, but you can't beat a few missing-nin? Really Nawaki?"

Nawaki turned his head and looked up, completely stunned.

Hisa sat calmly on a branch above him, twirling a kunai and smirking down at him.