September VII

Kakashi was patiently waiting near the entrance of the Hattori ruins that served as the location for the second task. The atmosphere was tense, as everyone knew these kinds of trials would be the most opportune for infiltrations or covert attacks. To make matters worse, at the beginning of the task a Kusa-team had been reported missing and despite some last-minute searches they had had to start without them. The number of entrances had been limited to four and large-scale seals had been placed around the hattori ruins. It was easy enough to reactivate the old seals the Hattori clan had put in place when they still lived in the old compound. It needed little more than a quick fix but all of Konoha's admittedly few seal specialists (including Jiraya) had worked on it for the last two days.

Finally, this morning, it had been activated by Jiraya himself and ten other jonin placed around the perimeter. Kakashi had been excused since he certainly wasn't known for the vast chakra reserves needed to activate a seal of such a size but he had been asked with some Hyuga to check for weaknesses with his Sharingan.

In his youth Kakashi had had the luck to observe some seals from his teacher and still remembered the elegance and efficiency of the chakra constructs. The Yondaime was able to weave. This one didn't look quite as graceful but was solid nonetheless. The first part, relying heavily on the old wards installed by the Hattori clan made sure that the only ways to enter were the four official entrances, the second was the most daring part and was meant to dissipate any kind of disguise. Anything from henge, to complex body-modifying jutsus should be destroyed by the seal. Finally, the last part had only activated a few minutes ago. After the last teams had entered, it had sealed the four entrances completely for three days. During that time, the place would be on complete lockdown, with no ways to enter or leave the place.

Hopefully that would stop Orochimaru from sending any of his people in disguise into the test. Only real genin would be able to take part. Admittedly even those could be spies, especially the ones coming from Grass, Sound or even Sand, but that was unavoidable.

Of course, it also meant that the genin were entirely on their own, no medical help could be brought if their life was in danger. Kakashi did his best to reassure himself, his team was competent and would be careful (he could dream, right?) but he had gotten used to being by their side, a safety net if they couldn' t manage what he threw at them.

Kurenai approached him from the side. He lazily did a half turn to avoid her getting on his blind side. The fact that she didn't know to remain in his sight already showed that she wasn't used to dealing with him. They had had little contact during the years. She had graduated a lot later than him and she hadn't been in Obito and Rin's group of friends. He had only begun to encounter her more as a shinobi when he had already entered anbu and the black ops members didn't socialize a lot. She had gained his respect when she had shown him a quicker way to cast a three-layered genjutsu and since then they had worked together on one or two missions but outside of that the only times they talked was in front of the mission room or at jonin-senseis meetings.

"I never thought as myself as the motherly type but I must admit I cannot help but worry about them."

Kakashi spent a second wondering why she choose him to discuss her feelings with but quickly concentrated back on what she said. He did not think of himself as the motherly type either and the fatherly type even less, but he did worry a little bit. Like when he sent out his ninken without knowing exactly what his opponent's powers where. That was quite accurate actually. He felt like he had sent out pups that hadn't yet been trained enough into a fight.

"Yeah, they grow on us when we're not careful"

The woman chuckled and looked back at the forest.

"Asuma said he knew that his squad was way to unfocused to pass anyway and he does as if he doesn't care but I think he's even more panicked than us."

Kakashi huffed, Asuma's love for his students was proverbial.

"Gai' s doing various dangerous and strange exercises to share their effort and pain or so he told me."

Again, that seemed quite in character.

"The older jonin-sensei like Gaku-san or that Senju-woman which name I always forget, I think they are more used to it, they already trained several teams, they must get used to this kind of...helplessness."

Kakashi didn't know the first one and didn't care much for the other but hummed in confirmation nonetheless.

"Well, let' s hope the lesson they will learn are valuable ones. "She finished. "We have to wait and see what will come of this.

Kakashi nodded and let her walk away. Hopefully the lesson they would learn wouldn't cost them too much.

Team 7 scouted the part of the district in which they were, taking note of the teams, they encountered. Some seemed to be constantly on guard and became restless the second they could feel their presence. They carefully avoided these kinds of teams.

When the sun began to set they finally found their perfect victims. A group of three young genin not more than a year older than them were camping out in the relative comfort of a half-demolished house. They had even lit a fire, a dangerous move, and the one that seemed on guard was frequently turning to one of his teammates, a blond and thin boy with clear eyes, and was talking, completely failing to notice their presence.

They decided to spare them until the next morning. While Sasuke's sharingan would help him see in the dark both Sakura and Naruto would be hindered by it and they did not know their opponent's abilities. Sakura would have felt bad to attack fellow konoha-shinobis in such an underhanded way a few months back, before a mission in Wave taught her what price shinobies were willing to pay for peace and she had begun wishing that things were different but known that they weren't.

They camped out in a dense thicket, hidden in a hole in the ground that Naruto and a few clones expanded discreetly. Sakura and Sasuke assembled some branches to hide their presence even more. Hopefully only an Inuzuka or a Hyuga would be able to locate them and the ones they knew of should be in the opposite direction. Then they began to plot. They had formed plans more than a few times before but admittedly only for D-rank missions. Sakura was convinced that catching the daymo's wife's cat mustn't be any different from catching three genin so she declared herself assistant strategist to Sasuke. The blond-haired boy she assured, was a yamanaka, one of the numerous cousins of her friend Ino that she saw when she went to visit. The girl they had seen in the background was wearing a cloak and was somewhat of a wild card but the other boy was wearing a katana quite ostensibly.

"The Yamanaka has to be taken out first." Sasuke decided. "We can't risk him turning one of us against his teammates."

Naruto volunteered for throwing some shadow clones at the guy but Sakura explained that she would try to trap him in a genjutsu instead. Sasuke would take him out the second he saw if the genjutsu was working. Naruto was to create a shadow clone of Sakura and with it launch himself at the first of the two remaining teammates who came to help the Yamanaka boy. That would hopefully distract the last one enough that Sakura could take him out either with the genjutsu or with a good old-fashioned hit to the head.

Luck seemed to be on their side this time as the Yamanaka was on guard in the early hours of dawn when they decided to attack. He was still half asleep and Sakura had enough time to carefully cast her illusion. Sadly, the element of surprise vanished quickly because he screamed out when he first caught sight of the terrible image Sakura had created for him. Sasuke was quickly on him and even though he was able to escape with Kai the Yamanaka had no way to avoid the hit to the face and crumbled to the ground. A second later the katana-wielding boy had drawn his weapon and swung it at Sasuke but caught a Naruto clone instead. He was quickly surrounded by Sasuke, the real Naruto and one of his clones disguised as Sakura. The cloaked girl tried to attack Naruto and only barely avoided Sakura's kunai. For a second she did not seem to understand looking at the three people before her and then turning around, to the direction from which the kunai had come. That was enough time for the real Sakura to sneak up to her and wrap her arm around her throat. The girl struggled and began to form hand signs but another one of Sasuke's hits caught her in the side of the head and she crumbled in Sakura's grip.

They turned to Naruto who was still fighting the katana boy but quickly the fight drew to an end when Naruto sent a strong kick at the boy's sternum and then pointed a kunai at his throat.

They bound both of his arms separately to his sides and even secured some rope around his legs. A quick search allowed them to find a sky-roll in the Yamanaka' s weapon pouch. Sakura left her water canteen near his face and quickly made sure that none of the other's injuries looked life-threatening. Sasuke was getting impatient pointing out that the ruckus they created while fighting could attract other teams in search of a scroll and finally they quickly left.

A certain kind of euphoria floated around the group for the rest of the morning and everyone's spirit was lifted. Sasuke admonished Naruto for thinking they would win "super-easily" but even he seemed in a better mood. Emboldened by their victory they decided to advance to the middle of the clan district where most teams must have ended up. Their high spirit didn't make them any less cautious and they avoided what seemed to be a group of two different temporarily allied Suna-squads. Even Naruto reasonably agreed that they didn't need to fight against these kinds of odds if they could find alternatives

.

Finally, Sasuke was able to find a squad hiding behind a large building which must have held some kind of ceremonial purpose. According to Sasuke one of their member's presence was weak. His chakra was disturbed in a strange way, maybe a genjutsu or some kind of strange jutsu or even a weird injury, the young Ushiha couldn't say.

Naruto was of the opinion that they could charge in immediately. His argument he thought was even sound. If they waited too long they may be detected, with a weakened member the squad must be on his guard. He was brushed off by Sasuke.

Later when they concluded that the fight had been a mess Naruto happily pointed out that he had had a better plan which only earned him a glare from his female teammate.

They had attacked an hour later with a plan similar to the last. Naruto was to distract them with clones, Sakura was to trap the weakened one in a genjutsu and Sasuke was to take care of both him and then with Naruto was to fight the two others. What had worked so well once should work just as well twice, or so they thought.

It worked well for exactly two seconds. Before Naruto had been able to truly approach them, he was caught in an elaborate trap. Whoever these ninja's were they liked explosive tags and only a clone and the real Naruto escaped from the explosions. The blond boy was immediately overwhelmed by two of the squad members and Sasuke, to Naruto' s greatest displeasure, must have felt he had to intervene and had rushed into the fight. He had no idea what happened with Sakura but at the end of the fight she had been half-beaten to a pulp by the not so weakened third member and was only able to incapacitate him when he was distracted by both of his teammates demises. Naruto would have liked to say he was the one who turned the fight to their advantage but actually it was Sasuke even if it wasn't quite planned. One of the Ushiha's stray great fireballs had landed on the heavy draping that were slowly rotting away in the open room in which they were fighting. Soon it caught fire and heavy smoke filled the room. They all ended up fleeing but Sasuke with his sharingan was able to take one out in the chaos and mercifully dragged him to a place where he wouldn't get quite as roasted.

Finally, together, they were able to take the last one out but only at the cost of Naruto's left arm that was broken by a vicious hit from the heavily armored arm of their last opponent. It was another thing Naruto boasted about at the end of the fight: how he had mastered his protection-duty expertly by deflecting the blow aimed for Sasuke. The ungrateful bastard pointed out that it was no use if he was incapacitated instead but Sakura seemed grateful. Thanks to his great act of bravery, the Ushiha was somewhat intact when they finally exited the burning building. It' s at that point that they found Sakura who was struggling against the weakened third shinobi and Sasuke was able to hit him on the head while the girl was trying to keep the other pinned to the ground. Naruto was somewhat impressed to see that while the girl was clearly beat up the other didn't look much better and was littered with bruises and even claw marks. They quickly searched the ninja's various pockets and as if life wanted to prove them that this encounter could end even worse they found another sky-scroll in a secret pocket of the last shinobi's jacket.

When Sasuke came back with the white roll Naruto let out a long groan of disappointment. His legendary enthusiasm had been tempered somewhat by his broken arm which hurt like hell and the bitter disappointment was souring his mood even more. He could feel in Sakura' s tense voice and Sasuke's angry glares the creeping edge of desperation. They still had a night, an entire day, another night and half a day, Naruto reasoned but even that didn't really bring back his usual energy. Suddenly Sasuke looked up and swore.

"We have to run, someone noticed the fire and is heading in our direction, fast!"

Not a second later a flurry of senbons flew in their direction and they dodged awkwardly before taking of. Sasuke was in front and tried his best to find a way back to the edge of the large compound, Sakura was in the middle and Naruto was running a few steps back, trying to deflect some of the projectiles aimed their way with his new technique.

The blond boy was seething, he absolutely hated this situation. Running, dodging and guarding at the same time was hard, especially with a broken arm. A few months back he would have turned around and just faced their opponents up front instead of running like a coward. Only Kakashi-sensei's constant lectures kept him from acting on his impulse.

At one point, he got the feeling that they had shaken them off, at least no more senbons were flying their way. Honestly, he was getting frustrated and the burning pain in his arm was getting worse every time he stumbled or moved jerkily. He had to grit his teeth against the burning waves of hurt that came off from it. Dammit, he just wanted to sit down and not move. Sakura seemed out of breath, she had fallen back a few steps and was panting. Only Sasuke seemed still fit and Naruto began to resent the baka, and was about to shout that he should wait for them when suddenly the young Ushiha cried out. Naruto rushed forward but suddenly a large gelatinous mass fell on him and he felt a piercing pain on his shoulder as if something had bitten him. He blindly thrust his arm at the thing and touched the slimy skin of a rounded animal, he tried to get a grip on it and tear it off but it was to slippery. In a smooth move, he took out a kunai and slid the weapon upwards and sliced through the thing. The two halves of what appeared to be a giant leach slowly fell off of his shoulder. Though not a second later the parts of the gelatinous animal began to move again and two leached were slithering back towards him. Naruto jumped back and looked how the others were faring. Sakura seemed to have mostly avoided the leeches except for a smaller one that had attached itself to her right foot. The contact with the animal seemed to disturb her a lot and she was moving around in panic. Sasuke had two bleeding marks on his hand and thigh but had shaken of all the animals but these were slowly inching back. When Naruto looked around he noticed that several dozen of leaches were crawling around them or hanging of the tree branches.

"We can't let them split us up. Sasuke shouted at them. Fall back towards Naruto."

Both of his teammates rushed back to him and the slightly less leech infected part of the clearing. As soon as he was near enough Sasuke grasped the leech on Sakura' s foot while applying the technique sensei had showed him. With a disgusting tsiching sound the leech shriveled up and fell off, burnt by the heat Sasuke had produced.

A few seconds later two forms fell from the trees and walked up to them.

"Carefull", Sasuke told them without taking his sharingan eyes off of the two approaching shinobies, "Don' t let your guard down the third one is hiding on our left."

"Interesting eyes you got there boy. "The left, slightly taller figure said. A leech was crawling on his shoulder and his arm and Naruto understood he was the one responsible for the disgusting things.

"The famous sharingan... ". The second one, a long and thin girl, muttered with a drawling voice tainted by mockery. "So we have discovered Konoha' s little jewels."

Her ame forehead protector was dangling from her neck and she tapped it distractedly.

A second later a dozen of senbon were sent their way. Naruto noticed them in time (thanks to the baka's warning he had to admit) and deflected them again. At the same time both shinobies rushed at them. Immediately they were overwhelmed. These enemies were used to fighting together. They were absolutely certain they would beat them. Naruto was still injured and both him and Sasuke were bleeding heavily from the leeches' bites.

The fight quickly went from bad to worse. Naruto lost sight of Sasuke and could rarely stop the still incoming senbons with his technique as he was to focused on surviving. The ten shadow clones he created offered him a moment or respite but they were quickly killed off by a strange water attack from the thin girl.

Sakura was near his side and holding her own against the quick attacks from the girl who was able again and again to pierce Naruto' s shadow-clone defenses. They were quickly getting tired and they knew it. Their opponents were herding them back together and the senbon attacks were getting more and more intense. Two needles stuck into Naruto' s already injured arm and the boy cried out. Sasuke who was constantly breathing fire to keep the leeches at bay was the next victim and got caught in the shoulder.

Suddenly he heard Sakura rushedly whisper something at his and Sasuke's intention.

"At ten jump away and Naruto make clones of us, then run."

Naruto didn't ask question and counted in his head, on ten he jumped to the right rolled and jumped again. Behind him he heard an explosion and felt the heat of it on the back of his arms. With a loud crack, the whole ground began to shake and cave in.

The blond boy hid behind a tree and made the hand signs to create three copies of them somewhere in the opposite direction. Then he ran without looking back. He didn't know how Sakura had done that, didn't know if their opponents had been stopped and didn't know how his teammates were faring but he ran.

Ten minutes later he slowed down and looked around. It seemed that he had escaped. His arm was killing him so he took a second to fold it carefully and tuck it into his jacket. It could hinder his movements but enough was enough. The leeches' bite was still bleeding a little bit but had almost stopped. The senbon wounds however where still oozing blood. He ripped them out and saw that a whitish liquid was mixed with the blood. Urgh, poison. Well, he didn't feel to terrible yet so it was ok.

He decided to walk slowly to the border of the compound like they had planned to. After half an hour, he heard a sound in front of him but quickly saw it was Sasuke and Sakura who were stumbling towards him. The Ushiha looked pretty bad, having to let Sakura support him.

Naruto ran up to them but was stopped by Sasuke who took out a kunai.

"How did we pass the bell-test." He asked.

"What!"

"Just answer Naruto." Sakura pressed him tiredly.

"Euh, I almost got the bells but got caught in one of sensei's very difficult traps and then he bound me to some post and at the end, Sasuke accepted to share his meal with me but then suddenly..."

"... It' s ok." Sasuke cut him off and sagged somewhat.

It took them almost two hours to arrive near the outer limit of the tasks' s location. Sasuke was completely silent and breathed heavily. Sakura looked worried and even Naruto found that the Ushiha wasn't doing well.

Finally, they found a caved in cellar which they deemed safe due to the large amounts of vegetation growing near the main exit and a crumbling window in the back that as Sakura rationalized they could use as an emergency exit. During the next hours, they rested huddled against each other. Sakura, the only one who was still relativly unharmed went out despite the risk of being caught alone to find something to eat. Naruto was honestly quite terrified to be left alone with the Ushiha. At least Sakura had been able to do some of the first aid techniques they had been taught at the academy. She had forced Sasuke to drink something, had checked him over for injury and had grimly stated that it was indeed poison that was the cause of Sasuke's state. A paracletic probably, hopefully a non-lethal one. She had bandaged Sasuke's wound and her own from the leeches that were still bleeding. Naruto's had stopped completely and his arm didn' t feel quite as terrible as it did which puzzled the pink-haired girl. Then Sakura had gone find something to eat.

With Sakura away he felt quite miserable. Sasuke was breathing quickly and didn't seem able to move. He was trembling and Naruto finally decided to divest himself of his jacket and lay it carefully on the other boy. He was pretty sure Sasuke-baka would have protested loudly if he had been able. He berated himself for the hundredth time about not paying attention every time they talked about medical care in the academy. He had no idea how to get the last scroll but the mere thought of giving up made him want to throw a tantrum. He knew he had to calm down. Kakashi-sensei told him that contrary to what others said he wasn't stupid he just let anger and excitement get in the way of clear thinking. What would Kakashi sensei say if he was here... He would tell them they had to be careful because they were hurt and people could beat them easily. He would tell them to check their surrounding and guard their back first and then try to find a way to make the best of the situation they were in.

Sakura with her amazing chakra control had always been pretty good at sensing people and Sasuke had the sharingan so normally either one of them would check for enemy presence however kakshi had taught all of them, it's not because he's less good at it that he can' t do it. He concentrated and began to feel for other people' s chakra. It seemed that at least in the immediate vincity there was no one. Well, no one who wasn't very good at masking his chakra. He stepped outside and walked carefully around their hideout and looked carefully for anything that seemed out of place. He still remembered their mission in wave where they had been able to detect the presence of some enemies just by noticing that there was no way the puddle on the ground was normal. When he arrived back at the entrance of the cellar he concluded there truly was no one.

Ok, so what was good about their situation that he could use. They were all somewhat or even in Sasuke' s case very injured, they had no food, at least yet, they had two scroll but not the ones that would allow them to pass...euh, their hideout was more or less ok? Still if someone was a good at feeling chakra they would be found easily and they could even trap them by intruding from the back and the main exit. That wasn't good, that was even pretty bad. Maybe he should close the back exit, with his shadow clones it should be easily. Ah, but if he did that they could be trapped inside too. Oh, he could lay a trap, or even several traps: An obvious one in front, a more discreet one in the back. And even others farther away if their enemies decided to barge in through the roof for example. And traps were one thing he was pretty good at and he had plenty of experience with.

Naruto grinned and fished out some ninja wire, some tags and some kunai from his back pouch and went to work.