Mitsuki examined her repertoire. Itachi had warned her against revealing too much of what she could do to the enemy in fear of on-going observation and triggering unnecessary interests or speculation. Besides, by keeping some of her "weapons" hidden, it would be easier to catch the opponent off-guard.

"But first, I need to have him lower his guard.." Mitsuki thought to herself as she continued with her direct approach.

CLANG!

Her attack was deflected.

"Put in some fancy footwork," Mitsuki thought to herself as she showed off her agility off in one long series of backward jump, accompanied with counters by throwing some laced kunai towards the enemy consecutively. However, it was rendered ineffective as the Iwa shinobi evaded the attack quickly, despite Mitsuki's accurate throw.

However, it was within Mitsuki's expectation.

"Again, let him measure you.." thought Mitsuki as she withdrew behind the tree's shade and threw some needles in curved trajectories as she dashed along the field. Adding some trick shots, Mitsuki continuously overwhelmed the enemy with her movement and feints.

"Attack like this alone won't get me," said the enemy shinobi, slightly annoyed at Mitsuki's cowardly approach. In an attempt to lock out Mitsuki's movement, he threw shuriken in various directions to surround Mitsuki while he too approached her personally.

"And now, deception.." thought Mitsuki as she purposedly let a few shuriken grazed her before continuing to keep her distance from the enemy.

"Damn it," Mitsuki muttered aloud for a good measure, as she knitted her forehead and clenched her wound in response to the injury. Purposedly, Mitsuki slowed down her wound recovery, a thing she had found to be possible through her recently recovered, horrendous memory.

The enemy shinobi smiled. For the "kunoichi" to withdraw that much, must have meant that she is particularly weak at close range combat, or so did the Iwagakure shinobi concluded. Indeed, he was impressed that the girl managed to find him and single him up as well as elude his attack for so long. Her detection skill and her agility was indeed, impressive, but..

"This is exactly why you need to hone your other skill as well!" he shouted while his hands created a complex sequence of seal. "I don't know how far could you see, but seeing how you've always kept your eye on me, your tracking is likely to be vision based, aren't they?" said the shinobi smugly, as he created a smokescreen, or more accurately, sand screen, with his ninjutsu. Based on his calculation, it was his best move, as it would create an ideal environment for him to fight.

"Doton, kage bunshin!" the shinobi muttered as he split himself into a few separate, physical, figures created from mud.

"About time," Mitsuki thought, as her heart raced. She had expected most high rank shinobi to have a variation of clone jutsu, just like Itachi had. She was betting on it. However, the success of her plan will depend on the next few moments. And so, Mitsuki braced herself for what was to come.

Beyond the cloak of dirt and smoke, a battle ensued. As the Iwa shinobi continuously did a few hit and run attack with added confusion from both the smokescreen and his kage bunshin, he had seemingly managed to overwhelm Mitsuki. Sometimes, his attack would graze her, and in result her movement become more and more lethargic as she sustained more and more wounds.

"It should be your limit soon," thought the shinobi to himself as he saw the sorry state his enemy was in. As the girl leg stumbled, unsteady, he prepared to deliver his last, finishing attack.

His first clone initiated the attack, and Mitsuki evaded it, barely, only for the second clone to attack her from the direction of her retreat. Making use of the surprise, the second clone stabbed through her waist and into her liver, before twisting it for added pain and pulling it back out.

Mitsuki let out a pained gasp as she clutched the bleeding wound on her waist and frantically swing her kunai towards the clones in an attempt to counter. However the two clones quickly evaded her feeble attack and took the chance to capture her and lock her movement. One clone restrained her right hand, and the other slashed her foot's tendon, forcing Mitsuki to kneel upon the loss of control of her leg's muscle.

Seeing how the girl had finally fallen down, the Iwa shinobi knew that his plan had succeeded. "THIS IS THE END!" the male shinobi shouted. Exhilaration over winning was clear on his eye as he dashed towards Mitsuki with kunai in his hand.

With her right hand and feet's movement locked, Mitsuki tried to block the incoming attack with her left hand. However, to no avail, the kunai just pierced through her palm, before diving straight to the gaps between her ribs.

"COUGH!" Mitsuki coughed blood as the blood from her internal wound filled her lungs.

As the two clone sensed power and resistance dissipating from the girl's body, the main body undid the clones and released her limbs, before personally lifting Mitsuki's face up to meet her gaze one last time. Seeing how her eyes had finally lost the light of resistance, the male shinobi smirked.

"You did well, I'll give you a quick death as reward," said the shinobi coldly as he gazed unto the blue iris which had started to lose its focus. "If only you were not on the wrong side.."

Quickly, the shinobi slit the girl's throat as he finished his words, making sure to sever her veins as good measure, before quickly moving away to stay clear from the blood spurt, shinobi as he was. The girl's body fallen unto the ground, and the man prepared himself to find another place optimal for his tracking.

However, just a moment before his departure..

STAB! STAB! STAB!

The Iwa shinobi felt something prickling him from his blind spot. However, before he can turn back to check what was causing the sensation, his consciousness faded. Yet it was slow enough for him to witness the girl who should have died from her wounds stood back up like nothing he did had ever mattered.

"AAAAAH So much pain! I thought I'd eventually pass out from the pain," Mitsuki groaned softly as she allowed her healing gift to run through her body once more, restoring her wound, her organs, and her blood in the process. Looking back, if not for what she had experienced in the past, she would likely not be able to bear with the pain. For that, she was weirdly grateful. After all, this strategy was something only she could pull off. For the sake of deceit, she used her own body as decoy while some of her vines secretly picked up some of her thrown needles which she had scattered around the fighting ground discreetly. After that, what was left was for the vines to be prepared to attack whenever the enemy finally let his guard down. She had to fake her death. After all, if she didn't, or if she used her own body to threw the needle, made suspicious movement around her and reached towards her weapon pouch, it was likely that the enemy would caught on and she wouldn't be able to pull the same thing anymore. For that reason, Mitsuki had to bait the enemy to create some kind of smokescreen, and use it to scatter some seed in secret and grew it when the shinobi's attention was fully focused on her body. After all, unlike her, the plants didn't really have a presence, or any strong individual identifier akin to a personal scent

"Thankfully, this is nothing as compared to that time," Mitsuki smiled wryly as she remembered the unbearable pain resulting from her getting mutilated alive with her consciousness intact. Indeed, Oyamatsumi had given her control over her pain sense, and she could have activated it by will. However Mitsuki felt like she needed to feel the actual pain for her to sell her act perfectly. So, she embraced the pain, willingly, whole heartedly.

"Well then, what to do now?" Mitsuki thought as she extended her perception once more, checking if her intervention had yet to bear fruit.

A few squadron was still heading directly towards Itachi and Kisame, some had seemingly lost their direction, yet some had opted to turn around, seemingly worried after the communication shut down, whether during the tracker's battle or after him passing out.

"Well considering the time spent in battle and how the tracker needed to stay still the whole time previously for whatever he was doing, it's likely that the communication had been cut off for a while. It's normal for them to worry, I guess," thought Mitsuki as she confirmed the position of movement direction of all likely enemies.

"I need a distraction," she thought as she sensed some enemy moving towards the point where she was at. It was unlikely that she would be handle a squad, or more, on her own. She had the chance to win, likely because it was a one on one battle. With a squad, there would be several people covering the blind spot and some of them would have their own specialty, making it hard for Mitsuki to decipher their entire combined pattern or fool them as a group, especially if somehow the tracker had managed to relay any kind of information about her to the rest of the team.

Mitsuki thought of what she could do, something big that would definitely draw everyone's attention, enough to direct those who were looking for their tracker to one point, away from her or her route towards Itachi and Kisame. Then, an idea hit her.

Quickly, Mitsuki manipulated one of the branches of surrounding tree, forming a curve good enough for a bow. She couldn't just use her spiritual bow, since to affect physical object, she would have needed an object of the same realm. It was different with how her duty was, since it only involved elemental balance, nature energy, and chakra, which didn't have any physical form. That was also why she wouldn't be able to use her divine weapon against living being, unless she intended to affect their chakra and life force directly, a fatal decision to take.

After adding some of the most flexible vine as the string for the bow, and crafting an arrow from her kunai and some other branches growth, Mitsuki attached an oak seed unto the chamber she made upon the arrow. Then, with her perception, Mitsuki selected a direction that would be most beneficial for her distraction, and shot the arrow far and high to the sky, setting the seed to grow once the arrow hit the ground.

The ground shook, and birds flew away in fear. A very tall tree had suddenly sprouted taller past the other trees in the forest, scaring the animals away.

Noticing the sudden commotion and the cause of it, Itachi and Kisame traded glance with each other in understanding, without any needs for word. Only one person they knew could do such thing, after all. Meanwhile, among the enemy who had come in sequence and drove towards Itachi and Kisame in waves, some of them had started to talk to each other in panic, as if noticing that something was amiss on their side.

"You two, go check that thing out, see if any help is needed!"

"Got it," said two of the enemy's shinobi as they tried to leave the battlefield they were on. However, Kisame soon blocked one of the assigned shinobi's way.

"Oops, do you think you can leave us just like that? We are being underestimated, aren't we, Itachi-san?"

Itachi frowned. He could guess clearly why the enemy's force would drove in waves. After all, if the enemy's force had been given information about him and Kisame as Akatsuki's possible perpetrator, it was very possible that they would employ a strategy that would work the best to their advantage. Firstly, being in such close range from Iwagakure, it wouldn't take much time to send in back ups from the village. Also, from Itachi's observation so far, the waves that came gradually consisted of stronger and stronger enemy. It was very likely that the Iwagakure's force were aiming to exhaust them, or him to be exact, who according to the shinobi bingo book only had weakness in his stamina and chakra reserve. They must have figured that by taking him down first, it would be easier for them to deal with Kisame afterwards.

"I guess, there's no other way," Itachi thought to himself as he realised that it was best for him to finish off the rest of the obstruction as fast as possible.

"Let's go, Kisame," said Itachi towards Kisame as his hand waved some kind of sign towards his partner.

Mitsuki had took back her bundle of clothes, and behind her, a ball of wooden cage made of branches was being rolled by plants' roots to follow Mitsuki's direction of movement. Before long, she had come close to her destination.

"Here they are," she thought as she spotted Itachi and Kisame in the distance, surrounded by fallen bodies of their enemies. However, before she could reach them, a figure suddenly dashed out and across in front of Itachi and Kisame, while spreading a pattern of chakra over the air towards Itachi and Kisame. Itachi was also reacting to the approach, and the level of chakra used was not physically strong enough to possibly caused Itachi and Kisame any physical harm, but as someone who used drugs and poison, Mitsuki could quickly guess what was going on and quickly commanded the wind to blow from behind the pair, blowing back the enemy's chakra along with whatever was infused with it to the opposite direction, hitting the caster himself before it could reach the Akatsuki's pair.

The caster lost balance after receiving the strong hit of the wind and ended up inhaling his own attack, before finally dropping down unto the ground.

"COUGH! Ugh.. A..Antidote…" said the shinobi, seemingly out of breath as he reached unto his vest's pocket and pulled out a pill. However, before he could pop it into his mouth, a foot came falling from the sky and stepped onto his hand, surprising both the enemy shinobi and the Akatsuki's.

"You insolent.." Mitsuki hissed bitterly with her right hand stretched out, seemingly holding unto something invisible on the air.

"How's the taste of your own poison? Is it good?" she provoked, before stabbing the fallen shinobi who had then started to convulse with a laced needle, flame of anger apparent in her eye as she did.

"Welcome back, Ojou-chan," Kisame greeted with a grin while Mitsuki dug the shinobi's pocket for what seemed to be the antidote to the poison and pocketed them. "I thought you'd still be fighting far away, what's with the giant tree?"

"Distraction. I don't think it would be good for me if I encounter more enemies on the way here," said Mitsuki as she popped the last antidote which the shinobi had previously dropped unto the still convulsing shinobi's mouth, baffling Kisame in the process.

"Wait, what, you are giving him the antidote?"

"I don't enjoy seeing people get tortured. Though I wish he'd remember the pain forever before using it against others once more," Mitsuki clarified as she let her vine spread to envelop what seemed to be a floating, invisible ball of air. "Itachi-kun, can you burn this?" Mitsuki asked without meeting Itachi's gaze.

"… un," Itachi responded briefly with slight confusion over the sequence of events.

"Katon: Goukakyu no Jutsu," Itachi muttered silently as she engulfed the vines and the ball within at once with his Fire, which somehow seemed to set whatever inside on fire as well, lighting them unto sparks.

"It's powdered poison, alright," Kisame noted as he recognized the reaction, akin to flame engulfing particle of flours floating on the air. After everything had burned into oblivion, and after checking their surroundings with her perception once more, Mitsuki finally dared herself to relax

"Haaa~h," sighing loudly, Mitsuki dropped her butt unto the ground in exhaustion. Meanwhile, looking at Mitsuki's exhausted face, Kisame grinned.

"Did you fight someone? How was it?" asked Kisame as he kept his gaze on the tired girl who was also covered in dried blood.

"Tiring. Though I'm glad that you two had been training me harshly," Mitsuki muttered, as her hand motioned towards the empty space, as if calling unto something.

Itachi's gaze fell onto the girl's body. There was quite an amount of blood stuck unto her, despite her having no wounds. However, the shape and the trail of the blood's flow felt familiar to him..

"Are you.. hurt?" question escaped his lips before he could think how odd it would be, considering there were no wounds on her.

"Not more than necessary, I took some necessary damage to distract the enemy," muttered Mitsuki without meeting Itachi's gaze. Indeed, she got her idea from one of her spar with Itachi, where he made it as if her attack hit to lure her out before his bunshin burst into a murder of crow. Since she couldn't do a clone, she just used her real body for distraction instead. Despite the pain that she had to go through, it was not like she could die, anyway. Or so she thought with a sense of irony, as her lips curled unto a wry smiile.

Itachi frowned at the girl's word. Blood trail was on her arms, legs, chest, and neck.. Knowing how it was unlikely to be her enemy's blood, due to the way Mitsuki usually fought, there was only one other possibility. Where in the world could someone called such arrangement of wound a necessary damage baffled him.

Imagining what could have transpired and the wound that could have produced such amount of blood, Itachi paused. "Could she be..?" Itachi thought to himself as he felt blood draining from his face in worry of the girl's mental state, despite the girl herself not showing any kind of disturbance on her face.

"Ah, before I forget," said the girl, still without much emotion on her face, "I sedated and brought the tracker boy here. After all, I think he might have some information to extract, like how did he track us and what Iwagakure knew about us so far," Mitsuki remarked as the wooden, ball shaped cage rolled onto the three's field of view and towards Mitsuki.

"What the.." Kisame was surprised with the turn of event and the thoroughness of Mitsuki's handling as she unravelled the cage for the duo as soon as it reached the trio. Meanwhile, without delay, Itachi approached the tracker's body and forced his eyelid open with his hand.

"Sharingan," Itachi muttered as he met the guy's iris which were hidden beneath the eyelid, seemingly deep in his sleep. In the meantime, Mitsuki extended her perception once more to make sure that they had no more enemies coming for them.

"Seems like our dependable Ojou-chan is back this time," said Kisame happily as he took a few steps closer and gave Mitsuki's head a rough rub, despite her protest. Noticing how Mitsuki was sulking instead of bragging, Kisame was surprised. "Huh? You aren't gonna brag about it? Seems like you're not yet back to your usual self then.." Kisame noted out loud as Mitsuki silently frowned at him without words. Meanwhile, beside them, Itachi pulled out his kunai and gave the tracker shinobi's throat a quick kunai work, ending his life without hesitation. Seeing that, Mitsuki's eye was locked unto Itachi's figure with unspoken concern for him, which he then noticed and returned.

"It can't be helped. He knew too much. If let be, he would go after us again," said Itachi. Indeed, he had gone through the shinobi's consciousness. Just like some of the clan in Konoha, the enemy's tracker had a sharp olfactory senses and chakra perception, as well as support ability that had enabled him to relay information and communicate via his chakra. He was indeed, too dangerous to be left alive. Not just for Akatsuki, but also for Mitsuki whose existence he noticed and her face he surely remembered. If they were to hide her from public still, there was no way that he could let the tracker go away with his life.

While Itachi was still busy pondering about the information he had just gained, Mitsuki crawled to Itachi's side and kneeled beside the soulless body to offer a prayer for him. Noticing Mitsuki's presence beside him, Itachi turned his gaze at her and examined her once more in concern. Now that he had finally taken a closer look, the girl who was kneeling beside him seemed to be pale and sleep deprived, judging from the dark circle under her eye. It was odd, since she was mostly on the bed with her eye closed whenever it was their turn to rest together lately. Logically, she should have gotten enough sleep.

"Mitsuki..?" Itachi muttered softly in worry, almost inaudible.. Yet, not too long after, Mitsuki opened her eye, and spoke.

"Then? What do we do now? It is likely that enemy's squad are still focused on the distraction right now," said Mitsuki, as if Itachi's questioning call didn't reach her. And in response, it was Kisame's turn to then ask.

"Indeed, do we proceed towards the previous direction, Itachi-san?"

Both Kisame and Mitsuki then looked at Itachi's face, waiting for his answer. Knowing that it wouldn't be the time to talk with Mitsuki freely yet, Itachi focused himself back towards their current predicament.

"No," he said, "Let's exit the land of stone for now. Our existence had been found out." Other than that they had also created to much impact by clearing the enemy's forces. If they were not to interfere further with Deidara and Sasori's task, it would be wiser for them to stay clear for a while then despite their own target being native to the same area. After a moment consideration, and after briefly recalling the lay of the land inside his mind, Itachi came into decision.

"Let's head towards the Land of Winds.." said Itachi as he stood back up, his mind set on a destination.

Author's note:

Unto next arc!

(Thinking of it, it must be quite traumatic for the Iwa guy to see the girl he just slashed her vein off stand back up like nothing happened.. hmmm)