Hinata arrived back where Kurenai was, to see her panting heavily, her fists covered in blood. The opponent was laughing. She exclaimed, "Kurenai-sensei!"

Kurenai looked at the young Hyūga, relieved that she didn't seem to be scared, more simply concerned for her. She said, "Hinata, you're here."

"Of course I am!" Hinata said.

"So, did you do it?"

Hinata nodded once, almost imperceptibly. Kurenai smiled and said, "Good. Wait…Chōji and Sakura. Where are they?"

Hinata said, "They decided to try to help Mizuko."

Jiga said, "So, this is your great hope then, is it, Genkaku no Ajin? A child?"

Kurenai smiled and said, "Hinata, he's all yours."

"Hai, Kurenai-sensei," Hinata nodded, activating her Byakugan."

Jiga said, "Oh-ho! A Byakugan user eh? I'll have to take them when I'm finished mopping the floor with the pair of you. then me'n Renga will be even stronger and gain even more fame."

Hinata said, "Are you…really that famous?"

Jiga looked at her scornfully and said, "What are you implyin'?"

Hinata, far calmer than Kurenai had ever seen her, said, "If you were really as famous as you seem to like to claim, I'm sure that even on our continent, we would have at least heard of you, even in rumour. But, if you are as famous as you like to claim, would that mean taking you down would make me famous too?"

"Hn, nice try, Byakugan warrior, but that's not going to happen any time soon."

Hinata then ran at Jiga and dodged his first swipe at her before quickly drawing a kunai and striking at his kidney. But, Jiga's skin changed colour as he activated his armour jutsu and laughed as he twitched his hand, ripping the kunai from Hinata's hand and guiding it around in a circle to cut her neck. Hinata though, ducked under it, letting it fly into Jiga.

Hinata leapt back, thinking, 'There! That should have done i-!' Her eyes widened before narrowing as she thought, 'That's odd. I thought that since his chakra was affecting the kunai, it would have been unaffected by the armour. At least, that was the reason that Kakashi-sensei gave when he beat that guy on our last mission!' She bit her lip. 'Well, I guess that that really is the only thing that will work after all. Let's hope this works.'

As 'Hinata' strategized, Kurenai thought, 'That looked like one of Kakashi's strategies. Then is that Sakura? What the hell is she doing back here without Hinata? Was she unable to find her?! If that's the case then…' She said, "Hinata, stand back. I'll finish this."

'Hinata' looked at her and said, "It's fine, Kurenai-sensei. We've got this."

"Well, if you say so," Kurenai said, taking a step backwards.

Jiga said, "You should have listened you your precious Kurenai-sensei, girlie." 'Hinata' silently slid her right foot back, raising it so that only her toes were on the ground and moved her left foot forward as she drew her arms up to shoulder height and crooked her right arm back. Jiga said, "So, does taking that stance mean that you thought that you were could mess around with me just now?"

'Hinata' said, "It's called strategy, you bakamono!."

"I prefer bakadzikara personally."

"I don't care!"

Jiga said, "Well, your opinion is irrelevant anyway, girlie," and started twirling his kusarigama again.

'Hinata' thought, 'Okay, I've got to avoid both that weight and the kusari that he's holding. I'll also need to watch out for that kunai, in case he can still use his jiton to control it.' She ran at Jiga, making sure to keep an eye on the weight that he was swinging. As she did, she drew two more kunai in preparation of what he might do. Jiga swung the weight at 'Hinata' from her left and she dodged it and threw the kunai that she had in her right hand into one of the links, forcing the chain to twist in Jiga's hand, forcing him to let it go.

Jiga thought, 'That's new,' and took hold of it, wrapping the chain around his arm to bring it back around at Sakura, this time overhead. Sakura though, hadn't looked away from Jiga's hand and predicted its movement, and slowed her speed enough that it passed in front of her, digging into the ground, letting her merely step over it. As she did though, her kunai came rocketing at her from Jiga's foot. She grabbed it out of the air and threw it at the kusarigama's chain, letting it lightly graze against it, reversing the polarity, and removing Jiga's control of it.

Jiga drew back his kusari as he demanded, "How did you do that?!" having tried, and failed, to swing the kunai back at the Byakugan wielder.

'Hinata' said, "It's called, polarity!" She jumped and slammed her fist into Jiga's sternum as he began to cry out in pain, feeling something run through his entire body. As 'Hinata's fist contacted Jiga, his entire body turned black and the lightning coating 'Hinata's' fist, spread through his body. When the sparks died down, Jiga was on his knees, steam pouring from his body.

When Jiga was on his knees, Kurenai saw something that she had only been half-expecting. It was another Hinata, holding her hand out with her index and middle fingers pointing towards the other Hinata. Kurenai walked over to them and said, "So, Sakura," looking at the Hinata that she'd seen fighting since she'd first appeared, "who came up with this plan of yours?"

The closer Hinata said, "It was Chōji's plan," as she released the transformation.

"Then how did you 'activate' a Byakugan?"

"That? He was expecting 'Hinata' to activate the Byakugan before starting to fight, so I used the Henge Henshu no jutsu to manipulate my Henge no jutsu to reflect the Byakugan's activation."

"So, my lesson from before took, did it?"

"Yeah, I guess," Sakura shrugged.

"So, have the two of you given your jutsu names yet?"

"I have, I'm calling it the Raiton: Shinkei Retsushō no jutsu."

"You were targeting his nervous system, were you?"

"Yeah. So I've no idea why that happened."

"Well, I'm just guessing here, but it could be that when Hinata used her jutsu to attack Jiga's chakra system, instead of shutting it down, she caused the forced activation of his Fukakaina Yoroi no jutsu, causing the metal in his cells to conduct the shock of both jutsu through it, increasing the power of your attacks. Speaking of which," Kurenai said. She looked at Hinata before saying, "You did well, Hinata."

Hinata smiled and happily said, "Thank you, Kurenai-sensei!"

"Just out of curiosity…your jutsu's name?"

"I'm calling it the Raiton: Hakke: Mōkoshō."

Kurenai thought, 'Tiger Palm, huh? It would appear that Naruto's words had more of an effect than I'd thought. That's good. That means that she really will have enough time before the Chūnin Exam to get up to where she'll need to be if Naruto's drilling his jutsu into Mizuko. And, from what I hear, the other genin from Hana's team aren't slouching around either. According to Sakura, neither are the others on Kakashi's team.'

That was when Naruto and Mizuko came running into view, not even stopping before they moved on, running past them without a sound. The three genin looked amongst each other, questioning what just happened. Kurenai was momentarily confused as she thought, 'What? Naruto? He wouldn't just run past us without a reason, it's not in his…!' Her eyes widened. She said, "Come on! After them. Hinata, use your Byakugan to keep track of those two!" she then ran after the Namikaze siblings, but, unlike the two Namikaze, she was running at a pace that the genin with her could keep up with.

As they ran, Sakura asked, "Kurenai-sensei, what's wrong?"

Kurenai said, "Naruto doesn't do a thing without a reason. The fact that he didn't stop with us, can only mean one thing."

"Lady Haruna!" Sakura gasped. "But…then why is Mizuko going after her so quickly?"

Kurenai said, "You may not know this, but, while you all were in the academy, the ANBU were more or less terrorized by someone that kept on breaking into their barracks. Even to this day they don't have any proof of who did it. But, it has long been suspected that Mizuko and Miwa blamed the ANBU organization for sending Naruto away, and took it out on them in some quite imaginative ways."

"No way!" Sakura exclaimed. She said, "That's impossible!" thinking on all the times Mizuko had bragged about what she'd accomplished, almost incapable of holding anything back.

"I assure you, it's not. Her brother was even worse."

"How so?" Chōji asked.

"He somehow managed to regularly defile the Kage faces in the middle of the day, and not get caught once."

Sakura said, "That's great and all, but what does that have to do with anything?"

Kurenai said, "Mizuko's earlier 'suggestions', about what to do with Haruna, were likely just a prank to get her back for wasting our time and trying to get her to see what planning to use those peddlers as human shields felt like. In fact, I doubt she'd ever even conceive of actually following through with any of them."

"Even so, how could she be going that fast? I hardly even saw her."

Kurenai said, "You are aware that her brother and father are considered two of the fastest shinobi in the world, right? Is it really that surprising that someone trained by either of them would be fast too?"

Sakura bit her lip, thinking, 'Damn them! How the heck will I have even a chance if I come up against one of them in the Chūnin Exam?! I'll have to speak to Kakashi-sensei about teaching me some speed jutsu when we get back home.'

Naruto saw them as they moved out with his Byakugan and grinned as he saw a familiar face enter the range of his extended vision. Mizuko saw the grin and asked, "What is it, Aniki?"

Naruto said, "They're somehow still alive."

"Seriously?" Mizuko said, surprised that Yurinojō was actually able to hold out against one of the Janin. She thought, 'Although, Sakura and Hinata defeated one of them, so maybe it's really not all that surprising after all.'

"Yeah. I told you, didn't I? Hana-ninpō is beyond annoying to fight against. That aside, how do you want to do this?"

"What do you mean?"

"When we get there, do you want me to take out this last Janin, or would you like a shot at him."

"Me? Are you sure? You needed your Byakugan to take down that other guy."

"Technically I didn't need it, but, when you were caught like that, there was no option other than killing the caster as quickly as possible, so I did."

"I see," Mizuko said, her lips twitching down as she thought, 'I just got in his way.'

"Now now, none of that. If you hadn't come to get me, I would probably still be fighting him, then where would Haruna be?"

"I…see," Mizuko said, only half believing him.

"Alright then, if you think that there's something that you need to make up for, do it by handing this Janin his arse for me."

Mizuko smiled fondly and said, "Sure thing, Aniki."

About a minute later, they jumped into the clearing that Yurinojō was fending off Renga in. They slid in two different directions. Naruto came to a stop in front of Haruna, a kunai out if he needed it. Mizuko, slid into position in front of Yurinojō, defending against some clear substance with two strange kunai, that had watery blades extending from the base of the blade, crossed in front of her, one of which was a lot longer than the other, channeling chakra to her feet to affix her to the spot.

Yurinojō, who had crossed his arms in front of his chest as he had prepared to take the hit, hesitantly looked up to see why he hadn't been hit. He blinked as he saw the coat that the small blue haired girl was wearing settled back down. He said, "What…"

Mizuko looked over her shoulder and said, "You've done enough. It's time to let me take over."

"Uhh…no offence, why?"

Renga said, "The reason doesn't matter. Girl, get out of the way."

Mizuko faced Renga as she said, "Why would I do that?"

"I don't particularly enjoy slaughtering children, but I'm not completely against it either."

"Well then, I'd say that it's pretty good for you that I'm a shinobi then." She then said, "You didn't really think that I'd actually follow through on any plan that led to the death of anyone, did you, Yurinojō?" She then ran at Renga.

As Mizuko charged at Renga, Haruna looked at Naruto and said, "Why is she…"

Naruto said, "Mizuko wouldn't ever think of harming anyone that she didn't consider an enemy. When she was coming up with her 'plans' for what to do with you, you had pissed her off, but she still didn't see you as an enemy, merely a conceited girl that needed to be pulled off of the high horse that she'd clambered on. Just watch. When she's done, you'll have seen her at both her best, and her worst."

"How would you know that? According to what she said, you haven't seen hide nor hair of her or her sister for much of their lives in the last few years."

Naruto said, "Just because I haven't had the chance to see my sisters, that doesn't mean that I didn't know anything about them."

"What do you mean?"

"Whenever I sent a message back home, I got one back, detailing whatever new feats they'd accomplished, even if I didn't ask about them. Of course, there were many comparisons made between us in them. Some of which are better than others of course."

"I…see…" Haruna said, thinking, 'Did my dad keep track of how I was doing when I was held hostage then? I suppose I'll never know.'

As Haruna thought on her past, Mizuko got knocked aside and tumbled a few times before springing from the ground, and pierced the ground with her sword, bringing her to a stop. She thought, 'What the hell was that? Was it genjutsu? Then…' she brought her hands together in a ram sign and said, "Kai!" disturbing her chakra to dispel a genjutsu.

Renga grinned and said, "My techniques aren't something as simple as genjutsu, girlie. If it was, then I wouldn't have been able to become the leader of the Janin."

"I thought that it was just you three brothers, so it shouldn't have been all that difficult."

Renga grunted, annoyed that the girl actually had a point. Naruto grinned, annoying Renga even more. He said, "Right. When I'm done with you, I'll move on to slaughtering your brother before moving onto the obstacle."

Mizuko glared at Renga and said, "I was going to save this until I'd mastered it, but you've gone too far." She said, "Tora, Tatsu, Saru, Tori," as she formed hand seals. When she was done, she said, "Sharingan!" and she winced as her right eye transformed into a sharingan with two tomoe.

Renga grinned as he said, "So, I get to face off against the sharingan? Ruiga would have been annoyed, if he was still alive, only getting to fight against a byakugan himself."

As Renga blabbered on, Naruto thought, 'Sharingan? Mizuko's activated it? When did she...? Ah, who knows. I'll just have to ask about that later. But still, if she already had a sharingan, why would she be asking about activating the byakugan?'

Renga said, "In any case, I suppose that I should end you before you gain more experience with that eye." He said, "Hyōton: Kōri Enban Ryūki no Jutsu!" and swiped his hand towards Mizuko, causing the ice to speed towards her.

Mizuko ran at Renga and easily dodged the stream of ice that Renga had thrust at her. When she did, Renga changed the direction of the stream of ice, but Mizuko kept on a diagonal, inches away from the ice, able to see it clearly with her sharingan. When she was about to run into a boulder, she jumped onto it, stuck to it with her chakra and pushed off, spinning over the stream of ice before, without making seals, using the Shunshin no Jutsu to get next to him, slashing at him.

But, when Renga had seen Mizuko flip over the stream of ice, he stopped fuelling it and said, "Hyōton: Kōri Enban Hyōtoku no Jutsu", causing Mizuko's sword to stop before slicing into him.

Mizuko blinked and tried to put more force into her attack, but nothing happened, so she jumped back away, just in case he tried something else. She said, "So, ice style is it?"

"That's right. I focus my chakra to condense moisture particles in the air, which lets me form transparent disks of ice, letting me make shields like the one that just stopped your attack."

"How? Namikaze-ryu: Reisui no Tsurugi, is one of the sharpest attacks available to Konoha!"

"Ice style jutsu are of a higher tier than a simple single element jutsu."

Mizuko thought, 'Higher tier? Then does that mean that…hmm…I saw him melding chakra that looked like the same colours as my water and wind together, so does that mean that it is a mix of the two?'She looked at her sword and let the water drop before placing it back in its holster at her hip.

As Mizuko reholstered her weapon, Renga cocked his head a bit and thought, 'What's she doing? Is she giving up? No. She didn't seem the type. So then what is she…' his eyes widened when he saw what she was doing with the other one that was still in her hand.

Mizuko brought her other chakra blade in front of her and clasped her other hand over the one that was already holding it. She said, "Hyōton: Kōrumaku!"

As he saw the ice blade form, Naruto thought, 'That's…pretty damn good Mizuko, you've clearly activated the eye of insight that Itachi was talking about when he was explaining the sharingan's abilities to me. And the ninjutsu portion of it too. Although I'm still pretty annoyed that she didn't tell me about it. But, is it going to be enough to get through Renga's Kōri Enban jutsu.'

When the blade had formed, Mizuko said, "Now, Fūton: Hien!" streaming her wind chakra through her blade. She then threw it at Renga as hard as she could.

Renga scoffed before he said, "No matter what you try, it's useless. My ice has the same tensile strength as steel.

Mizuko said, "That doesn't matter," as she formed handseals and said, "Fūton: Ressenpū," letting loose a stream of high-speed wind, causing her kunai to speed up to the point that it crashed through Renga's shield with ease.

Renga's eyes widened as he saw his ice start to crack and stepped to the side, letting the kunai pass him as he turned to face his young opponent. He said, "I'm not above giving credit where it's due. You are more irritating than I'd thou…!" He frowned when he saw that she wasn't there before jumping away from where he was, barely getting out of the way of the watery blade that Mizuko was trying to cut him in half with. Renga jumped into the air and said, "Kōri Enban no Jutsu," forming an ice disk under his hand, before springing higher and forming another under his feet, letting him hover in the air, looking down at Mizuko. He brought his right hand up in front of him, forming a fist and extending his index and middle fingers up, and breathed onto them, forming a ball of wind as he said, "Fūton: Rasendama no jutsu," and flicked it at Mizuko.

Mizuko drew two of her normal kunai and streamed her chakra through them, forming her water blades and batted aside the ball of wind as she thought, 'That's an interesting technique. He spun the wind around itself, causing it to spin in a self-perpetuating loop.' She noted that, when her sword cut into the ball, it burst, causing her blade to sever where the ball hit. Mizuko frowned at her sword as she thought, 'that jutsu is more dangerous than I'd thought,' and pushed more water into the blade, extending it to its previous length, as did her other blade. As the two Namikaze-ryu: Reisui no Tsurugi reached their full length, Mizuko thought, 'It's too bad that I didn't get to focus on fūton as much as I could have. It would be more ideal than my suiton. But, I suppose I'm just going to have to work with what I've got.' And started batting aside one ball of wind after the next. When there was a lull in the barrage, she glared at Renga and said, "Are you satisfied that that jutsu won't work yet, or are you going to continue in this futility?"

Haruna looked at Naruto and asked, "Why is she trying to make him angry?"

Naruto said, "Quiet," completely focused on his sister's fight.

Renga looked up and saw the clouds clearing and grinned. He looked down at Mizuko and said, "You know what? You're absolutely right." He grinned as he looked up at the sky and said, "Kōri Reizā Enban no Jutsu," generating three ice disks, layering them one over the other.

Mizuko, seeing the ice disks, thought, 'He's made more of them? Why? He knows that they are next to useless against me, so…!' Mizuko leapt out of the way as a beam shot at her from the disks. She scrambled away as it chased after her. She exclaimed, "What the heck is that?!"

"Kōri Reizā Enban no Jutsu. It concentrates the light of the sun into an attack that I can freely control."

'The sun?! how the heck am I supposed to defend against that?! Wait. Why wasn't he...! There were clouds earlier. That must be why he wasn't using it until now, he couldn't! Then all I need to do, is wait until there's enough cloud covering the sky so that the attack gets cut off from the sun.' Mizuko looked up and thought, 'Damn! Nowhere near cloudy enough for a waiting game. If I did that, I'd be jumping around, dodging laser beams damn near all day. What would Aniki do? Ah, who am I kidding, he'd just use his Hikazeshin to appear above him and use one of his Rasengan variants to finish him off, none of which I can do. Well, yet. Although…that Rasendama was interesting. If I used my water style and did that, it would probably work as an approximation of the Rasengan. But, even if I could pull it off on the fly, the same problem still applies. I'd still need a way to hit him with it. Heh, being able to summon something with wings would be good right about now…hmm…come to think of it, that might work, if I'm lucky.' She grasped her hands together as she gathered chakra. When she thought she had enough, she concentrated it on her back before transforming it into water, which burst out, but she got it under control with the mass amounts of chakra control training that her brother had been putting her through, forming it into a large pair of bat-like wings. She said, "Namikaze-ryū: Mahane no jutsu."

Naruto grinned and thought, 'That's the way Mizuko, I always knew that you had it in you. Now we can really get down to training.'

Haruna saw the grin as Mizuko took to the air and said, "What the hell is that?! Can all shinobi fly?"

"Well, many of us find a method, that's not to say that we all can though."

At that moment, Kurenai and her genin burst from the trees, sliding to a stop next to Naruto. Kurenai said, "What is…" before looking at Naruto and saying, "Exactly what kind of training have you been putting her through?"

Naruto grinned and said, "I doubt you'd believe me if I told you. Even if you did though, those with you, wouldn't."

Kurenai looked at the genin with her and sighed. She said, "I suppose not."

When she was level with Renga, she said, "The real fight starts now."

Regna scowled and said, "You really are an annoying little fly, aren't you?"

Mizuko said, "I prefer shinobi."

"Alright then, shinobi, prepare to die." Renga then moved his ice disks to point at Mizuko, who flew up and around the beam, on her way to the disks. When she had almost reached them, she said, "Namikaze-ryū: Reikaze no Tsurugi," and slashed through first one, then the others. As she did, she lost the control over her wings and they dispersed and her sharingan disappeared. But, she was over Renga when they did.

Renga grinned as he drew his sword, saying, "You've just made this too easy."

Mizuko said, "Don't count on it," as she gripped her right wrist with her left hand, moving the blade of the kunai so that it wouldn't cut into her. She gathered chakra into her hand and started spinning it the way that she had seen Renga do with his wind and transformed it into water as she fell. When she was done, she said, "Suiton: Hahonryū!"

As Mizuko fell, Renga streamed his chakra into his sword and said, "Kenjutsu: Issen!" forming a crescent of chakra around his blade. when he swung it, the crescent blade rushed at Mizuko.

Mizuko brought her kunai in front of her, streaming her wind chakra through it and, to Renga's horror, cut through the crescent blade of chakra. When she was close enough, she forced her jutsu into Renga's shoulder forcing him from the platform to the ground. Mizuko stood on the platform, evening it out as it fell, jumping off of it just before it hit the ground. When she slid to a stop, Mizuko slumped to the ground, panting due to the amount of chakra that she'd lost. She looked up when she felt something hard stop her fall and said, "Sensei?"

XXXXXXX

A/N

Attacks

Sakura

Henge Henshu : Transformation Mutation

Changes parts of a transformation without the need to transform back into a completely different form.

Shinkei Retsushō : Nervous System Disorder

Sakura inserts lightning chakra into an enemy's nervous system, shutting off their mind's ability to send signals past it

Hinata

Raiton: Hakke: Mōkoshō : Eight Trigrams: Fierce Tiger Palm

The user makes contact with opponent striking them in their Keirakukei (Chakra Pathway System) with a lightning-charged hand strike

Mizuko

Namikaze-ryū: Reisui no Tsurugi : Namikaze-style: Cold Water Sword

Suiton: Kaichō : Water Release: Sea Bird

A streaming technique based on the Fūton: Hien, but using suiton chakra

Sharingan : Copy Wheel Eye

Shunshin no Jutsu : Body Flicker Technique

Hyōton: Kōrumaku : Freezing Bunting

A streaming technique similar to Suiton: Kaichō utilising ice release.

Fūton: Hien : Wind Release: Flying Swallow

Fūton: Ressenpū : Wind Release: Violent Whirlwind

Namikaze-ryū: Mahane : Water Release: Demon Wings

Suiton: Hahonryū : Water Release: Tearing Torrent

Renga

Kōri Enban Ryūki no Jutsu : Ice Disk Projection Technique

The user can hurl disks with tremendous force at a target that are hard to dodge because of their transparency.

Kōri Enban Hyōtoku no Jutsu : Ice Disk Glistening Shield Technique

The disks can be used defensively, creating highly durable shields

Fūton: Rasendama : Wind Release: Spiralling Wind Ball

This technique allows the user to breathe wind-infused chakra, shaping it into a small, whirlwind-like ball. Then the user will flick it at their opponent.

Kōri Reizā Enban no Jutsu : Ice Laser Disk

The user generates three ice disks and layers them one over the other, the user can focus the rays of the sun into a powerful beam capable of melting and exploding the pinpointed area