Chapter 8, Part 1 – Team 13: The Yondaime’s Gambit, Part 1

Date: January 23rd, 13 years following the Kyuubi's attack

Time: 9:55 AM

The following morning found the 3 junior members of Team 13 waiting outside the entrance to the Hyuuga clan compound. Visitors were only permitted into the compound if accompanied by a member of the Hyuuga Clan, so they simply waited outside its walls for their instructor to emerge.

Sho had been the first one to arrive, having been there a full thirty minutes prior to the scheduled time. He'd been leaning against the white exterior walls of the compound, reading from his book - this one smaller and definitely more portable than the one he'd been carrying the day before - when Kimiko and Nakahito had arrived, barely ten minutes before.

Right on the stroke of ten, the doors of the Hyuuga Clan compound and Miho Hyuuga stepped out. She nodded at the Genin and gave a brief, "Follow me," as she began walking determinedly to the south. As she walked, she glanced at each of them. "Have any of you ever left the village before?"

All three shook their heads in response; not all that uncommon. The village was fairly self-sufficient and all entries and exits needed to be properly documented. Leaving the village without the necessary authorization was a major violation - ninja that did so could be deemed rogue ninja and made targets for the ANBU Ninja Hunters to prevent any secrets of Konoha from reaching enemy hands unless the ninja had a very good reason.

"Well, today that changes." Miho said, but without going into further details. The four walked in silence by mutual agreement - Miho reserved for reasons undecipherable by the Genin, Sho as was his wont, Kimiko and Nakahito mainly due to the fact that they didn't want to speak out of turn.

As the Great South Gate came into view, the massive doors were closed tightly, Miho spoke up again. "We have been contracted for a D-rank mission today by one of the restaurants in the village. Apparently their supply of Shitake mushrooms are running critically low and the next shipment won't be for another few days. As these mushrooms are fairly common in the forest around the village, our job is to collect 40 pounds of these mushrooms. It will likely take us most of the day to do so."

"P-Picking mushrooms?" Nakahito sputtered in dismay. "Why are we on such a simple mission? You don't even need to be a ninja to do it!"

Miho looked over her shoulder. "Count your lucky stars it's something this trivial! One of my first missions was to catch the cat of the Daimyo's wife - she'd been visiting the village and the cat had managed to escape his owner."

"It's an introductory mission," Sho said, looking back to the other young man, but his voice was lacking his usual mocking contempt; a sign he was trying to play nicely. "We're unproven Genin - did you honestly expect that we'd be given interesting tasks right out of the gate?" Haruno made an 'I don't know' shrug. "Miho-sensei will report our performance back to the Hokage - after all, he has to approve and assign all ninja missions. Her evaluation will be put into our transcripts and be used to help the Hokage determine if we're ready for higher level missions."

Miho nodded. "An excellent synopsis of the situation, Inugami-san. That's almost exactly how it works. We will keep together at all times during this mission and will make a circuit around the entire village wall. With any luck, we might find some untouched patches of mushrooms. If we do, this will take less time that I'm expecting."

As the four of them reached the gate, she gestured for the Genin to wait as she approached the immigration station by the gate. She pulled a rolled up scroll out of the pouch at her waist handing it over to the door warders. One of them opened the scroll, read it in silence for a few moments before nodding. Miho returned to the Genin. "It will take just a few seconds for the doors to open."

The three Genin nodded, contemplating the larger-than-life doors that rose at least 50 meters into the air. With a loud crack, a seam of light formed at the interface of the two doors. As the doors swung ponderously outwards, a strong gust of wind whipped past Miho Hyuuga, the eddies of wind playing with her long hair as she was facing away from the doors to look at her Genin. The wind carried leaves and dust that stung the faces of the three youths, causing all three to shield their faces in a reflexive defense reaction.

Miho Hyuuga smiled. "Sorry, should have warned you that had a tendency to happen when they open the doors. We'll travel clockwise around the village's walls, staying within 100 meters of the wall at all times. No further unless necessary. Understood?" The three Genin nodded. "Very well, let's go."

* * *

Team 13 walked through the forest slowly, but efficiently, checking around the bases of the trees for mushrooms. After about two hours they only managed to traverse about half the distance between the Southern and Western Gates, but had managed to gather about half their target weight of the abundant mushrooms that looked large enough for use in cooking. The four team members worked in pairs that changed every hour or so. At the moment, Miho was paired with Nakahito while Sho and Kimiko were working together.

Sho shook his head momentarily, something that he'd been doing on and off for the last hour and a half. Kimiko finally looked at him. "Sho-san? Are you okay? You've been doing that every ten minutes or so - it's starting to get annoying."

"Sorry. I'm not sure what it is… I keep seeing something at edge of my vision, but I can't make it out…" He replied taking point to punch through a particularly thick section of undergrowth. The small clearing he broke had patches of mushrooms growing around nearly every tree.

"Woo Hoo!" Nakahito crowed. "Shitake Central!"

Kimiko got excited too. "We've hit the mother lode!" Before she could approach the nearest patch of mushrooms to begin picking the fungus, Sho's hand whipped out and caught her shoulder. Almost identically, Miho Hyuuga did the same to Nakahito. "Hey! What gives?"

Sho raised a finger over his lips before pointing at the patch she'd been about to head for and three others. "Don't you see that?" He whispered. He glanced back at Miho-sensei, who nodded at him. Good. She'd noticed it, too.

"What I see is that the end of this mission is within reach. Why?" Kimiko retorted. She glanced at Nakahito, who shrugged.

Sho sighed. "You two… Always LOOKING, but rarely SEEING." He gestured again at the four patches. "There are mushrooms missing from those four patches, but only those four."

"So the hell what?" Nakahito forcibly whispered in his general direction. "Animals probably just ate them. Why are we whispering?"

"Most animals will eat the entire patch in a single go." Miho-sensei answered next. "They don't care about the quality of the food that they eat. Don't you think it's a bit odd that at those four patches only the least appetizing-looking ones are left?"

Haruno and Itou looked at the patches yet again. Sure enough, at the others there were some very good-looking mushrooms, but the four Sho had indicated lacked any.

Sho nodded. "Also - I don't see any footprints that would normally be associated with wild animals. Someone who is able to not leave tracks has been here recently to harvest mushrooms. And it's not someone from the village - there were no such signs at any of the previous patches that are closest to the gates. Whoever has been eating these mushrooms must be here for reasons of their own.

Miho Hyuuga stiffened momentarily. "Evasive!" She shouted, pulling Nakahito along for a rolling tumble into the middle of the clearing. At Miho's warning, Sho grabbed Kimiko in a hug and used his chakra to enhance his leg muscles into a sideways diving jump. As the four landed towards the middle of the clearing, four kunai struck the ground where the members of Team 13 had been standing before.

Miho's hands flashed in a barely visible sequence of hand signs before ending with the Ram. "Byakugan!" As she said the word, the veins leading into the eye sockets became far more defined than before. Just as fast, her hand dug into her shuriken holster and she threw the sharp, star-shaped projectiles towards the branch line of a specific tree.

From that general area, came an excited shout of surprise and the thud of shurikens hitting trees. A deep male voice echoed around the clearing. "Lucky… We were only tasked to spy on the village. Getting a Hyuuga out of it is a bonus jackpot!"

"Why don't you show yourselves, coward!" Nakahito shouted, the adrenaline pumping. If it hadn't been for Miho-sensei sensing the attack, he might have just been killed. How ignominious would that have been?

"Ah, the puppy barks." A female voice said, filled with derision - a razor tongue even sharper than Sho had ever used.

Miho Hyuuga spoke up to the mystery assailants. "Since you already know I'm a Hyuuga, they're no point in hiding. I can see all four of you."

At the tree in question, four ninja appeared. A man around Miho-sensei's age wore a gray-green uniform with a set of three scroll pockets on the left breast and a gray sash around his waist. The other three were older than the Genin of Team 13, probably in the 18-20 year old range: two women and a man each wore different outfits. The only thing the four had in common was that all four wore, in one way or another, forehead protectors with the same design.

"Cloud ninja!" Kimiko Itou roared as she instantly recognized the symbol as that of the Village that had destroyed her clan and had left her an orphan. She reached for her weapons pouch...

Only to be stopped yet again by Sho Inugami. "Chill a bit, Sparky. In case you haven't noticed, they're older than us - they're probably just a team like ours: Genin under a Jonin teacher, but, unlike us, they're probably experienced ninja. If you just fly off the handle, you'll leave another opening that they could exploit, just like before - if it hadn't been for Miho-sensei's warning, you and I would have been dead - I didn't even notice the attack until it was almost too late to move."

Miho-sensei nodded. "Fight to defend yourselves only. I'll handle their leader. Don't move from this spot." Her voice was dead serious with the overtones of authority.

The leader of the Cloud ninja gestured and the three broke off, leaping across the clearing and then heading northwest to circle the village. The same mocking female voice from before echoed. "Later, boy-a. Maybe you and the bitch can come and play when you grow a pair!"

Kimiko and Nakahito turned to start to pursue - both their faces livid at the insults. Miho Hyuuga, however, interrupted. "DON'T MOVE!" She shouted without taking her gaze off of the other Jonin. "Turn your back and he'll kill you before you realize it."

The Cloud Jonin laughed aloud. "The white-eyed slut is right, you know!" He made a lewd gesture. "Maybe I'll even be able to enjoy myself before I turn her body over to the R&D people. They've been waiting to get their hands on a Hyuuga with intact eyes for 10 years." His gaze appraised her figure and let out a perverted whistle. "I can see why! But, hey, as long as they get her head intact, I don't think they'll care what I do with the rest of her."

Miho Hyuuga didn't even seem to get phased by the threat of being ravished by the foreign ninja. Kimiko looked horrified and outraged at the same time. Nakahito was damn near frothing at the mouth. "If you try and lay a finger on Miho-sensei..."

There was a glint of metal as a kunai appeared in the ground between Nakahito's legs. "You'll what? Piss yourself is most likely what'll happen. I've killed Genin in my sleep before."

Miho Hyuuga raised an arm to still the well-meaning but far outclassed young man. "Enough with the idle banter; come and put your money where your mouth is… We'll just see who will be penetrating who. But I'll warn you now, I'm a literal heartbreaker." Her retort, accompanied with a sickeningly sweet smile, killed the other's amusement. Without another word, the Cloud ninja jumped backwards into the trees.

Miho leapt from the ground up to the branch in a single lithe movement. "Stay there. I'll be back soon!" She leapt forward to follow the intruder and was gone.

Sho shook his head once again. "Ah, shit!" Kimiko and Nakahito glanced at each other and nodded. That was an apt summary of the situation.

Nakahito looks over and sees the burning anger in Kimiko's eyes – look that normally has a place on his face. He touches her shoulder in a silent gesture of friendship to which she looks at him and smiles. Over her shoulder, he catches the glint of sunlight reflecting off of rapidly spinning metal and quickly grabs and spins her out of the way. Haruno then pulls and throws a kunai; with the clink sound of metal striking metal, the throwing dagger hits the shuriken squarely to negate its threat.

Once again the mocking female voice cuts through the silence of the forest. "Oh, ho! Boy-a actually knows how to use his wittle-bitty tools... Why don't you come out and play? Or does she have you whipped already?"

Kimiko stands back up, a look of pure rage - maybe even a tinge of embarrassment - crossing her normally gentle face as she screams, " That's it, you're dead, Bitch!" She leaps in the direction the shuriken came from. She lands on the lowest branch and barely manages to keep her balance. Itou pauses as she glances around for traces of the 3 Cloud Ninja.

Sho looks up at her. "Are you trying to kill yourself? One, they're more experienced than you. Two, you don't even know the tree-walking jutsu yet, which means one slip of the foot and you're going to fall at least a story and a half. Three, Miho-sensei ordered us to stay right here for our own safety."

Kimiko Itou glances down at him icily. "You would let ninja from a hostile nation run around anywhere near Konoha?" Her voice as frosty as her gaze; causing an uncontrollable shiver to run down Nakahito's spine. "Take off your headband and go back home - you're not fit to be a Leaf Village ninja, let alone be paired with me and 'Hito!" Turning back around, she leaps unsteadily to the next branch, out of sight.

"Would you at least consider running on the ground?!" He shouts after her. "I'm a medic, not a god-damned magician; I can't fix broken necks!"

"Kimiko, wait!" Nakahito yells, bracing to make a jump up to the tree branch to follow her, when Sho grabs his arm, stopping him short. "Let me go, Oni!" He struggles in the medic's tight grip.

"Miho-sensei told us to stay here. She's our superior and we need to follow her orders." Sho says.

Haruno points to the woods with his free arm, yelling in the young medic's face, "You may not give a damn about Miho-sensei or Kimiko, but I'll be damned if I'll let anyone hurt them!"

Sho shifts his leverage into an arm bar behind Nakahito's back, causing an involuntary wince from the other young man. "Never. Accuse. Me. Of. Not. Caring." He grits, carefully saying each word and accenting it with a few more tugs of Nakahito's trapped arm. "I just don't want you going off half-cocked and needing me to come and try and reassemble the pieces."

He shakes his head again before releasing the arm bar and pushing Haruno forward. "You want to go after her? Fine. Just remember, you're going into a strategically and tactically bad situation against more experienced ninjas. For both your sakes, I hope they DO leave enough pieces for me to reassemble, if only to allow me to say I told you so." He sighs and looks up at the sky through the canopy of trees. "Gods… It sucks trying to be the voice of reason."

Nakahito glances at the white-clad ninja with equal parts contempt and loathing. Both, however, melt away as the part that isn't worrying about Kimiko hears what the medic is actually saying. "Fine... If you can't handle this, why don't you go get ANBU and tell them what's happening!" With that, he leaps into a tree and follows Kimiko, leaving Sho behind with an irritated look on his face.

* * *

After twenty minutes of leaping from tree to tree and two minutes of the occasional pause to steady himself, Nakahito pauses to take a look around. Every now and then hears the rustle of disturbed woodland creatures. A gust of wind blows once again, causing leaves to break free of their trees. His gaze catches a trio of leaves that get pulled around a tree off to the northwest. As the gust pulls the leaves around the tree, only one of them completes the orbit around the other side, the other two bounce off some obstruction and fall to the ground.

Haruno grins, grabbing 2 shuriken out and throws them so their trajectory matches that of the two leaves that fell to the ground. The two metal stars strike the same obstruction, causing a feminine cry of pain. The obstruction turns out to be one of the female ninja, who falls to the ground both of the shuriken sunk deep into her left leg. Despite the injury, she manages to land on the ground safely.

"So the puppy has some bite after all..." She says with the same mocking voice as before while pulling the stars from her leg. "Where's your little girlfriend at?" She grins cruelly. "I do hope nothing bad ends up happening to her, like running into the others…"

"Let's just say I pity any Cloud ninja that runs into her." He says, dropping to the ground, albeit not with the grace that she used despite her injury. He rises into a battle stances and she takes one as well. He sizes her up momentarily before charging headlong at her, drawing another kunai.

As Haruno gets close, she rapidly makes some hand signs and yells, "Electrified Clone Jutsu!" Four more of her appear and begin moving about. One of them connects with a right cross to his jaw, which he makes no attempt to dodge – it's just an illusion, after all. The clone gives him a wicked grin as it connects with a subtle-feeling tap. Suddenly the tap turns into an eye-widening shock of electricity, which sends him flying as the clone pops out of existence. Nakahito lands heavily on the ground, his head buzzing as if he'd had a power cord in his mouth that he plugged into an outlet.

"AH! Puppy's got a boo boo!" She laughs aloud with fake concern. "Want me to kiss it and make it better?"

"Wash the hechs?" Nakahito asks, his tongue not working quite right, the shock apparently impairing his control of it.

"It's Thunder jutsu technique." She said as another one of the clones charges him. Still reeling from the first attack and too dizzy to rise he tries to sweep the clone off its feet. As his leg makes contact, the clone pops out and the shock tears through his right leg, causing it to spasm. Nakahito grunts in pain and surprise.

"You don't learn too quickly, do you?" She asks, looking at him dryly. "These clones are infused with enough electricity to stun a person if it manages to connect cleanly. They only have enough juice for a single shock, but it's usually enough to daze someone long enough for me to finish them off." A wicked grin crossed her face. "Like the time our perverse sensei demanded that I pleasure him - I let one of my girls here pretend that I was willing to do so. In fact, I still remember his howls of agony when my girl touched his manhood... Ah, what a sweet sound it was."

She gestured and the third clone charges. The sadistic leer on its face tells Nakahito EXACTLY where she's going to attack. As she approaches sweep range, the clone makes a slight leap to prevent him from hitting her. At the last instant, Haruno rolls lengthwise along the ground as the clone's fist strikes where his "critical hit" zone had been just moments before and expires as her charge is released harmlessly into the ground.

Nakahito stands up shakily as the ergs of energy finally begin to subside. He wipes the blood from his mouth and begins to laugh.

"What's so funny?" She asks, her clone looking as confused as she is.

"Just thinking of the look on your face..." He breathed, still a bit unevenly from the electrical discharges, "When I do this." He clasps his hands together.

"What, when you surrender yourself to my mercy?" She asks with a sensuous lick of her lips.

Nakahito grins as he shifts the placement of his thumbs and pinky fingers into the seal of Dragon. Before she grasps the implications of the placement, he then rapidly forms Boar-Dog-Dragon-Tiger and yells, "Fire Style!" Her eyes widen in unspoken shock – elemental jutsu? At his age?! He pulls his hands back as a small ball of flames form in his hands, "Dragon Fire Jutsu!" Haruno thrusts out his hands, causing the glowing orange/red ball grows slightly into a stream of fire that proceeds to arc through the air towards the Cloud kunoichi.

Her clone tries to interpose, but lacks the solidity required to absorb even a fraction of the 1,000-plus degree fire before dissolving as the original tries jumping to safety. Because of her injured leg, however, she is unable to get the necessary force as the flames engulf her already leg, causing the fabric to ignite. A shrill scream starts to escape her lips as she throws a kunai at him.

'Her aim's a bit off.' He thinks to himself, not bothering to try dodging the knife as it hits the tree behind him. "Some ninja you are! Missing simply because your clothing's on fire is just plain sloppy!" He yells.

She lands to one side, rolling in the soft loam of the forest to put out the fire. "Did I really miss?" She asks wryly.

His eyes widen as he looks at the kunai seeing a rapidly burning paper bomb wrapped around the handle. And unlike Sho's little trick the other day, this one was live! "Oh, shit!" He yells and leaps up and does a few rapid hand signs. Another Nakahito appears as the bomb explodes. The explosion takes a large chunk out of the tree's trunk causing it to fall over. As the tree falls, it passes through the copy of Nakahito and cleanly catches the other, who wails as the tree forces him to the ground and lands on his legs.

"That did it." The female ninja laughs, getting up to torment her captured pet. As the dust clears from the tree's collapse, there is no prey caught wriggling under the tree, just a log that is roughly the size and shape of a human torso. "Substitution! How could I be so stupid?!" She cries aloud.

"Maybe because you're a sick twisted sadist that cares for nothing but her personal amusement…" Nakahito's voice echoes from all around her. "At least Inugami has SOME redeeming features." She looks around rapidly, trying to spot him and barely notices the shadows on the ground. She looks up to see a number of thick tree branches falling down towards her. From above the falling limbs, Nakahito shouts, "Dragon Fire!" The logs are suddenly backlit with orange and catch fire. The force of his attack accelerates the burning wood and the pile lands on her before she can take cover.

"Take that, bitch!" Nakahito yells as he lands in front of the burning logs. "Hmm, toasty..."

Suddenly, the burning pile shakes and then erupts as the female ninja bursts out from what moments before, a shocked Nakahito numbly thought, had been her funeral pyre. She stands there, he clothing burnt and torn in numerous areas. "That's it - the kid gloves are coming off!" She says before vanishing before his eyes.

"What the hell?" Haruno shouts in disbelief. Suddenly, his eyes go wide and he loses his breath as waves of electric agony wash over his chest through his back, dropping him to his knees. 'Damn it, she must have used Body Flicker. Second time in 2 days I've fallen for it.' He thinks as he collapses face down in the dirt, his heart beating erratically. 'Only this time Iruka-sensei isn't going to be here to stop the fight."

The Cloud ninja's singed footwear appears in his peripheral vision. The foot rears back to unleash a chakra-enhanced kick to his right shoulder. There's the distinct sound of breaking bones as the kick flips him onto his back, landing on the right side with a flare of white pain as Nakahito realizes that she must have broken his collar bone. "So the puppy thinks he's a big dog simply because he plays with fire?" she laughs.

"I-I-I c-can't move..." He gasps as she straddles his torso.

"That's right, little man." She says as electricity arcs between her fingertips. "Unlike my clones, I have plenty of energy and back it up with real flesh." She runs her hand over his cheek, "You know, puppy, now that I get a closer look at you..." She licks his right cheek. "You're actually kind of cute." she takes his chin in her hand and drags her fingernail down his left cheek deep enough to draw blood.

She smiles at him, demoniacally. "How I make you into a real man, boy-a?" She whispers lustfully as she licks the blood off his cheek. "Who knows...? If you make a genuine effort to please me, maybe I won't give you a charge like I did Sensei…"

She strips off her singed top to reveal unmarred skin and a halter top. Nakahito's eyes widen and his breathing becomes ragged for different reasons that before. "Well begun, puppy." She says, noticing his excitement as she begins to loosen the halter, despite himself. "You know how to make a girl feel appreciated. If you're able to keep it up as we continue for the next few hours, I might even take you home with me, where we will reach the heights and plumb the depths of passion. What do you say to that?"

"I say, get your filthy hands off him, you skank!" A new voice says from behind her. Before the Cloud ninja can turn around, the voice continues. "Water style, Water Bomb Jutsu!" A pulsating orb of water hits the woman's back, launching her off Nakahito and head on into the tree that her paper bomb toppled over. There's a sickening thud as the enemy kunoichi's skull strikes the trunk and she rebounds to land on the ground near Nakahito Haruno. Her face is a mess of blood and broken bones; she's either unconscious or…

The two Leaf ninja look at each other with ambivalent looks: neither of them had ever taken a life before, though they were mentally prepared for it. Had they..? But then they see a bubble appear in the blood pouring from her nose as there Cloud woman's chest rose and fell slightly.

"I say you don't have a clue as to how to make a boy into a man." Itou says, finishing her prior thought. Seeing that continued taunts were falling on deaf ears, Kimiko turns to her teammate and friend. "Are you okay, 'Hito?"

"Yeah, sure!" He says, sarcastically. "I'm half paralyzed, I have at least one broken bone, my face is bleeding and I just came within minutes of being the first member of my family in memory to be molested by a psychopathic Cloud kunoichi!" He takes a deep breath and sits up, looking at his right shoulder and moves his arm, surprisingly pain-free. "Oh, and this is the real plus, we have to endure Oni's gloating that he was freaking right!" He paused, mid-rant. "What about the other two?"

Kimiko shook her head. "I couldn't find them... Their tracks dead-end just up ahead and I couldn't find any traces beyond that." She pulls out a small bandage from her own simple medical kit and puts it over his cheek before tapping it down. "I was just about to give up when I heard the explosion. Figured it would be a good idea to find out what was happening."

Haruno grins, despite himself. "My virtue and I are grateful to see you." He looks intently at his best friend. "You do know we're going to get in trouble for this right?"

Kimiko nods with a grin. "Oh, of course we are. Come on... Maybe Miho-sensei could use our help." She drapes his left arm over her shoulder to help him get back onto his feet.

"I don't know..." Nakahito says wistfully. "Look what kind of trouble we found just by following the Genin." Kimiko looked at him and raised a single eyebrow skeptically. "Okay, fine, so I just don't want to give Oni any more ammunition today - is that so wrong?"

"Did I say anything?" She pauses, giving him a worried look. "How's the arm?"

Nakahito lightly squeezes his right shoulder, which induces a small wave of pain. "It's probably just a simple break. As long as I don't put any real pressure on it, I should be fine until we get back into the village. Tree jumping is definitely out... It galls me to say it, but Inugami was right about that, too. We'll have to stick to the ground."

Kimiko Itou nodded. "We'll just run. Fast." Nakahito Haruno nodded as well as they took off, rapidly running along the floor of the forest, unaware that a shadowy figure was watching their every movement from the trees above them.

* * *

Kimiko and Nakahito raced through the forest, each with a kunai in hand – trying to anticipate an attack that could come from any direction at any time. As they move, Haruno was telling her what she missed after she ran off on her own. Sho's warning - filled with equal parts helpfulness and arrogance - and Nakahito's response and recommendation that Sho run back to the village gate.

"So Oni just stayed there??" She demanded, contempt filling her voice once again.

"So far as I know..." He replies, wincing as he extends his arm painfully as he understands, yet again, what Sho had been really saying. "At first I just thought that he didn't want to get into trouble, but then I remembered how he said he doesn't care about other people's opinions of him or whether he fails to meet their expectations. He was saying that despite the shitty situation I was knowingly going into he wanted me to try and be careful."

Kimiko raises one eyebrow as she throws him a puzzled look. Nakahito gives his best friend a wan smile. "It's a little twisted, but then so is Inugami. I just wish I'd realized..." He stops suddenly, grabbing her to halt her movement.

"What gives, 'Hito?" She asks before realizing that there's an odd pressure on her chest. She looks down at herself and sees that his hand is somewhere it really shouldn't be. "Ah! 'Hito!" Kimiko begins to object as her face begins to flush.

"SHHH!" He gives a forced whisper as the pressure increases slightly, pointing just ahead of them with his free hand. Thin strands of light are barely visible in the sunlight, leading to the bases of nearby trees; probably connected to explosive tags that were camouflaged. "Tripwires! That crazy Cloud bitch's friends must be around here somewhere!" His hand moves slightly, but without changing its location.

The flush erupts into a full-blown blush - one nearly as red as her friends jacket. "'Hito! Your hand is..." She gasps, unable to finish the sentence. He looks her in the eye, clearly clueless. Embarrassment sparks into a flare of anger; so much closer to the surface than normal because of the presence of the group that has murdered her clan. "Haruno! That's NOT my shoulder, you moron!"

He looks down and his own face turns red as he notices he's holding one of her breasts, but he's too stunned to remove his hand. "Wow... Those are a lot firmer than I..." His introspection causes both his and Kimiko's embarrassment to increase by an order of magnitude. "Sorry!" He moves his hand away quickly, a grimace crossing his face as the pain of his shoulder hits again.

"Ah! The puppy is trying to cop a feel, I see." A female voice is heard, sounding oddly like the one they left unconscious a few minutes before. "Why try it with a little girl..." The female Cloud ninja - the one that should be far behind them - appears and pulls him, face-first, into the deep cleavage between her huge breasts. "When you can try it with a real woman!"

Nakahito tries to pull himself away from her grip, but can only find a grip in the LAST place that he wants to have his hands near and his efforts are rewarded with lustful sounds of pleasure. "What the hell is it that makes you Cloud kunoichi like this?" He asks in a muffled voice. "Didn't we leave you out cold back there?!"

The kunoichi laughs, which reverberates in Nakahito's ears from his distinctly uncomfortable (at least to him) position, as she starts playing with his hair. "Well, lover, that would be my twin sister that you left behind. She's the one that's into S&M - I just happen to be into everything." She looks at Kimiko, with a curious look and a wink that causes Itou to shiver uncontrollably. "In fact, I'm even into sharing if you..."

"You're dead, bitch!" Kimiko yells before the other could finish her innuendo, swinging her kunai at the enemy ninja. Before the blade gets close, however, the other woman makes a sound of disappointment and pushes Nakahito backwards into Kimiko, dumping both on the ground.

"Looks like little miss prude wants to play!" She laughs. "I know lots of fun games, but the more players, the better they get..!" She throws a kunai that glows oddly. Nakahito, still flushed with his embarrassed arousal and on top, grabs Kimiko and rolls them out of the way. The kunai strikes the ground as electricity arcs the twenty feet between the kunoichi and the throwing knife.

As the two roll, a fallen branch the width of Kimiko's forearm halts their rolling as Nakahito's right shoulder lands on it. A shriek of pain escapes his lips.

Kimiko - now on top in a position oddly reminiscent from when she found Nakahito earlier - looks down at her friend. "'Hito..." Kimiko says softly. "You don't have to keep protecting me like that, even if it does prevent me from being shocked, you know." A wan smile crosses her features as she feels a chill of fear to her core from the danger they found themselves in. "In fact, you might last too long if you do..."

"Sorry. Call it force of habit?" He says with a cheesy grin. "Now, as much as I like the attention and all, I'm trying really hard not to think of you in THAT way, but between these ero-twins and this situation, you're not making it easy on me..."

Once again, Kimiko Itou turns a bright red. "Chikan! Ecchi! Hentai! Pervert!" She says, lightly slapping him across the face with each word, trying to suppress her embarrassment and keep him in line. Maybe even something more...

"Either let me in with the flirting," The Cloud woman's voice says, clearly feeling frustrated at the lack of her participation in the proceedings. "Or let's continue playing!" She shouts; throwing three shurikens that glowed in much the same way as the kunai had.

Kimiko rises quickly, drawing her Wusha whip as she does so. As the shurikens enter range of the chain whip, Itou lashes out, knocking all three off course and feeling nothing more than a slight tingle of static as the electrical charge in the shurikens - which apparently allow the kunoichi to complete the electrical circuit for her attack - is carried the length of the all-metal weapon. "Is that the best that you've got?" She yells and holding her weapon at the ready.

The Cloud Ninja smiles cruelly. "Hardly, little miss prude." She replies, throwing another kunai at Kimiko. This kunai glows a bit brighter than the shurikens had. When the Wusha deflects it, however, an arm numbing surge of energy travels up the whip and causes her hand to release the weapon. "An opening!" The kunoichi shouts as she begins to charge forward as the weapon falls from the brown haired woman's grip.

Just as the Cloud woman gets within fifteen feet, however, Kimiko makes a snort of derision. "That's what I wanted you to think, you sex-obsessed skank!" Just as the Wusha's handle apparently falls out of quick grab range, it swings back up in the direction of Itou's waiting hand; its fall canceled by the nearly invisible piece of razor wire that Kimiko had added to the weapon shortly after she'd gotten it from the ninja armory. As she takes a step forward, the whip handle returns to Itou's grasp like a fish caught on a line.

The Cloud ninja tries to make an abrupt stop, only to slide in the dirt on the ground as Kimiko starts swinging the Wusha so fast it starts giving off a humming sound. Suddenly, without any warning in the pitch of the hum or movement by the Leaf kunoichi, the metal whip snap forward to wrap itself around the Cloud kunoichi's neck. "Who's the little girl, now, bitch?" she asks, as the woman begins to gasp for air.

As she sinks to her knees, however, the Cloud woman disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a log wrapped in the throttling embrace of the chain.

"Substitution!" Nakahito yells as he struggles to his feet while Kimiko moves so they stand back to back, giving them nearly 360 degree vision of the area between them. "Be ready! She could be anywhere."

"Right you are, handsome." They hear her reply, "Maybe even..." The Cloud woman drops from above, landing jarringly on both Kimiko and Nakahito's shoulders, "Right in between you!"

As her knees bend, she does a scissor kick - pushing on both the Leaf Genin's right shoulders - throwing them hard. Kimiko lands on her back, knocking the wind out of her. Meanwhile, Nakahito lands on his feet, wobbling as a wave of pain - far greater than before - rips through his right side.

'Shit!' He thinks, seeing Kimiko gasp in pain, grasping the small of her back. Haruno's right arm goes limp and he grits his teeth as he feel the intense pain rip through it. 'Well, it's no longer just a simple break.'

Kimiko Itou, still in agony, tears flowing, rolls onto one side; revealing a small stone that she must have landed on. The normally spotless white back of Kimiko's top had a slowly spreading red stain.

The sight of his friend bleeding brought a soothing rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins as the pain in his shoulder disappeared as if someone had flipped off a light switch.

"YOU HURT KIMIKO, YOU PSYCHO!" He roars, seeing red as he pulls out another kunai from his pack, gripping it in his still functioning left hand. "DIE!" He breaks into a headlong rush as the Cloud Kunoichi pulls a tanto - a ceremonial knife normally used for seppuku and for social settings when a full-fledged katana is considered to be gauche - and blocks his kunai.

Gritting her teeth, calling on her willpower to clear her mind of the pain, Kimiko stands to quickly from the signs Ram-Ox-Monkey-Bird before yelling, "Water Style! Water Bomb Jutsu!" A perfectly orb of glowing water appears in her hands. The water is warm and silky as she holds it to size up the distance to the target of her wrath. Nakahito and the kunoichi are standing there, blades locked, as Kimiko hurls the water bomb.

Nakahito sees it as it flashes towards them, jumping backwards out of range as it hits her target. The liquid explosive detonates with a spray of water, knocking the Cloud woman aside much as it had her sister.

"Hey, Kimi." Nakahito says, using his nickname for her for a change. "A bit of warning next time, huh?" He asks as the kunai drops from his left hand and his right arm sags uselessly as the blind, numbing rage fades and the fatigue takes over.

"Sorry!" Kimiko says, making an innocent face, "There wasn't time." She then grinned maliciously. "Besides, you needed to cool your jets."

"Well, you now have plenty of time. Time enough to die!" The two gasped, looking up.

The enemy ninja hanging from the underside of the branch, held in place by the famous tree-walking technique, as she throws five shuriken. Nakahito, exhausted beyond words, manages to draw enough shurikens to counter, knocking them out of the air either directly or by ricochet.

"Oh, you are good." the Kunoichi says with an evil smile. "How about you kill the little prude there and come join us?" She runs the back of her hand down her right breast while her fingers slide between them. "My sister and I would make it worth your while. Between the two of us, we've been able to keep a man in utter ecstasy for a solid week. You might even last two."

Nakahito gulps as he looks at the ponderous fruits that the kunoichi was fondling, feeling a definite and uncontrollable physical reaction before he clears his head. He gives an evil grin of his own and says, "I got a better idea. How about you come down here and I give you the same kind of treatment your sensei is probably already enjoying!"

The woman laughs. "And how will you do that, boy-a? Certainly not with such a tiny little 'knife.'"

"With this!" Kimiko yells, pulling her hand out of Nakahito's backpack, which he'd dropped to charge the kunoichi before. "'HITO!" She shouts, throwing a large, glistening object over to him, which he catches in his left hand with a smile.

"All right!" He holds up the item, which resembles a quartet of thin claws. He holds one of the blades and flicks his wrist and 4 blades separate forming a foot-wide shuriken. The light coming through the trees above catch on it and Nakahito quickly adjusts his grip to reflect it directly into the Kunoichi's eyes, blinding her momentarily. "Demon Wind Shuriken, the Shadow Windmill!"

"A shuriken?" She scoffs. "I don't care what you fellows say in the locker room - bigger isn't necessarily better!" The she smiles, seeming, like her sister, to have a pathological need to make innuendo. "At least not with those kinds of 'knives.'"

Nakahito, ignoring the hyper-erotic kunoichi's taunts, jumps as high as he can manage and throws the giant shuriken at the female ninja while at the peak of his jump. She side-steps to the shuriken and prepares to jump to another tree, only to find that her legs are tied together by razor thin wire wrapped around both her - and the tree branch - several times.

"What the hell?" She yells. The Cloud woman spots a glimmer of light running to the ground over to Kimiko. "You bitch…"

Kimiko pulls the wire in her hands and the kunoichi feels the wire tighten in response. "Got you!" Kimiko yells. "When you covered your eyes, I threw a shuriken at you, channeling my chakra into the wire to guide it a bit; just enough to keep you from realizing what was going on. You were so focused on your little game that made assumptions. But, why am I bothering to tell you this - after all; the dead don't learn new tricks."

"Way to go, Kimiko!" Nakahito yells as he lands roughly. A grimace of pain splits his face as his broken collar bone begins to dig into his shoulder muscles.

Kimiko pulls the wire in her other hand - the one she'd connected to the Demon Wind Shuriken before passing it over to Nakahito - and the shuriken returns, pinning the kunoichi's upper arms to her sides, and begins wrapping around the ninja. Before her forearms get tied down, however, the Cloud woman throws 5 shurikens towards Kimiko.

These shuriken glow like small stars in the night's sky; a sure sign that she's putting a lot into what appears to be her last chance. Kimiko prepares to evade, but quickly realizes that to do so, she'd have to release the tension on the wires, which would allow the other woman to escape and continue causing problems. She takes a deep breath, preparing herself for the pain she anticipates feeling in mere seconds.

"KIMIKO! LOOK OUT!" Nakahito yells as he leaps into shurikens path, catching in his back. As he does so, five strands of high intensity electricity arc between the Cloud woman and Nakahito, vaporizing the thin wire lines reaching from Kimiko to the bound ninja and illuminating Haruno in a hazy aura of purplish blue. Waves of electricity arc all over his body; even leaping between his upper and lower jaws as his mouth opens in a silent scream of agony.

"HITO!" She screams, frozen in horror, as he falls into her, knocking her into the stream behind her. She crawls out of the water and places a hand on his, as steam and the scent of charred flesh assault her nose. "WHY?! You didn't have to pro-protect me! I could have taken it!" She begins to cry and it's hard to tell where her tears started and the dripping water ended.

"Iwa.. Iwa..." He mutters weakly. "I was o-out of sh-shur-shrikens." He coughs up a small dollop of blood and takes a ragged breath. "'Sides, Y-y-you kn-know me, al-al-ways the h-h-hero." He manages a weak grin before his eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he lands in the puddle of mud made from his blood.

"'H-Hito?" She cries, he shakes his shoulder, but gets no response. "'Hito!" Kimiko crawls forward, pulling the half-melted stars from his back. There's the faintest trace of chest movement, she quickly sees; so at least he's still breathing.

"That what he gets for playing hero!" The bound kunoichi says as she begins trying to free herself. The arc of electrically charged chakra had acted as a welder, fusing the tough wires together. "A pity - at least with us, he would have died with a smile on his face."

"SHUT UP!" Kimiko yells; her eyes blazing in unison with the amulet around her neck, as her hands start to move seemingly of their own volition. "You hurt 'Hito!" Itou's hands continue to move of their own free will and it's clear to the Cloud ninja that the Leaf girl isn't even aware they're moving. At the same time, the star pendent around Itou's neck begins to glow a more intense blue as her hands continue to move.

"He is my… My... My best friend!" Her hands continue to move as pain builds in her eyes. "I'll n-n-never forgive..." Tears continue to flow as her voice cracks under the weight of the emotions tearing her heart in two, "For what you've done!"

Finally, her hands stop with the sign of Bird. "Water Style!" The stream behind her starts to ripple as a woman's voice, not Kimiko's, not the Cloud woman's, speaks with a voice as powerful as the ocean, but still clearly feminine. "Water Dragon Jutsu!"

With a roar, the stream rises up, resembling the long, craning neck of a dragon as malevolent yellow eyes appear. The Cloud ninja's jaw drops as she still tries to escape; how could someone do young use such a powerful technique?!

"DIE!" Kimiko yells, in unison with the mysterious female voice and the roar of the Water Dragon. The dragon rears up, lashing out at the bounding kunoichi, who vanishes as the dragon snaps the branch she was on and floods half the area.

"K-K-Kim-iko." Nakahito whispers in a faint, pain and awe filled voice - he'd floated back to consciousness during Kimiko's tantrum. "H-how... W-w-When did you learn t-that?"

At the sound of her friend's voice, Kimiko sags as if the last thread holding her up had been severed. "I-I-I don't-know!" She says as her pendent returns to normal.

On weakening legs she walks over and falls on her knees next to Nakahito and starts gasping for air, "I was trying to use Water Bomb, but it was if someone was guiding my hands to do THAT instead!"

She shakes her head and takes a deep breath, "I don't know how I did it, but I'm wrung out..." She lays Hito's head in her lap and looks at swath of destruction carved by the "haywire" technique she'd unleashed. There was no sign of the second ninja she'd defeated today as her head bowed from exhaustion. "Are you okay?"

He nods. "I think I'm near heaven itself." He weak breathing falls into a rhythmic pattern and she can tell that he's passed out again.

Kimiko smiles momentarily until she sees blood pooling under him on the ground, she mutters "Liar…"

She strokes his hair as fresh tears stream down her face as she says in a pain filled voice, "Nakahito… I don't know what to do..." She continues to cry and hold her badly injured friend as the same shadow from earlier continues to watch them from above.

* * *

Kimiko Itou knelt in the forest surrounding the Hidden Ninja Village of Konoha for what felt like years. She did not do so willingly; she did so as she had no choice in the matter. Her eyes ached and were red from tears of pain both physical and emotional - the former from the gash in her back from the hard fall inflicted by the female Cloud Village ninja she'd, presumably, just killed using a technique so advanced that it left her critically drained of chakra. The emotional pain, so intense that she was only dimly aware of the physical pain, had been inflicted by the same kunoichi; not because the kunoichi had attacked her directly...

No, the source of that pain was far worse...

The source was the crumpled and barely breathing form of Nakahito Haruno - Itou's truest friend in the world, maybe even more if she were capable of fully honest with herself and actually aware of the depth of her feelings (which she wasn't) - whose head she held in her lap, trying to give him comfort and draw it back from him. Unfortunately, it wasn't working for either of them.

Nakahito's injuries were life threatening: his right collar bone was broken from his encounter with the first kunoichi and aggravated by the fight with the second, he bled from five shuriken wounds in his back - it had taken all of Kimiko's limited medical knowledge to bind them enough to stanch the blood flow - and had electrical burns and damage throughout his body. If she were certain that he'd pull through, Kimiko would have taken comfort from the fact Haruno was unconscious; unable to feel the pain.

But that wasn't the worst part of the pain that Kimiko Itou's heart was suffering.

Guilt.

Kimiko could feel herself being drawn into the equivalent of an emotional black hole. Guilt for letting her long-standing hatred of the Cloud village spur her into irrational action some 40 minutes earlier... Guilt for not being good enough a ninja that Nakahito had felt obligated by his own personal code to save her from her own stupidity...

And most damning of all... Guilt for the fact that she was the one responsible for nearly killing her friend. The hyper-erotic twins from the Village Hidden in the Cloud had merely been weapons in Kimiko's hands, lashing out blindly against the injustices from her early life that she could never hope to rectify.

Helplessness was taking its toll on her battered psyche as well. Her actions had left her so physically exhausted that she couldn't hope to carry Nakahito back to safety. Her actions had put both of them into a situation where they couldn't call out for help - there was still one last Cloud Genin wandering around the area.

She and Nakahito were defenseless.

The question was which would find them first: salvation in the form of their third team member changing his mind and coming after them... Or death?

'Why was I so foolish?' Kimiko wondered idly. The extreme chakra expenditure had left her barely able to keep her eyes open, let alone try to think of a solution out of this mess. 'I disregarded a direct order from Miho-sensei, alienated Sho who - and let's be honest - was trying to do the right thing, dashed heedlessly after foes that were undoubtedly superior in both age and experience, and dragged 'Hito along for the ride…" Fresh tears fell. "I didn't ask him to come, but I knew full well that he'd follow us through the Gates of Hell itself if he saw me enter.'

Her face erupted into a grimace as she continued to chastise herself. 'I accused Sho of being a disgrace to the name of ninja. If he's merely a disgrace, I must be the embodiment of something far worse…'

Above her, a shadow, unnoticed by Kimiko, observed the scene from its perch on a tree branch. It simply clung there, waiting for some sign, known only to it. The shadow remained there, unmoving - a void in the forest.

"Fu, fu, fu, fu." A voice began to laugh around the clearing. The voice caused adrenaline to course through Kimiko in a futile effort to get her to move. She looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. "Two little mice, trapped in the open. But no sign of the third… I guess he couldn't handle the terror of facing a superior foe."

"If you're another one of those perverts from the Cloud Village," Kimiko said, dully - knowing the second that she heard a voice that she didn't recognize that she'd finally drawn the short straw in her long-standing feud with Death, "Just kill us and be done with it. I only ask that you kill me first."

The shadow disappeared from its vantage point as a non-descript young man, bearing the forehead protector of the ninja village for the Land of Lightning, appeared on the ground a short distance from Kimiko and Nakahito.

"I have good news and bad news for you, Leaf girl. The good news is that I am NOT 'one of those perverts from the Cloud Village.' I'm the only one on my team with normal proclivities along those lines." He looked her in the eyes and gave her a closed mouth smile, which he then split open, revealing a set of needle-sharp teeth that appeared to be natural - he hadn't simply filed the teeth into point to replicate the appearance of a carnivore's fangs. "The bad news is that I happen to be rather fond of the taste of human flesh and enjoy hearing my meals scream as I slowly consume them over the course of several weeks."

A shocked look appeared on Kimiko's face as the unrivaled horror of what she was hearing sank in. This one, indeed, wasn't a pervert - he was a beast in human skin. A true ogre, something that Sho, despite being called an Oni had never even pretended to be. At the thought of such a fate - one far worse than the simple death she'd hoped for - Kimiko screamed.

The cannibal ninja licked his lips as Kimiko shriek echoed in the forest. "What a lovely sound... Like the ringing of the dinner bell." The foul being pretending to be human began to salivate heavily, drooling like a ravenous beast as he took a few steps forward. "I'll definitely have to save you for last. Now, my future morsel, scr..."

The ninja suddenly froze, mid-step and mid-word. The drool turned from clear to a bubbly red froth as he collapsed face first to the ground and sinking slightly into the wet mud. Kimiko stared, stunned, at the collapsed ninja that lay motionless.

"It's not that I couldn't handle it… It's that we were told NOT to handle it. There's a difference…" A new voice said, pausing, a hum of energy fading. "But such lessons in semantics are wasted on the dead… Enjoy your trip to Hell."

There was a ripple in the air as a shadow was suddenly cast over the body of the fourth Cloud ninja. Confused, Kimiko began to look up to track its source... And came to look into the green-lens covered eyes of Sho Inugami.

"I was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to reveal his location... I couldn't spot him anywhere. Are you all right, Itou-san?"

Kimiko Itou's jaw dropped in stunned disbelief. "O... SHO?! Where..? How..? When did you..?"

"Hmm..." Sho said in a deadpan voice, kneeling down to touch her forehead. "Her brain doesn't seem to be working right. Maybe I should operate..." Kimiko was too disoriented to try and rise to the bait, so Sho shook his head at the effort that was clearly a lost cause. He knelt down before the body, manipulating the neck to confirm that he'd not fallen for a replacement.

Tears of joy and hope began to run from Kimiko's eyes. "Sho? Is that really you?"

Sho nodded, making a theatrical half-bow, before walking over to her. "Oni Inugami at your service."

The look of confused terror was replaced with joy. Only a member of the Hidden Village of Konoha would have known Sho's insulting nickname, which was surely his reason for using it, to assure her that he was in fact the genuine medical ninja. "Nakahito's hurt! Can you..?"

"Already on it, Kimi-chan." Sho Inugami answered as he began slowly moving his now green glowing hands over the form of Nakahito Haruno. "Minor epidermal laceration to the left cheek. Compound fracture of the right Clavicle and laceration to the upper section of his right Trapezius muscles and the Subclavian Vein - that's where the blood's coming from, but his skin color's still good so it must be only a minor leak that just looks really bad. Five shuriken wounds to the Scapula, Lower left Trapezius, and both right and left Latissimus Dorsi - all minor and do not seem to have damaged internal organs. Hmm... Not good..."

Horrified that something was wrong, Kimiko could barely contain herself. "What?! What's wrong, Sho?"

"Electrolyte imbalance and minor neuro-electric trauma from direct exposure to intense electromagnetic energy waves… Not bad enough to start having chronic effects, which is a good thing; he'll be fine in the long run. But until we get him back to the Village Hospital, I can only do so much; he'll be at 75%, maybe 80% of peak health. I can also try a few tricks that Aniki showed me that aren't exactly in the book of 'approved medical practices' - that might get him as high as 86%... The rest will take at least five days of bed rest to fix."

"Is there anything I can do to help, Sho? Can I donate blood?"

Sho glanced at her. Her face showed signs of anticipation, clearly hoping that by doing something to help would soothe some of the guilt she was feeling. "When you were preparing your Genin application to request active duty you needed to have blood drawn. What's your blood type and do you know Haruno's?"

"The medic said that I was B positive and Nakahito's O negative."

Inugami shook his head. "That's a bust. Type O is known as the 'Universal Donor' of blood. Nakahito can give blood for transfusions to anyone with negative Rh blood, but only someone else with O- blood can donate to him. It's just the opposite for me - I have AB+ blood, which means that I can get blood from anyone with positive Rh blood, like you, but only give to others with AB+ blood. If you were to try and give blood, the white blood cells in Nakahito's body would attack the red blood cells of your blood and your white blood cells would do the same to his."

He sees that her eyes are glazed over slightly and he sighs, realizing he has to dumb it down. "Bad shit happens, Kimiko. Bad enough to kill a healthy person, a state Nakahito definitely is not in at the moment."

He detaches his equipment pouch and hands it to her as he slides Nakahito's body to take his head out of her lap. "I need you to look in my pack there. You're looking for a small, dark red bottle with the label 'BRP.' Find it while I work on the more severe injuries." She nods slightly and begins to slowly look through the pack.

He grabs Haruno's right shoulder and forcefully moves his hands in opposite directions to re-set the collar bone. The effort apparently breaks through the fog of unconsciousness as Nakahito wakes up with a cry of pain. After the initial outcry Haruno falls silent, his left arm fumbling around as Sho has immobilized the right. "Whutz goin' on?" He mumbles.

"This is your first lesson of 'Why we should listen to Sho when he knows what the hell he's talking about.'" Sho responded, using his Chakra Sutures to begin mending the bone. It wouldn't be as good a full repair, but as long as Haruno didn't have anything fall on it, it would be functional. "And if you hope to live to see round two, you'll remain perfectly still - those two crazy bitches really did a number on you."

"Oni? Where'd you come from?" Nakahito asked from his position, but obeying Sho's orders to remain motionless. He paused, frowning. "Wait… How do you know about the Cloud women?"

"Do you want a story or do you want me to fix your body? I can't do both at the same time." The other young man mulled that over in his pain stricken mind as the medic looked at the kunoichi. "Kimiko? You find that bottle yet?" Kimiko nodded, holding it up. "Great! Pop the cork, pull one of the pills out and feed it to Nakahito, then put the bottle back where you found it." Inugami looked down at his patient. "When she puts it in your mouth, chew it thoroughly and then swallow it."

"Whozzat?" He slurred, gesturing at the dead male Cloud ninja weakly with his left hand.

"The third Cloud Genin." Kimiko said as she leaned forward to put the pill in Nakahito's mouth. "Sho killed him before he could kill us. Now listen to Sho, huh?"

"Uggh..." Nakahito groaned in disgust as he crushed and swallowed the pill. "Tastes coppery, like the time I got hit too hard in Taijutsu class."

"That's because you just ate a Blood Replacement Pill." Sho answered as he finished repairing the collar bone to go to work on the punctured blood vessel. "It's a drug that will interact with the chakra you mixed but haven't used yet and convert it into blood. It's not as good as the real stuff, but it works in a pinch like now." He looked back at Kimiko. "Now find the light blue glass bottle with the label 'SP.' It should be near where you found the other one."

There was a silence as Kimiko began hunting while Sho finished what repairs he could to the damage to the shoulder area and proceeded to start fixing the shuriken wounds. Sho could feel the work get harder and harder - a sign that he was starting to run out of chakra. If only Kimiko...

"Found it!" Itou announced. "I only see one pill in it, though."

'Figures. Looks like the easy way's out.' "All right... Pass me the pill bottle and then go back into my pack. You need to look for some rectangular papers that are a tan color. They'll be in with the bandages." Kimiko passed over the blue bottle, which Sho opened to get his last Soldier Pill. He crunched it to start restoring his supply of chakra, grunting slightly at the discomfort from the forced conversion of fat cells into chakra. The conversion was not as severe as reports said of the Akimichi clan's secret food pills were capable of; it would be a small price to pay to get the third member of Team 13 back on his feet.

As the Soldier Pill's effects kicked in, Sho felt a rush of energy and activated his suture technique in his left hand and began to work two wounds simultaneously. The wounds were thankfully minor and Sho's ambidexterity allowed him to finish the wounds on Nakahito's back by the time Kimiko found the paper slips. She held them up with an unspoken question.

Sho nodded to her, confirming those were what she was looking for, as he put his hands side-by-side in such a way his thumbs and index fingers formed a triangle; the blue glow turned faintly purple as he began to slowly sweep his hands up and down the length of Nakahito's body. This particular skill would correct the electrical imbalance affecting Nakahito from the lightning techniques he'd absorbed.

"All right, Itou-san." Sho said as he finished his work. "Take one and hold it in your right hand. I then want you run the weakest chakra current you can through your hand and into the paper."

'I probably already know the answer, but let's get some confirmation.' He thought to himself as he thought back to her performance against the other kunoichi.

There was silence as Kimiko unleashed what was, in her current state, a monumental effort. "The paper became wet! How did that happen?"

'Confirmation,' Sho thought with a grim smile as he finished the final pass over Haruno with his diagnostic technique. "It's because you have a natural affinity to the Water element, Kimiko-san. It means that water jutsu come more easily to you than other types. If you give one to Nakahito - oh, speaking of which, I've done everything I can, so you can get up now - his will burst into flames as he has an affinity to Fire."

"Really?" Nakahito said – his slur gone – as he slowly got up, clearly trying not to push himself until he was certain he was fully healed. "Pass me one of those slips, Kimi." She did so, and, just as Sho had said, it burst into flames. "That's cool..."

'Yeah, real cool...' Sho thought glumly, knowing what he'd have to do next. "Unfortunately that means that you can't help Kimiko with a Chakra transfusion."

That threw both for a loop. "Chakra..." Nakahito started.

Kimiko finished his confused thought. "…Transfusion?"

Inugami nodded, gesturing at the swath of devastation around them. "Kimiko is approaching critically low levels of available chakra. I can tell by the way she's acting - as if she'd gone fifteen rounds against Sandaime Hokage-sama with her hands tied behind her back and her eyes covered." Sho shook his head. "If she intends to leave this spot any time in the next 10 hours, someone would have to carry her. Nakahito's shoulder can't take the added weight and I lack the raw strength to carry her myself for a prolonged period; especially if we run into further trouble. This means one of us needs to give her some of our chakra.

"There's just a small problem, however. Just like with blood, chakra natures can have negative interactions; namely if diametrically-opposed types - Fire to Water and Wind to Earth - interact with each other. Thunder is the exception, it can freely accept any type of chakra, but can't be shared with others; just like me and my AB blood. My own chakra is Wind-natured; I'm one of the few in the village who have it. This means that in extreme circumstances, like this one, I can share my chakra with the two of you and you with me, but the two of you can't share with each other."

Kimiko looked at him. "Is it difficult?"

"No, no, it's quite easy. It's also a painless procedure." At least for Kimiko it would be...

"Then let's do this so we can go catch up with Miho-sensei." Nakahito said. "You'll be able to fill us in as we go."

Sho sighed as he saw the inevitable coming. "Very well... You might want to turn away. I know from having seen it done in the past that it's a disturbing sight."

Nakahito gestured at the dead Cloud ninja. "And miss something else interesting? No chance."

'Of course not...' Sho thought. 'I really don't live right.' He turned to Kimiko. "Kimiko Itou-san, I request your permission to transfer some of my chakra to you. Will you accept my offer?"

'He's being oddly formal...' Kimiko thought. 'I wonder why?' She nodded. "I accept the offer." 'Like I'm going to tolerate trying to take a nap here.'

Sho paused, removing his glasses to look at both Kimiko and Nakahito. Both looked surprised - they'd never seen Sho's eyes before; the shade of the lenses was enough to make seeing them difficult. It turned out that his right eye was emerald green - the exact same shade as the lenses in his glasses - and his left a smoky gray.

They saw only a brief glance as he closed them, raising his hands into the Ram sign - the sign used to help properly mix one's chakra. As he concentrated, a swirling blue aura of fresh chakra enveloped him. After a few seconds, the chakra stabilized and he opened his eyes and broke the seal. "I'm going to give you about 20% of what I have left over." He placed his hand on Kimiko's chin, ever so tentatively.

"Gomen ne, Haruno, Itou." Sho said briefly before taking a deep breath.

Just before he leaned forward to kiss Kimiko Itou firmly on the lips.

Her eyes widened in stunned surprise and the flames of hell appeared in Nakahito's. Before either could react, however, the aura surrounding Sho contracted and shifted to surround Kimiko instead. As it did so, a look of wonder appeared on Kimiko's face as she felt a sudden surge of energy - like getting food after weeks of starvation.

As soon as the blue aura sank into Kimiko's skin and disappeared, Sho disengaged; wiping his lips on his sleeve. He looked at the third member of the team placidly against the simmering rage of Haruno with a look that simply said. 'Sorry, I did try and warn you.' He turned the same placid gaze over to Kimiko. To her, the look said. 'I did what was necessary and I fully expect you or Haruno to deck me now.'

His wait wasn't that long; Nakahito's left fist cold-cocked Sho, splitting the medic's lip and knocking him unconscious.

"'Hito!" A stunned - for more than one reason - and blushing - for one very specific reason - Kimiko shouted as Sho slumped to the ground unconscious. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"But, Oni..." Nakahito sputtered. "Oni just..."

"I AM VERY AWARE OF WHAT HE JUST DID!" Kimiko shouted back at him. "I'm also aware of the fact that he just saved my life once and yours twice!" She pointed over to the body of the dead Cloud ninja. "He was promising to EAT us - ALIVE! Sho came out of nowhere and killed him mid-thought while you were unconscious and I was screaming in utter terror, knowing that I was going to be at his mercy."

Nakahito, uncertain as to how to respond, remained silent, but unrepentant.

"After he does that, he then proceeds to heal your injuries, turns to help me out by giving me a portion of his own strength, and then you deck him!" Kimiko continues. "All right, the last thing I would have ever wanted to have happen to me is being kissed by Sho Inugami, but it's a damn sight better than being eaten by a cannibal or watching you die, so I can live with it. He even tried to minimize the shock of it, which is out of character for him; I mean, he apologized in advance and broke off as soon as the transfer of chakra was finished." She looked at him and arched an eyebrow. "He didn't even make an off color comment before doing so; which is more than I say for SOMEONE else I know."

Nakahito Haruno bowed his head, finally chastised as he recalled his actions when they'd found the trip wires. "I said I was sorry, didn't I?"

Kimiko Itou sighed. 'Why is it so hard to stay mad at him?' She asked herself. "All right, my Red Knight. From now on, no defending my honor without my permission… If I'm going to beat Oni for something he does, I'll do it myself. Deal?"

Nakahito nods with a smile. "As you wish, my lady." He digs into his pocket and pulls out a coin. "30 ryou says he's out for at least 10 minutes."

"'Hito, you're incorrigible..." Kimiko Itou says, shaking her head. There are a few minutes of silence as she looks at Sho, her lips tingling from the transfer of chakra. Finally, she reaches into her own pocket and pulls out a similar coin. "Eight minutes, tops."

To be concluded