A.N. Hello again, it's been a long time. I haven't updated in ages, and for that I apologize. Well, that's all over now, so I present to you Chapter 16.

About the last Naruto movie, it seems like Kishimoto has finally lost what remains of his marbles. Moon people?! And of course, because one near apocalyptic event was not enough, he just has to have another!

Sorry about the rant. I still love this wide, diverse universe that Kishimoto has created; it's just that after the Pain Invasion arc, it's all been downhill and that's all kinds of disappointing.

Hope you enjoy this chapter, and I'm looking forward to updating soon, and please review! I'm not above bribing, so please don't make me break out the cookies!

Disclaimer: Kishimoto owns Naruto and the Naruto cast. I think he does, anyway… Aren't there anti-slavery laws about that?

Chapter 16 : Of a Cat and a Fox

…

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly there's a shadow hanging over me
I'm not half the man I used to be
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Yesterday – The Beatles

…

It was a frigid, lukewarm sun that rose over the camp. The slight breeze that wafted over the clearing carried with it the bone hilling cold that was characteristic of Frost Country as Naruto sat atop a large branch, observing the rising sun in the distant horizon.

It had been three days since the fateful fight between the Akatsuki and their motley group, and he was finding it harder to bear the stifling feel of the camp every passing day. The fact that Mito had yet to stir, and it was uncertain when, or indeed if, she would wake was not helping his nerves.

After the first day, Jiraiya had returned to his routine of leaving early in the day to meet his 'contacts', leaving Yugito and him alone in the camp. It only served to worsen his mood. While he imagined he was not the best possible person to live with at the moment, Yugito was proving unbearable to live with; needling him with taunts one moment and completely ignoring him the next.

"Hey, you all right there?" Speak of the devil and she shall appear. The question pulling him out of his thoughts, Naruto turned around to see Yugito standing on the branch, looking at him uncertainly. He did a double-take. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders lit up in the pale sunlight as she smiled tentatively. If he was honest with himself, he had to admit it was a rather tantalizing sight – as opposed to the unapproachable façade that she seemed to have put up in the beginning, she looked almost friendly.

"Oh, hi, didn't see you there," He said after a moment, a small scowl coming to his face uninvited as he nevertheless gestured beside him. "Come on, why don't you sit here? The view's exceptional."

Nodding slightly in acceptance Yugito languidly walked up to him, bare feet padding on the soft bark. When she reached him she crouched with feline grace, sitting on the branch languidly her feet swinging off the edge. "Naruto-san, what are you doing here so early in the morning?"

He laughed, rubbing the back of his head in a nervous gesture. "N-Nothing, really… Just admiring the sunrise."

"Really?" Yugito turned to look at him, a thin, delicate eyebrow raised in inquiry. "I prefer to watch sunsets, myself."

"Most people do," Naruto replied, hugging his feet closer to himself to ward off the freezing wind. "Me, I don't mind them, but I've always found them a bit too… cheerful at the end of the day, if you know what I mean."

"Hmm…" Yugito said noncommittally, leaning back on her elbows. "So what're you going to do today? I mean, you are on a training trip, right?"

"How did you know that?" Startled, the words slipped out of him before he could regain his composure.

Yugito smirked slightly. "Oh, that one was somewhat obvious, you have to admit," she drawled. "You are not on any bingo book I've seen so you can't be some prodigy jounin or some such, and there is no other reason for two such obviously high ranked ninja to lug around a pipsqueak like you."

"Hey!" Naruto grumbled. "I'll have you know I have a bigger reputation as a genin than most chunin have."

Yugito nodded lazily, looking thoroughly unimpressed. "Yeah, yeah, every genin thinks they're the best thing that's ever happened to the world. But you still didn't answer my question."

Grumbling under his breath, Naruto turned away. "I'm already training," he said petulantly, staring at the sun to avoid looking at the smug grin that was adorning her face.

Well, it was technically true. He did have a hundred clones practicing calligraphy and basic sealing a small distance from the camp, and another contingent that was working to streamline his taijutsu stances, which were still troubling him. Still, he couldn't find it in himself to personally start anything.

For all the advantages of the Kage Bunshin, he could not help sometimes feeling as if it was not worth it. When he was younger, whenever he had felt so helpless he had simply soldiered on and reminded himself of something he had to do, something that had to be done to keep him from falling prey to his own thoughts. Now however, he felt as if he was slowly going mad obsessing over Mito and it was getting harder to not pawn off his training on a conveniently created clone and just brood.

Last week, as soon as Jiraiya could manage he had contacted Tsunade, who had sent over a Katsuyu clone only to confirm what both he and Jiraiya had suspected; whatever was responsible for Mito's collapse was not something that could be cured with conventional medical jutsu. The only thing he had thought of had been to forcibly inject her with chakra via a modified chakra vampire seal, an idea that had been immediately shot down by Jiraiya. He had explained that Mito's condition was probably caused by a mishap in her seal matrix in the first place, and adding a barely understood seal like the Chakra Vampire seal was a recipe for disaster; something, in retrospect, that Naruto should have foreseen himself.

It still didn't help the fact that he missed her. Sometimes, it was just not worth waking up in the morning.

"…Right." Yugito's drawl brought him out of his thoughts for the second time that day. Looking at her, he found her staring back at him mockingly. A mocking smile on her lips she stretched out on the branch like a cat at noonday, draping herself around the branch and closing her eyes. "I'll leave you to your training then, eh, Naruto-san?"

He glared at her still form, silently debating the advisability of pushing her off the branch before he turned away with a huff of annoyance. Just what was her problem?

…

As the days continued Mito continued to show no signs of improvement, and the atmosphere in the camp was getting correspondingly tense. Jiraiya was out more often than not tending to his intelligence network. In the meantime, Naruto and Yugito had settled into an uneasy truce.

Yugito, at her insistence, had taken over the day-to-day duties of the camp from Jiraiya, using the monotonous work of hunting for food and looking after the camp to block out her frustration at her forced stay, her lack of chakra and her complicated feelings regarding the Konoha shinobi.

Naruto, meanwhile, had immersed himself in training. Whereas before he had trained enthusiastically he now trained doggedly, studying sealing techniques deep into the night and running himself to exhaustion with taijutsu and ninjutsu practice during the day, often only appearing in the camp at mealtimes. Companies of his clones scoured the forests daily, leaving trails of destruction in their wake from destructive spars which caused the land to quake.

Today, as had been his custom of late Naruto was sitting sprawled on a wide tree branch, overlooking a bunch of his clones that were trying to combine the tree walking exercise with the wind manipulation exercises, as he struggled to cobble together another sealing array. It helped his focus to have a gentle breeze blow across him as he thought, a fact he attributed to his newly discovered wind affinity. According to Mito, each sealer felt most comfortable when exposed to the element they were most attuned with; it was the reason Mito did her own sealing near rivers or ponds and Jiraiya preferred underground chambers. It was also the reason not many people with lightning affinities became sealmasters – Lightning was the rarest naturally present element, and the harshest.

His sealing had come a long way since he had started training. Even having an intuitive grasp of the art did not help the monotone of the theoretical lessons, but having practiced calligraphy for what amounted to more than a decade of study via clone training had straightened his script, improving it to the 'acceptable' in Mito's opinion, from the previous 'nightmarish'. And his attention span had vastly improved now that he had an attentive teacher.

Having studied the basic sealing methods, he was currently at the first difficult phase in his fuinjutsu studies; seal innovation. He was supposed to present a series of basic functional seals of his own design for each of the main seal categories of Barrier/Ward Seals, Genjutsu Seals, Elemental Seals, General type Seals which included everything from sealing scrolls to the average jinchuuriki seals, Time-Space Seals, and Body Augmentation Seals. Yin, Yang, Yin/Yang and Divine seals were, according to Mito far too volatile for him to learn at his stage of study. And he wanted to have all the seals in questions completed by the time Mito had recovered.

He was currently working on the Body Augmentation seal. Body Augmentation seals were the oddest discipline in fuinjutsu, as they were seals that were directly drawn on a user's body. They were also the oldest type of seal known, and correspondingly, in his not-inexperienced opinion, the weirdest. However they were also the ones that called out to him the most. Amongst the varied sealing types it was the one he was most proficient in, and the one he was most comfortable in experimenting with; it helped that body augmentation seals drawn on paper as opposed to a being with a living chakra network were duds, allowing a draw-then-edit approach without being afraid of accidentally dying in a freak accident.

The seal he was trying to make incorporated a certain aspect of Time-Space seals and a slight touch of genjutsu seals into a larger Body Augmentation seal array, making it by far the most complicated seal that he had undertaken. He only hoped he didn't make a mistake…

An upstroke… a circle enclosing it enclosed in a larger trinity knot of small katakana script, each apex curling anticlockwise to form a triskelion and connecting to a complex spiral of entwined kanji that lead to separate seals set at regular intervals around the centermost seal. Body still as a statue, his hand flowed above the paper with fluid grace belying the urgency with which it moved. After continuing in the same manner for around fifteen minutes he completed the seal with a final circular stroke, enclosing the central structure in an arc that connected the two lower apex points via the topmost points. As he did so the seal let out a flash of light that seeped into the paper and pulsed, before fluttering out with a gentle sigh.

Naruto let out a relieved sigh, followed a moment later by a tired yell of triumph. Then, hands shaking in anticipation, he formed the Kage Bunshin seal as a single clone soundlessly formed beside him.

"So boss, you want to do this now?" The clone asked as an eyebrow rose in question, receiving a curt nod in reply. Naruto settled in seiza, baring his back and the nape of his neck as the clone moved behind him, rummaging in his equipment pouch for the seal engraving knife used to create Body Augmentation seals.

Suddenly, a voice spoke from behind them, startling both him and the clone. "I knew you were impulsive and stupid, Naruto-san, but I didn't know you were suicidal."

Eyes narrowing in surprise and anger, he turned around even as his clone dropped his sealing equipment kit in surprise. He found himself facing who he had half-expected; Yugito was coolly leaning against the tree trunk, watching him with a detached amusement that was particularly aggravating. "Yugito," he greeted brusquely, trying to suppress his anger. "What are you doing here, and what do you want?"

Still leaning casually against the tree and continuing to look the picture of indifference, Yugito shrugged. "Apparently, I'm watching you try to kill yourself. I would really prefer if you didn't do that though; it'll be rather hard to explain to Jiraiya-sama and I have no desire of having a Sannin with a grudge after me."

Naruto huffed indignantly, rising to his full height to glare at her. "I don't care what Ero-sennin has to say, what I do is none of your business! And for your information I know what I'm doing!"

Yugito, looking totally unconcerned, shrugged in reply. "All right. Do it then, if it's that important to you, it's not like I'm responsible for you," she said snidely, "and when it goes wrong and you end up dead or worse you can stay in a futon next to that woman forever!"

A hollow crack sounded as the brush Naruto had been using to draw the seal snapped, his hand holding onto its remnants in a white knuckled grip as he glared daggers at Yugito. "That does it," his voice was scarcely above a whisper. His hand twitched in a reflexive action, and he just managed to stop himself before his fist was buried in her stomach. Ignoring the girl in front of him he stared at his fist as if hypnotized, studying the broken brush fragments and the nimbus of chakra flaring around it with a kind of horrified fascination. Had he fallen that low, to seriously attempt to hit a girl outside battle?

When he finally spoke again all emotion had leeched out of it. "You and me, in an hour in front of the camp. We can solve our differences then." Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed. "Now just… go, before I forget myself."

He could feel her incredulous stare on him, before she snorted derisively. "And so you invite a person without chakra to spar with you? Are you really that pathetic?"

Naruto gritted his teeth, trying to hold back the retort on his lips. Why couldn't she just leave him alone? It wasn't as if he had done something to annoy her… "I'll put a chakra seal on myself, and we can fight barehanded, I have no desire to have your death on my hands…" He sighed, suddenly feeling tired from the outburst. "Now will you please leave?" He continued, turning his annoyed gaze at Yugito who, he noticed, was looking a little taken aback at his outburst.

She looked back at him blankly, before a predatory smirk slowly stole across her face. "Sure," she practically purred. "In fact, if you can get whatever that seal is to work, why don't you use it in our spar? Wouldn't want you to be too humiliated, after all…"

Still smirking at him she jumped off the branch, running down it and rolling herself to a ball as she reached the bottom. She hit the ground in a rolling crouch, using it to decrease her momentum before halting on all fours like a cat. Shortly afterwards, she disappeared into the forest undergrowth.

Naruto gulped, suddenly feeling a lot more apprehensive about the coming fight. The lack of chakra had clearly not lessened her incredible taijutsu skills; he would have to go all out for this one. That tempted him to take advantage of her offer to allow him to test his new seal out, but the seal used chakra, which she was currently unable to use thanks to Mito. Was it entirely fair to use something that used chakra in a physical spar?

He sighed despondently as he sat back down in seiza, gesturing his clone to begin the sealing process while creating a new batch of clones to creating a temporary chakra suppression seal for his use that would still allow the chakra channels in his eyes and brain to work.

He shelved the issue of unfairness, fully giving himself to meditation to ignore the repeated bleeding cuts that were being opened all over his back. After all, in the end all he could do was follow Mito's advice.

"In the shinobi world, Naruto-kun, there is no such thing as unfairness. If someone is disadvantaged in a particular skirmish, all that means is that he or she is fighting with a handicap, either willingly or unwillingly, you know? And if that means they lose, then it's their fault, not yours. So never handicap yourself just because someone else is handicapping themselves or underestimating you."

Naruto slowly smirked, holding back the wince from the sharp instrument that was cutting into his back. He was going to enjoy this spar.

…

Yugito was dressed in her usual uniform that included the upper body armor as she stood ready for the start of the spar, balancing on her toes and leaning forward in a pseudo-animalistic crouch. Her eyes blazed with challenge and her lips curled in a feral smirk as her eyes intently tracked Naruto in front of her.

"Are you sure you don't want to reconsider, Naruto-san? There's no shame in refusing to fight a superior foe, is there?"

Facing her, Naruto's smirk mirrored her own as the two opponents circled around the natural clearing, waiting for the other to make a move. "I'll keep that in mind," he said lightly, showing his sharper than normal canines as he mirrored the feline jinchuuriki's moves, careful to keep the same distance between them.

"What's with the tattoos?" Yugito questioned, gesturing to the new inked skin that adorned his face.

Naruto's smirk widened. "What, these?" he asked, gesturing to the jagged lines that decorated his brow, "they're the chakra inhibiters you requested." Then he pointed to an almost unnoticeable network of broken lines that outlined his eyes, making them look somewhat elongated. The very tip pointed downwards, disappearing into the hairline in the direction of his ears. "This, on the contrary, is the one I was preparing earlier. If I activate that, this little game's over."

Yugito feigned a lunge at Naruto who promptly backed up, before settling back into the former distance with a smirk. "So why don't you activate whatever it does? You're going to need it to even have a fighting chance."

Naruto smirked right back. "I'll use it, if you make me," he said lightly. "Right now, I don't see anything to be worried about."

Dark, glinting purple eyes locked onto icy blue orbs in challenge as the circling pair stopped abruptly. Then a stray leaf floated between them breaking their locked gazes, and the pair burst into action.

As he ducked and weaved, frantically avoiding Yugito's lightning-quick strikes, one thing was becoming clear to Naruto; in taijutsu, Yugito was obviously superior. Till now he was surviving untouched, thanks to the grueling dodging sessions Jiraiya had conducted. Having sparring sessions with an animated mannequin that had kunai tips poking out of every possible surface had pounded 'don't get hit' into an instinctual action for him. However, it was becoming obvious that it was a mere stalling tactic; while he was avoiding, barely, getting caught in her attacks he wasn't having any breathing room to retaliate.

Soon enough, his fears came true when he ducked under a left jab, only to find it a feint as a knee came up to meet him. Contorting his body almost managed to get him out of it until the foot extended, hitting him across the face with a tremendous force. Temporarily blinded by the explosion of blood and dazed by the blow, Naruto was flung away across the clearing, helped on his way with another kick that impacted his side. Through the haze of pain Naruto felt something snap. He winced; that felt like his ribs.

Tumbling to the ground and quickly finding his feet, he got up facing Yugito, surprised that she hadn't pressed the attack. She was still standing in the place she had been when she had broken through his guard, posing with her leg still extended from her second kick. A superior smirk showed on her face through the blood splattered on it from his nose. Slowly lowering her foot, she raised an eyebrow sardonically. "Looks like the first blood goes to me, Naruto-san. Are you sure you want to continue?"

Naruto grimaced, wiping away the blood flowing down his face and resetting his nose with a crack of cartilage and a wince. "You think this is enough to keep me down?" He rasped, one hand gently probing his side. As soon as he touched it, he felt something shift inside, accompanied by a fresh lance of pain. The ribs were definitely broken, and by the feel of it, it wasn't healing. It was a rather unfortunate result of his cutting off his chakra; his own healing was currently no better than a normal civilian's.

Yugito stared back at him, a superior smirk on her face. "If you had a shred of intelligence it would be," she replied airily. "Face it. I'm better at taijutsu than you."

Naruto let out a raspy chuckle. "That is rather presumptuous, don't you think?" He retorted, his right hand reaching to touch the tip of the seal marking covering his right eye even as his left hand cradled his side protectively. "Though I have to admit you are better than me in straight up taijutsu, I have hardly gone all out either."

He smirked slightly, tapping the seal with his pointer finger. "Let's see what this does to my chances, shall we?"

Yugito settled into a defensive crouch as he swiped the edge of his right eye, activating the thought-and-touch based activation seal that was placed there. He felt an ice cold tingle creep down his spine as the seal activated, his eyes itching and his gaze blurring before sharpening into crystal clarity…

Glowing eyes looked up to meet Yugito's wary gaze, and Naruto charged.

…

Yugito stared warily as Naruto reached for his eye, no doubt planning to activate the strange seal that he had been working on. For a brief moment she considered lunging at him, using a continuous attack to stop him from activating the seal and avoiding whatever it did altogether. However, she had to admit she was curious.

Curiosity was something that had plagued her ever since she had found herself a resident in the camp. Not only had the entire experience been surreal, being the first time she had witnessed cordial relations between shinobi of Kumo and Konoha, but it had been somewhat eye-opening.

She herself wasn't the greatest supporter of Kumo-Konoha relations. In fact, after the fiasco that was now being called the Hyuuga incident, she had been one of the people leading the cry for outright war. The time in the camp, however, had tempered the hungering for blood that years of service under the Fourth Raikage, who was infinitely more diplomatic than his predecessor had failed to lessen. It just didn't seem right that lifelong convictions of hers were being changed due to her involuntary captivity by a couple of Konoha ninja. In fact she would have expected it to only reinforce her hatred of Konoha ninja, and the mixed feelings she was getting instead irritated and confused her.

Of course, a lot irritated her these days. The way that the ninja known the world over for his prowess kept acting like an immature pervert, the woman who stubbornly stayed comatose forcing her to remain here, the fact that she was probably considered MIA back at Kumo, and most of all, the enigmatic riddle of Naruto.

Naruto was a constant source of discomfort to her. It grated on her nerves when he brooded and hung around the camp. It made her feel uncomfortably guilty when he sat for hours at the woman's bedside staring morosely. And it frustrated her when he returned to the camp long after dusk looking like a herd of elephants had tussled with him only to eat mechanically before going back to his staring until he fell asleep sitting up. It made her feel responsible, as if she was at fault for what had happened to the woman. And she couldn't even justify to herself why she couldn't simply not care; Naruto was constantly in her thoughts, annoying her with his mere presence.

Yugito sighed inwardly, wishing idly for the Nibi to be there. And that, she felt, captured her mood perfectly. It would be preferable to even have the disturbing, loathsome demon cat whispering in her head to the stillness and tense monotony that was bearing down upon her. That was the main reason she had needled Naruto into a fight in the first place; she had desperately needed to let off some steam, and the one person who was able to fight back and yet not accidently kill her was the obvious choice. Of course, it helped that Naruto had already been quite annoyed with her from her constant sneering.

Looking up, she was startled from her momentary contemplation by the sight of Naruto's eyes beginning to glow. Suddenly wide awake and somewhat intrigued, she watched as Naruto's eyes continued glowing brightly as if they were backlit, the effect truly startling in the darkness under the forest canopy. The small, almost invisible markings surrounding his eyes started to glow an eerie green in concert, and then Naruto's face seemed to almost slacken, an almost drugged grin coming to his face.

By now Yugito was rather wary; just what had the seal done to him? Even through the harsh glow, it was obvious that Naruto's pupils were dilated, and he seemed to be almost trembling. And then suddenly he charged at her.

Unconsciously falling back to weather the furious assault, she found herself rapidly getting overwhelmed. It was like she was facing a completely different opponent. Naruto seemed to have foregone any form of defense, instead opting to continuously batter down her own defenses. His strength had increased drastically too, as had his reflexes; whenever she tried to maneuver herself out of a precarious position, he was already within her guard forcing her to abandon her plan. It was becoming clearer by the second that she had to do something drastic – her forearms were starting to bruise from the punishing kicks that she kept blocking at the last moment.

Yugito felt her own anger rise as a jab aimed at her throat deflected off a half-formed block to impact her left shoulder, sending debilitating pain running down her arm in blow that was bound to leave a purpling bruise tomorrow. Spinning with the blow and ignoring the pain racing up the entirety of her arm, she retaliated with an open handed blow to his face that miraculously got through his guard.

There was a crack, before blood spurted out as Naruto's nose gave way for the second time. Internally wincing, she nevertheless made to retreat intent on taking a breather herself, before something stopped her with a jerk. Her eyes widened in disbelief as she looked up. Naruto grinned back at her around the blood and her hand that was still extended and resting on his face. Both of his hands were up, but they were not protecting his face. Instead, both of his hands held her own in a steady, bruising grip. In that instant she knew what was going to happen before it did.

Naruto twisted, wrenching her hand to a side as she tried to break his grip, to no avail. Off balance by the movement of her captured limb, she had no chance to recover before his foot slammed into her side with punishing force. Yugito curled around it instinctively, but that didn't help as a second kick followed the first, before a third kick launched her out of his grip.

Yugito tumbled across the clearing, stopping in a heap on the forest floor. Her mouth tasted of blood and bile and her whole body burned with pain. She was also in shock over the tactic Naruto had used. It was obvious now that her last blow hadn't got through on its own – Naruto had let it go through in order to trap her.

Looking up, she found that Naruto had retreated, looking at her worriedly. His eyes had lost their glow, she noticed somewhat deliriously as she tottered to a stand, one hand curled protectively around her torso and the other held in front of her to defend herself.

"Why aren't you attacking?" Yugito spat out at length, glaring at him defiantly. She could still fight; she had fought with worse injuries than this before. What she could not condone was the worried look in his eyes, as if he was regretting fighting in the first place. She didn't want to be patronized – she wouldn't, couldn't, put up with his attitude. No she wouldn't, especially not by a Konoha nin. Wincing as her bruised and battered side stretched, she settled into a close approximation of a defensive stance, arms out in front of her. She would show him what happened when you underestimated her…

"Don't you think that's enough?" Naruto's concerned voice cut through the hazy fog of her thoughts, slightly thick due to his now twice broken nose. Blood caked the front of his shirt but he seemed to pay it no mind. "We can stop if you want…"

Yugito scoffed in reply, rearing indignantly at the question before stiffening as a fresh wave of pain ran through her. "You think this is enough to put me down?" She asked scornfully, gritting her teeth stubbornly. "I once crawled through thirty miles of mountains with a ninjatō through my stomach for a mission. This is nothing. The only way we stop this is if you throw in the towel."

Her eyes, watching carefully for any reaction noticed that his eyebrows had risen partway through her rant, only to dissolve into a resigned grin at the end. Pinching his nose and wincing slightly as he reset it, again, his eyes locked onto hers. "Very well," he said quietly, closing his eyes as the seals around them began to glow gently. "Prepare yourself, then."

Naruto's eyes snapped open.

…

The fight continued long into the afternoon. The birds in the trees around the clearing had long been scared off by the shouts and activity in the clearing, but as the sun began to lose its intensity, the charged, silent air was being slowly pervaded by the song of crickets. The setting sun cast its ever extending shadows on the forest floor, and under its ever decreasing rays two figures faced off.

Naruto, panting with his hands on his knees looked very much the worse for wear, and he knew it. His ribs had long gone from painful to excruciating, and every single step he took aggravated it. Innumerable other wounds and bruises littered his body, so much that he would be skeptical of getting out of his futon tomorrow if not for the Kyuubi's healing. His top was soaked through with blood both his and Yugito's, to the point that the originally white shirt was almost completely dyed a crusty brown. With his hair plastered to his face and darkened by sweat, his blood splattered face and his ruined clothes; he looked like he had been living in the Forest of Death for a month. He could only imagine what Jiraiya would say when they finally got back. The only consolation was that Yugito was in no better shape than he was.

For the last hour it had been a battle of attrition. Due to his time constraints Naruto had powered his brand new seal with a temporary external chakra storage seal, a process infinitely easier than designing one to seal away his chakra while allowing one specific seal in his body to function. Still, chakra storage seals could only hold so much chakra at a time, and that limit had been long exceeded by now. If this had been at the start, this would have skewed things decisively in Yugito's favor. However, in the process of depleting the chakra store of the seal Naruto and Yugito had managed to injure each other to the point that such an advantage was all but nonexistent. Naruto's more resilient body allowing him to shrug off his own injuries much better than Yugito could, as her injuries nullified her main advantages in taijutsu, her superior speed and her flexibility.

"Ready?"

Yugito looked up, a hint of a grin showing through bruised lips. "Did that stop you before?" She replied, a hint of humor in her voice.

Naruto marveled at the tone. Having started the battle resentful and almost murderous, Yugito had proceeded to gradually mellow as the evening wore on. It was almost as if she had forgotten that she was fighting him, as she threw taunts at him like they were friends. In many ways, this had proved to be the best idea he had had in a while. The catharsis was obvious, and in the absence of the tense silence the air between them had cleared. Returning her gaze, he found himself grinning. "It didn't stop you either," he pointed out jokingly.

Yugito snorted. "Well aren't you chivalrous."

Naruto grinned back, rushing back to re-engage. "I know, right? I surprise myself sometimes…"

As opposed to the furious assaults that the beginning of the spar had seen, now it more closely resembled a dance. Naruto and Yugito moved in concert, a fast paced duet, twisting and pirouetting around each other with limbs occasionally darting impossibly fast only to be denied their objective by an equally fast limb, fleeting glancing touches of skin on skin as their eyes locked. In that instant, something seemed to be exchanged between them.

Naruto was the first to break. First a quiet snigger broke his façade, reciprocated by Yugito grinning back at him. Before long, the two were laughing gaily as they dodged each other's blows. Yet, even as the spontaneous laughter subsided, leaving both of them with broad grins stretching their faces, their tempo grew ever more feverish.

Soon enough, the end came, as Naruto led with a left hook. Yugito descended into a half-split to avoid the punch, following through with a foot sweep. Leaping over her entirely Naruto fell into a crouch, spinning around with a heel kick aimed at Yugito's head. Yugito fell forward to avoid the foot, before twisting onto her back as her own foot lashed out at Naruto. Deflecting it with his elbow Naruto fell forward, and his left arm extended in a knife hand aimed at Yugito's exposed throat, halting abruptly when his fingertips were a hairbreadth away from her skin. Balancing himself with his other hand Naruto loomed over Yugito's taut form, frozen in place.

For a moment, Naruto stared into Yugito's startled gaze. Then, slowly, a crooked grin split his face. "I think this round goes to me," he whispered at length, as if he was savoring each word as he grinned down at the prone kunoichi.

A cheshire grin stole across Yugito's lips. "Look again," she replied slyly, dark eyes glittering with amusement. Momentarily startled, Naruto gave her a puzzled look before glancing down only to find a petite feminine wrist pointed at his chest, from which two slender fingers extended to rest on his bloodstained tee shirt, directly above his heart.

Naruto stared blankly at her before he recovered. "Well, I suppose we can call it a tie," he said airily, his grin more blinding than ever.

Yugito grinned back at him. "I suppose we could…"

Naruto nodded, before he cocked his head. "Truce?"

Yugito stared back at him, trying to figure out what he meant. After a moment, she nodded slowly. "Agreed."

All the tension seemed to drain out of Naruto's body, and extricating his body from Yugito he collapsed face first onto the ground beside her. Yugito stared at his collapsed form, somewhat concerned, before she heard a muffled groan.

"Ow." Naruto's voice, even muffled by the earth, carried a distinct tone of exasperation. "Forgot about the nose."

Yugito looked at him disbelievingly. There was a slight rustle and Naruto's face reappeared, looking utterly disgruntled. One look at his face, and Yugito could hold back her giggles no more.

"Hey," Naruto protested halfheartedly. "It's your fault it hurts in the first place," he continued petulantly, rubbing his nose.

Yugito's giggles turned to full blown laughter. Naruto's lips twitched in reply, and soon both of them were laughing as they lay on the forest floor, serenaded by the chirping of crickets as the setting sun lit up the treetops of the forest canopy.

…

It was long after the darkness of night had encroached the clearing that Naruto and Yugito had gotten up and finally decided to stagger back to their camp. Still, Naruto mused as he staggered back while supporting Yugito who was slumped on the shoulders of him and his clone; that time had been truly well spent.

Once the initial antagonism had been resolved, Yugito had turned out to be an extremely easy person to talk to. Her sarcastic replies aside she was an attentive listener, and she was rather open in stating her opinion in any matter that did not personally involve her. It had been a godsend; Naruto desperately needed an impartial confidant, especially now.

They had also, briefly, spoken about their respective experiences as jinchuuriki, however it had become soon evident that both of them, especially Yugito, were reluctant to diverge anything on their experiences as jinchuuriki. Though it puzzled him somewhat, seeing as according to Jiraiya Kumo was the village with the reputation of being the most humane to their jinchuuriki, he still did not probe her on the subject. After all, more humane did not definitely mean humane, and he himself was not exactly eager to speak of his own time as a helpless scapegoat to the public of Konoha.

Though, in his conversation he had noticed one particularly intriguing response; Yugito subtly tensed whenever Konoha directly came up in conversation, and her responses would be clipped and loaded with suppressed emotions for a while afterwards. Looking at her out of the corner of his eye, Naruto soon found himself wondering why.

Even though Konoha's relations with Kumo were strained and had been so for some time, there had been no recent confrontations between them. Wary of starting the next overt war between shinobi villages, both villages tended to avoid having their personnel in close proximity, and those sent to border patrol or missions were required to be suspicious, but not initiate combat unless undeniable proof of the other side's culpability was not only assured, but provable.

That still left the possibility that somebody, perhaps her parents or an elder sibling, had been killed in the short but brutal war that erupted between Konoha and Kumo in the dying stages of the Third War. And while that was a rather delicate subject to initiate in the face of their just secured and rather fragile friendship, his curiosity would not be sated. Finally, after some time deliberating the potential landmine he was going to step on, Naruto reached a decision.

"Say, Yugito," he looked at her from the corner of his eye, and she looked back at him blearily. "Who are your parents?" As soon as he said the words, he winced, mortified. He hadn't meant it to come out that bluntly. He was just getting ready to apologize when Yugito's quiet, emotionless voice cut in.

"I have no idea," she replied quietly, her dark eyed gaze boring into his. "All I know is that I was selected from an orphanage for having exceptionally strong chakra."

"Oh." Naruto said regretfully, pausing to look Yugito in the eye. "Sorry. That was personal. I shouldn't have asked."

Yugito shrugged, sagging back onto his shoulder. "I don't mind. Why did you ask that anyway?"

Now that he was perfectly poised to ask the question, he hesitated; it seemed like a rather personal thing to ask. Still, he needed to know exactly what she had against Konoha…

Gulping slightly, he faced forward, gazing at the starlit sky in order to avoid looking her in the face. "I was just wondering whether that was why you hated Konoha."

Just as expected, as soon as he uttered the words, he felt Yugito stiffen. "…Why do you think I hate Konoha?" She inquired, her voice carefully neutral.

He gave her an incredulous look. "You thought I wouldn't notice?" He questioned, looking into Yugito's face. She was tense again, he noticed, her lips pressed together and her fingers absently making clawing motions around his neck.

"You tense up every time someone mentions Konoha," he continued remorselessly. He had started down this rabbit hole, he would see the end of it. "Even now your whole body is tense, it's rather obvious. So what makes you so mad at Konoha?"

Yugito looked up, her eyes glinting coldly as they met his in challenge. Their stalemate stretched out for some time, before Yugito turned away, scowling. The next thing Naruto knew, his clone had dispelled in a cloud of chakra smoke.

Hastily shoving away memories of fingers digging into his throat, he observed somewhat nervously as Yugito extracted her other arm from around his shoulder, ignoring him and a suitably alarmed Jiraiya completely as she limped into the camp.

With a mixture of disappointment and incredulity, Naruto watched as she limped past Jiraiya, heading for her tent. However, after she had opened the flap of her tent she paused, looking over her shoulder at him. The flickering light of the campfire threw her profile into sharp relief, her mouth set in an obstinate scowl as her cold glare bore into him.

At length Yugito spoke, her voice carefully devoid of any and all emotion. "I tolerate you more than I have any other Konoha nin, Naruto-san. I might even consider you a friend since our… discussion, today. That is why I am warning you…" She paused for emphasis, her eyes glittering with cold promise.

"You don't want to know the answer to your question. Don't get between me and my revenge, unless you want to get hurt." With a swirl of fabric she disappeared into the tent, leaving Naruto staring blankly, his thoughts a furious whirl.

From her sudden turnaround, it was obvious that there was something going on with Yugito regarding Konoha. What he could not figure out was what it was. Thinking back over the conversation, he could not help wondering whether he had been too blunt in his questioning. Their relationship had only just become cordial after all…

"Hey brat, what's with the long face?" Jiraiya's overly casual query brought him out of his thoughts. Rubbing the bridge of his nose to ward off the coming headache, Naruto approached the comfortable heat of the fire, sprawling inelegantly in front of it and staring into its fiery depths.

"…Nothing," he said at length.

"I know it's high time you started having girl troubles, brat…" Jiraiya said teasingly, making him look at the sage irritably. "…But damn if you aren't the bravest I've seen in a while; an enemy jinchuuriki, and older to boot!" Jiraiya pretended to wipe tears from his eyes. "You do your sensei proud."

Naruto met the Toad sage's gaze disbelievingly. "Sod off, Ero-sennin," he deadpanned, "It's nothing like that – And even if it was, do you think I'll try anything with her?"

He scoffed, leaning backward to relax as he looked back at Jiraiya sleepily. "Honestly, I thought I had gotten rid of being friends with dark, emo avengers after Sasuke…"

Jiraiya didn't seem to be convinced. "So she is your friend, is she? How did that happen anyway?"

"We sparred," he replied shortly.

"I can see that." Jiraiya replied, looking at his clothes with a mixture of curiosity and distaste. "Brat, I'm not buying you new clothes."

He grinned tiredly. "I'll just ask baa-chan. She can't refuse when she looks at me." Though that reminded him… "Say, Ero-sennin, can you contact Baa-chan tomorrow?"

"That's not your only clothes, brat?" Jiraiya asked incredulously. "Surely you can manage for some time…" Chuckling sheepishly, the Toad sage continued. "You see, I'm kind of avoiding her at the moment…"

"It's not for that!" He exclaimed. "I need her to take a look at Yugito. I don't think her advanced healing is working right now, with the seal and all…"

Jiraiya chuckled lightly. "Already done, brat. I saw you two going at each other like a pair of wolves in the forest a few hours ago, and I knew you were going to need her to repair what the pair of you broke." Jiraiya looked him over, eyebrows slightly raised in surprise. "How the hell did you bleed so much in a taijutsu match anyway, it looks like you've been at an abattoir!"

Reaching up, he ran his fingers over his nose ruefully. "She goes for the face," he admitted sourly, wincing. Even with his advanced healing working now that the seal restricting his chakra was gone, he imagined that his face looked quite the sight after all the battering it had taken.

"Well that is quite interesting, isn't it, Jiraiya?" A woman's voice came from behind him, making him jump in surprise. Turning around he found Katsuyu. The green and white slug slithered up to the fire, somehow managing to look amused. "What is this I hear about a girlfriend, brat? It's not enough that you peep on my apprentice now?"

Hearing Jiraiya break into peals of laughter beside him, Naruto buried his head in his hands. "Hello to you too, Baa-chan."

…

After a few glitches and misunderstandings, Naruto soon settled into a new routine. Now that Yugito was no longer avoiding him, Yugito had singlehandedly taken over his taijutsu and shurikenjutsu training. Therefore while he still saturated the forests around them with clone armies that were studying up on everything under the sun, the original spent the daylight hours with the Nibi jinchuuriki, brushing up on his hand-to-hand and throwing weapon skills.

It had come as a surprise when she had first proposed their current arrangement. If anything he had been expecting the return of the cold shoulder treatment since the turbulent ending of their previous evening. However, in an action that puzzled Naruto, Yugito seemed intent to pretend that nothing had happened at all.

Naruto was no stranger to kunai and shuriken; indeed, even now his main form of bladed combat consisted of dual wielding kunai. It was also the only form of bladed combat he had actual training in, as it was the preferred form of combat of Mito. Therefore, initially, he had felt that training further in that regard was superfluous.

One session with Yugito was enough to convince him to the contrary. Systematically, Yugito had picked apart his form and strikes as if they had been no more than the flailing of a toddler. The experience had been humbling, and being repeatedly disarmed and held at kunaipoint was not something he was bound to forget anytime soon. So his friendly relationship with Yugito continued, though he could see that their conversation had not been forgotten. Many times he would look up from his work to find her staring at his forehead protector, a frustrated scowl on her face. He only hoped that it would not blow up in their faces in the future.

Meanwhile his work into researching fuinjutsu was continuing unabated. His forays into the Uzumaki secret scroll was continuing steadily, and he was getting practice creating small working arrays such as general sealing scrolls and exploding tags. He was even getting to the part where he was working on small self designed sealing tags, often to hilarious results, like the time he had put a seal to attract slugs down Jiraiya's jacket. It had been made Yugito laugh, seeing Jiraiya apologize frantically to a bewildered Tsunade afterwards.

But random pranks aside, both Jiraiya and him were knee deep in preparations for the approaching Autumnal Equinox. One of the strange 'important' days that were only considered such by fuinjutsu practitioners, the equinoxes were considered to be the best days to attempt certain finicky seals due to the fact that it represented a spiritual balance between the Yin and Yang aspects of nature. All this contributed to an immense workload, but it was hard to care about that at the moment, when Mito's life – or whatever it was – hung in the balance.

He had never been more thankful for the discovery of the Kage Bunshin than now. That was the only thing that allowed him to shoulder all the incredibly diverse projects he was working on simultaneously.

"Hey brat, stop daydreaming!"

"Huh?" He uttered uncomprehendingly, before he looked down from the branch he was in. What he saw made his mouth twist into a slight smile; Jiraiya was sitting inside the ceiling-less room he had created for his sealing, surrounded by mounds of paper and looking rather frazzled. "What do you want, Ero-sennin?"

"Come take a look at this," Jiraiya waved around a rather large scroll impatiently. Extending his legs to stretch them out, he leapt off the branch landing lightly in the small earthen chamber. Taking in the paper that liberally adorned the hardened earth floor, he turned towards Jiraiya, eyebrow raised.

Jiraiya grumpily handed over the scroll before he turned back to the untidy mess of scrolls before him. "I can't find out why it won't work," he said, sounding irritated. "Just see if you can find any bugs."

Smirking slightly, he unrolled the scroll and started tracing the fairly elaborate seal etched on the paper. Despite what the majority of Konoha believed, Jiraiya of the Sannin was no seal master; he was simply someone who had dabbled in the subject as seals and counterseals formed an essential part of his primary specialization – espionage. Still, until Mito had begun her training, he had been the best Konoha could offer in sealing techniques as he could read up on old sealing scrolls and interpret them, even though his own understanding of the finicky points of the art were shady at best.

According to Jiraiya, the rest of the shinobi world was no better in this regard. Fuinjutsu was truly a dying art; there had been no innovation or improvement, nor true practitioners of the art in the last half century except for a select few who had all died before they could pass on their expertise. The Yondaime, who had been trained in the discipline by Mito, and subsequently by Kushina after Mito's death, had been one of them.

So when Naruto and Jiraiya had been exposed to the true fuinjutsu teachings of the clan who had hoarded and developed the art since the time of the Sage, they had improved rapidly. And Naruto, who had dozens of clones working on it at any time of the day, had no other obligations except for training and had an instinctive understanding of the intricacies due to his Uzumaki heritage had quickly surpassed Jiraiya in his understanding of the art. Of course Jiraiya still had more experience to draw upon, and his floundering in the art had led him to develop a unique insight into it that the conventional teaching didn't account for, but in the end Naruto was the one who had the better theoretical knowledge now that they could not ask Mito for advice.

Looking over another's sealing diagram was a difficult proposition, and it was especially so if the chakra affinities of the two did not match. Due to the fact that the writer's blood and chakra powered the seal, the chakra affinity of the creator influenced the seal design leading to each nature having a distinctly different 'dialect' in sealing. There were certain rules that certain natures had, such as the fact that two helical bases with opposing spins could not be linked in a seal written for a lightning nature. Subverting these rules in your sealing made it so that seals written using different chakra affinities were physically quite different from each other.

Soon enough, he noticed the error; an incredibly small glyph at the edge of one seal was directly influencing the seal adjacent to it. It was also, unfortunately, completely incompatible with said adjacent seal. Grimacing a little on the inside he called out to the Toad Sage, who had gone back to his seal crafting. "Ero-sennin!"

Carefully finishing the glyph he was inking, Jiraiya put down his brush before he looked up to face him, his eyes darting briefly towards the scroll in Naruto's hand. "Did you find it?"

Yeah…" Naruto tossed the scroll at Jiraiya, before jumping back down after it. As Jiraiya caught the scroll deftly and unrolled it, he stepped beside him, pointing out the offending character. "Look, this character in the Sound Containment Array is incompatible with the Chakra Containment Array. I'll say your best bet would be to try the East-Oriented Holding Array instead, to contain the chakra within the seal."

"God damn it, brat," Jiraiya grunted, frustrated, as he slowly traced the seal's chakra flow with a finger, "You're right." Tearing off the portion of the scroll that had the diagram on it and crumpling it, Jiraiya tossed it across the small room before he unrolled a fresh scroll, glaring at the blank paper.

Turning, he glanced at Jiraiya curiously. "Why are you trying to make a chakra containment shell around a Sound Transmission Seal anyway?"

"Hmm…" Jiraiya took some time to reply, clearly engrossed in his work. "Bugs," he finally said, putting down his brush with a sigh. "Many of my older surveillance seals are getting picked off due to the chakra they emit… Kind of hard to not have it doing that when they transmit the recorded sound, you see."

"Ah…" he nodded in agreement. It was hard not to see his point; the seals very function was to emit chakra, but the emission of chakra made the emission useless. It was kind of like trying to look both left and right at the same time…

"By the way, you still haven't told me what those cats-eyes on your face are for."

Looking up, he found Jiraiya's mane of hair inches from his face. Hastily pulling away he crossed his arms in front of him, trying to regain his poise. "Wh-What do you mean? I did tell you!"

"Coming up to me and saying that your new seal works hardly counts as telling me about the seal," Jiraiya countered. "And just for your information I would prefer to be told about you attempting to perform a Body Augmentation Sealing before you do it."

Shifting guiltily, Naruto attempted to change the subject. "So, do you want to see it activated?"

"Yes I would have," Jiraiya grumbled as he set about clearing up all the discarded seal diagrams lying around. "About a week ago, when you, you know, performed the seal?"

"So do you want to see it or not?" Naruto questioned, annoyed.

He guessed some part of his annoyance must have leaked into his tone, for Jiraiya looked slightly amused as he paused and turned around. "Fine, fine," Jiraiya said patronizingly, making Naruto clench his teeth in frustration. He loved the quirky man, he really did, but by the Log he could be frustrating. "Are you going to activate it here?"

Naruto looked back at Jiraiya, an eyebrow raised. "You do remember I'm just a clone, right? The seal doesn't work on me – I was just going to take you to the original."

It was something that both intrigued and frustrated him that only physical aspects of any equipment of the user carried over when the Kage Bunshin was used. It didn't matter so much now, but it meant that when he finally got his heart blade, only the original would be able to wield it as anything more than an ordinary sword. Of course, he was the one doing the seal work for his Heart blade, which meant that if he found what was causing it, he could potentially nullify that disadvantage, at least when it came to his Heart blade…

Jiraiya did a double-take. "You are? Then where's the original?"

Naruto just sighed. "Honestly, Ero-sennin, are you getting senile? I've been practicing with Yugito all week, that's why I came in my stead!" He paused for a moment, before he admitted9, "That sounded less crazy in my head."

Jiraiya cracked a grin as formed a seal, causing the room to sink into the floor as if it had never been there. "I suppose an identity crisis is the least of your problems when it comes to your clone hordes, eh?"

"Don't I know it," Naruto agreed, falling into step with Jiraiya as they headed towards camp. "They're always fighting over who gets to be the leader. It's obvious isn't it?"

"What?" Jiraiya asked, confused.

Naruto pointed at himself with an exaggerated flourish, puffing up his chest self-importantly. "It's obviously me!"

Jiraiya sweatdropped. Before he could retort, however, Naruto suddenly stopped, looking worriedly into the underbrush. There was a faint chakra signature approaching them, and he could recognize it as one of his fellow clones; it had his own unique feel but was far too faint to be the original. But what was one doing here, so far from the camp?

"What is it?" Jiraiya asked, looking at him concernedly. Naruto didn't answer, continuing to track the incoming clone, his brows furrowed in concentration. Before long, the clone burst out from the forest cover, panting harshly as he sprinted towards them.

Taking in his disheveled appearance, Jiraiya let out a low whistle. "What happened?"

His voice was deep and measured, yet Naruto could detect a hint of curiosity in his tone. The clone finally stood up, his frantic eyes searching out Jiraiya's immediately. "The boss – he wants you – immediately," he said, gesturing wildly with his hands.

"Ghost Lady's awake."

…

"This is so cool! Two C-Ranks back to back… We are awesome, ne, Kurenai-sensei?" Kiba's exuberant voice cut through the silence of the dirt road they were travelling through. The small white puppy lazing on his head yipped in agreement.

Kurenai looked back at her easily excitable student, mild disapproval on her face. "Quiet, Kiba," she admonished. "Do you want everybody in the area to know that we're here?"

"But Kurenai-sensei!" Kiba pleaded, undeterred, before he turned to the demure girl beside his sensei. "Come on, Hinata, back me up!"

"It would be preferable to listen to Kurenai-sensei, Kiba-san." A quiet voice interjected from right behind Kiba, making him jump. As he hastily jumped away Shino continued to speak, dark shades glinting and a slight buzzing coming from beneath his voluminous coat. "Why? Because we have been tasked to disable the bandit blockades around the area, and it would be counterproductive to inform them of our coming."

"Ano, Kiba-kun…" Hinata added quietly. "W-Wouldn't it be better to li-li-listen to Kurenai-sensei …"

"Hinata-chan…" Kiba whined in protest, before he walked to the front of the group, grumbling under his breath. "They're all stick-in-muds! We don't need them, do we, Akamaru?" Akamaru yipped in reply, wagging its tail in agreement.

"That would be an incorrect assumption, Kiba-san." Shino noted, adjusting his shades. "Why? Because in every mission so far, one of us has had to rescue you once you charged into battle unprepared."

"Oh, shut up, bug boy."

The buzzing increased underneath Shino's coat. "I have no wish to argue with you, Kiba-san. Why? Because every time you fail to refute my logic, you devolve to childish name-calling."

"Why you…" Kiba seethed.

"Both of you, quiet!" Kurenai ordered, cutting off any further argument. "Let's travel quietly for now."

Kiba nodded somewhat reluctantly, mumbling an apology under his breath. Shino turned to Kurenai. "I apologize, Kurenai-sensei. Why? Because I should not have been affected by Kiba-san's childish taunts about my partners."

Kiba gritted his teeth, growling as he turned. Before he could get started however, Hinata spoke up. "Ano, Kiba-kun, Shino-kun… Please stop fighting?"

Grumbling under his breath, Kiba nevertheless complied with Hinata's hesitant request as he stalked off down the road. Kurenai frowned at her students, her crimson gaze catching each of them in turn. "I would prefer if you stop quarreling among yourself," she said sternly, looking troubled. "There's something wrong with this whole setup."

Hinata looked up at her in surprise. "Wh-Why do you say that, Kurenai-sensei?"

"I think Sensei is referring to the fact that it is unusual for Kusa to request our assistance." Shino opined, looking at her through his shades.

Kurenai nodded curtly. "It is strange. Kusa and Konoha have been, well, they haven't been openly antagonistic, but they haven't been cordial either, ever since the chunin exams. After all a considerable amount of Kusa shinobi turned out to be Orochimaru's plants… Konoha hasn't quite forgiven them for the role they played, inadvertently or not, in allowing Orochimaru's forces into Konoha, and Kusa seems to feel their honour has been impinged upon… Overall, it's a rather ugly business, which makes this sudden request all the more stranger…"

"What's the problem?" Kiba retorted arrogantly, standing in the middle on the road for them to approach. "It's just bandits! You won't even have to try – Akamaru and I can take them all, ne, Akamaru?"

Kurenai narrowed her eyes at the hotheaded genin. "It's not the bandits I'm worried about," she said darkly. "Just keep your eye out in this mission."

Things were going well in Konoha. Too well. With the ousting of Danzo and his henchmen and the splintering of the elders, bureaucracy in Konoha was proceeding smoothly, much more than it ever had before. Instead of making her feel any batter however, this just made her feel more at edge; she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She had been getting more and more anxious the longer she was on this mission. So far it had proved unwarranted, but she could feel the tension in the air, the way that the odd civilian on the streets looked at her team with distaste.

Asuma, Kakashi, Gai – All the veteran shinobi had felt it, the warning coming from deep within their very bones, calling out to the survival instincts that had kept them alive through the years. Something was coming. Her warning systems were running in overdrive – like she had missed a vital clue, like she was walking into a trap. And she had her kids with her.

On the chance that she was right, was Team 8 ready? So far, the entire team was unblooded, the only one among the rookies. Until now she had felt that was a blessing, being that it allowed them to enjoy their childhood for a little longer before they truly became shinobi. Still, it had to be done, which was why she had taken on this mission in the first place. Now, however, she was less certain of it.

Her genin were all extremely different from one another, and they each came with their own baggage. She worried about how they would react to the reality of having to take a life, to have the life blood of your opponent stain your hand; that was something that would never leave a shinobi's thoughts.

Kiba, she knew, was all bluster and rash arrogance, something that was at least partially a result of being the younger son of the incredibly intimidating Inuzuka Clan Head Tsume. With such a loud, confident and strong personality for a parent, as an only parent, it was rather expected that he tried to emulate it on his own. It would become tempered with experience, and having his first kill would go a long way towards that. Still, with the vibes she was getting from this particular mission, it could be a particularly bad situation for him to have that particular realization.

Hinata was a completely different proposition altogether. Her fragile self-esteem was hanging on by a thread as it was, and Kurenai constantly worried that being forced to kill, even in self defense, might bring about a psychological breakdown. It was by no means an uncommon phenomenon, especially among genin who had been traumatized as children, and she had heard that the Yamanaka clan held special help sessions for them on the Hokage's orders… However, Hinata could prove to be of no help into the mission, and that worried her. Cruel as it may be to think it, in a real combat situation she would more likely be a hindrance than a help.

Shino, well… He was the one she worried about the least. He was quiet, dependable and stoic, and she knew he, at least, had been exposed to the colder side of the shinobi lifestyle; the Aburame family rituals were not for the faint of heart. The only concern she had about him was that he might become even more withdrawn after he had been blooded. The Aburame had the annoying habit of bottling things up, and they pretty much went to pieces when their tight control over their emotions slipped. After all, even Shino had yet to take a life in battle. All in all, it was an emphatically not battle-ready team she was taking into potentially hostile land.

The Hokage, of course, had been aware of this, but the diplomatic quagmire of the Konoha-Kusa relations made it impossible to send a more qualified team. Sending anything above a genin team to handle a bandit threat could be considered a threat in and of itself, and Konoha was in no hurry to go to war anytime soon. And being the only genin level tracking/ combat team, her team had been automatically selected for the mission.

The only saving grace she had was the transmitter seal that she had attached to her back, underneath her clothes. A custom made seal presented to the Konoha Armory by Jiraiya, the seal allowed the internal security division of Konoha ANBU to monitor her vitals and chakra use. This would at least warn Konoha if they came under attack, and hopefully bring reinforcements which Tsunade-sama had placed a few miles inland of the Kusa-Konoha border.

"Team 8, arrow formation!" She barked out suddenly, catching her team by surprise. Shino merely raised an inquisitive eyebrow, while Hinata squeaked and Kiba's head shot up, Akamaru nearly falling off in the process. Ignoring the puppy hanging desperately onto his head, Kiba turned his startled gaze to her. "What's up, Kurenai-sensei? I didn't feel anything…"

Kurenai pursed her lips, her crimson eyes narrowing. She smirked slightly when Kiba shrank under her gaze; her eye colour unnerved many people, something which always served to amuse her. "Don't forget that this is potentially hostile territory. Don't be too obvious about it, but don't break formation."

With a slight incline of his head to signify assent, Shino glided over to her right, his hands tucked inside his voluminous coat. Still looking bewildered, Kiba shrugged, heading to her left. Hinata glanced at Kurenai nervously. "Sensei…"

One look into the wide eyed gaze of the timid Hyuuga heiress had her annoyance disappear in a wave of sympathy and pity. She was like a wounded bird, Kurenai wondered absently as she reached out, ruffling Hinata's dark hair as she smiled down at her. The girl managed to awaken every maternal instinct within her. Hinata jerked back minutely at her touch, before leaning into the comforting gesture. "Come on, Hinata, just like we practiced…" she coaxed gently, getting a shy, timid smile in return. "Go on…"

"Byakugan." Her whisper was barely heard, but the results were apparent as Hinata's eyes, which already seemed huge on her face seemed to grow wider, veins on her temples bulging out. Then she screamed.

"Sensei, watch out!"

A pair of overlarge kama, curved sickle-like blades attached to a chain, came hurtling out of the trees on either side of the road. Reacting reflexively she dived forward, her hands hooking onto the necks of two surprised genin and bringing them down with her as the spinning blades skimmed past their necks.

As they flew past, Kurenai managed to look at the blade, a plain grey metal blade with a jagged line insignia. A Kusa make. Sometimes, she hated it when she was right.