AN: Sorry for the delay. Just distracted by my Nanowrimo 'Gooper' which as of now is only being posted to FF. Net and then I hope to keep using this momentum it's getting me into to carry over into my other stories.

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Crashing leaves and creaking branches echoed long after the three forms hurtled past. Sasuke was less concerned about sound giving them away than he was with just getting distance. Out of habit he had his chakra rolled up as tightly as he could, gritting his teeth against the discomfort from doing so. He knew Naruto had to be doing the same, unable to feel the usual roiling sensation of chakra from his loudest teammate. Kucho, naturally, was dead to his senses. Trust was all that kept the last Uchiha in the village from looking back over his shoulder in concern, to allay his worries of their being right behind them. Considering that...

Well. Sasuke knew plenty about loss. When he felt the first falter of his chakra and judged it safe enough to pause he drew up short. Naruto almost skidding off the branch as he did the same, awkwardly still balancing Kucho in a fireman's carry over his shoulder's. No matter how uncomfortable that was for both parties, it was the most effective for a reason. Naruto opened his mouth to say something, but then Sasuke sloshed a water bottle before taking a small mouthful. Catching on, Naruto gently, mindful of her likely bruised form from being over Naruto's shoulder's, set Kucho down.

There was a faint nod from Kucho, a glaze to her eyes as she shook slightly but took out her own food bar and chomped off large bites, softening it with her own water. Sasuke trailed his eyes over his darkest teammate as she swallowed, gagged softly. He remembered the feeling. The sensation food was ash and clay and wouldn't go down. Wanting to vomit every time.

Naruto had polished off two bars by the time Sasuke had gotten a few bites down. His tone was still soft aware they were liable to be near unfriendly company but still with an edged of cheer before it trailed off."Hey, hey Kucho-chan..are you.."

"Not, not now. Please," Kucho begged softly with a faint hitch to her words. The palm of her left hand coming up to rub against her eye, as if physically pushing back tears. Her very tone had defaulted to the dead one of most Aburame, a defense mechanism they knew and at least one that wouldn't offend either of the boys.

Confused blue eyes looked to Sasuke for help, not sure at all what to do with a nearly crying girl. Nor was this the time for loud yelling speeches and snarls. Sasuke had little experience himself, but he knew loss. He knew pain. And he damned well knew about compartmentalizing to just get through the current moment. Slowly he shook his head and mouthed clearly to Naruto 'Later.'

At least with a grumble the blonde did as he asked. They didn't have time for this now and Sasuke felt for Kucho, he truly did, but he also knew now was the worst time to fall apart. Fortunately, the three were used to trading off who was 'leader' when defaulting to another persons strengths. Right now it was falling to Sasuke as he was the one with the Sharingan and the best head for planning outside of a fight. Turning to try and glimpse what light was visible beneath the canopy Sasuke frowned to himself. They had been resting for just a few minutes, the sound of insects calling, skittering, familiar and comforting. Deep forest scents confusing his nose left Sasuke slightly ill at ease. There was just too much cover and they knew too well what lurked in the depths. "We're close. If we strike hard we should be able to ambush a few teams and get their scrolls."

"Let's just get what we need." Kucho said tiredly, her voice raspy from the effort of not screaming but her sleeves were damp from where she had clearly bit the fabric to keep silent when they had hurtled through the trees. "I can stand now." Unspoken, and clear, she could also run and fight if need be. After all, Kucho was as much a ninja as her soldier's and her nature would not let her back down. She'd cry later. Mismatched eyes locked first on Naruto's, then on Sasuke's. There was still that glazed look, haunting, but they had all been taught by Kakashi. Prepared by him for what would be in their future, it just wasn't supposed to be this soon!

"Konoha needs to know." Sasuke agreed and even Naruto gave a grunt of agreement. "Dobe-" It was comfortable to fall on the old insult and right now team Seven needed every scrap they could afford to huddle against. The flicker of warmth at the rolling eyes of his teammates was enough to let his voice soften. "-if we swarm an ambush can you leave enough disguised clones out to hopefully mess with the others?"

Naruto scratched his chin, like the other two just waiting for the bars and water to hit them all. Naturally possessing vaster reserves he was the least affected by the utter mayhem they had just escaped but it had still shaken his nerves and eating helped to calm that. "Yeah, Teme. I can do that. If nothing else I can make sure they open any opposing teams scrolls, not from Konoha, and get the lot disqualified that way."

"Only if it can't be traced back to us obviously." Sasuke agreed, and Naruto just smirked.

"I'll just make them look like that snake creep before the skin got peeled off. Better more remember that face, don't ya think?" There was a shimmer of red to his blue eyes just then and the exposed teeth as Naruto grinned were a bit sharper. Neither of his teammates missed it, but now was not the time for such things.

"Ready?" Kucho asked instead as she stood, taking a deep breath. They would not falter, they had a mission from their sensei to complete and information to pass on. This was just a far more lethal and nervewracking test than they had ever been expecting.

"Anything goes?" Sasuke asked, referring to the joke back on Mission Albatross when they had stumbled on something bigger that time too.

"Boom." Naruto grinned in agreement and Kucho cracked a faint watery smile before her eyes narrowed. "Keep in formation, hey?" He didn't wish to risk taking one of them out in the coming mayhem but for an answer the two brunettes launched ahead, making Naruto snicker as he gave chase.

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"Left!" A bellow came from Naruto's clone -suspiciously with bandages like Zabuza but otherwise more like an unholy meld of Naruto and his all brown civilian henge they used when hiding in the library- and obediently Kucho slammed her elbow out. The sickening crunch of a nose and the flying spittle and blood didn't slow her down either. Her insects stayed tightly locked up within her chakra and instead with a twisting of her body and a shunshin at the right moment to trade with the clone she twirled a kick to the back of the ninja's head dropping the unconscious boy like a rock. If he was lucky he wouldn't drown in his own spit.

The puff of smoke as Naruto's clone displaced itself from the body impacting it after the force of her kick let Kucho hide as she darted towards her teammate's. These enemies had rebreather's and the moment one had given away their position with the corny 'Lucky' phrase after trying to lecture them of all things on said ninja's team supposing 'awesomeness', team seven had collectively chosen to deal with their fear and frustration after Orochimaru in a far more productive manner.

A whoop from Naruto as he grabbed a startled Sasuke and launched him skyward at one of the ninja's attempting to get a literal drop on them; before headbutting his opponent only to rip into them with a chakra bomb, the sickening sound as a neck snapped in the distance from the force was drowned out by a roar of "Blonde IDIOT!" from Sasuke.

It was a rather twitching at the eyebrow and scowling Sasuke who glared at Naruto the whole time he went to ruffle through the downed forms after landing finally. Neither brunette chose to inform Naruto he had used excessive force, the last thing they needed was another shock to potentially overwhelm their sunny teammate. There was a nicely tied up unconscious ninja halfway up a tree wrapped in shuriken wire from Sasuke. Of course, said ninja was fairly singed but fireball was still Sasuke's default Jutsu when startled. Being thrown into the air by one of your teammate's generally tended to startle a person after all.

"Heaven." Came the announcement from Sasuke and Kucho nearly fell as she felt her whole body shudder in relief. She did make a faint squeaking sound, however.

"Finally."

"Okay. All out dash?" Naruto asked even as he was spamming clones, a variety of them, not just with Orochimaru's other guise but the team they had just beaten and a number of the other's they had run across. Team Seven wasn't precisely against long-range dirty tactics if they saw a lone party member getting water or trying to trap a perimeter. Besides, Naruto did need to work on his earth jutsu's and it seemed a good chance to practice. The only one who had the hang of grabbing the ground and pulling it was Kucho, Sasuke -who was usually determined to not rely on his eyes and tried to get a technique down properly without the Sharingan first- tended to make it crumble in such a way as what they had formed into the 'Tornado' attack which after fumbling the other two had learned how to do, and Naruto only seemed to be able to make it create stalagmites which frankly, all three agreed were awesome but the spike of chakra it needed was beyond the brunettes to mimic at this time.

The very fact he used it to 'goose' a few opponents long range had at least forced a laugh out of Kucho and if it sounded hysterical and she started to choke back tears, neither boy drew attention to it. The general use of the stalagmite was to startle someone enough that they didn't dodge the incoming attacks. A swift blow from a clone, down they went, a quick frisk for a scroll or not and after tying up the victim the three had moved on.

"All Out." Sasuke agreed as he tossed the scroll p in the air only to catch it once before grinning, red eyes gleaming as he looked at his team. Dirty, determined, having faced a sannin and lived to tell the tale. They'd taken out two teams, set back or incapacitated members to a good dozen others. There were traps all over the forest from them running along. It wasn't even night fall yet on the first day yet. Yes. He was proud, he felt a rush of power, of strength. This is what a good team could give him.

Sasuke didn't think even his precious prodigy of a brother turned traitor could have faced down Orochimaru with his team at the age of twelve and lived.

The last one to respond was Kucho, who when the two looked at her simply brushed a finger against her nose, a habit for when she was wearing glasses not that she was in the darkness of the forest, and took off.

"Cheater!" Naruto hissed, he and Sasuke racing along side her swiftly but Kucho just snorted.

"Wrong. Ninja. You're just jealous you didn't think of it first." The deadpan voice was there but she was teasing, interacting. Her mind kept everything not immediately important locked away in a box. Kakashi had spoken with them after their first kills, made them see a Yamanaka Sasuke had been able to recommend. While they of course, had counseling on everything that had occurred it was also when Kucho had been able to speak about the pain of not letting her kikaichu out. Gumoko had assured her daughter that she personally had talked to Kakashi about a few things, but her mother had also worked with Kucho on keeping her nee-chan's and their hive within for longer stretches of time. She wouldn't be able to do so for more than another hour, but right then she didn't want a single insect out.

That Yamanaka had also taught each of them how to properly compartmentalize trauma. Not at all healthy in the long run if they didn't have an outlet and allow a confrontation with those emotions later, but essential in their careers for short times. Right now, it was all that was keeping her on her feet when she wanted to just curl up trembling. Instead, Kucho kept her senses open, and focused on running as fast as she could between her soldier's.

At the fastest pace they had used since rushing from Orochimaru the three fell silent and pushed forward. It was fast enough they had to keep their mouths open, sucking in air and expelling it with the force of each jump, at times unable to clear branches they hadn't seen in time and soon were on the ground the tower in sight.

Kucho's fingers flashed out, Sasuke following her so rapidly it seemed in sync, the wonders of the Sharingan hard at work to identify what she was up to. Without yelling anything there was a ripple and for a fraction of a second it seemed like Naruto's eyes were instead seeing his teammate's veer off to the side. A sharp pain at the junction of his shoulders told him otherwise though and Naruto kept forward. Dual genjutsu's, mentally he whistled, not a bad idea. It would at the least give them minutes to be ahead of anyone actually awaiting an ambush and be harder to disrupt. Crashing sounds off in the direction the 'fakes' had run made Naruto direct a few of his clones that way just as the three skidded inside.

Naruto tuned out anything at that moment except to put his back against the other two, kunai at the ready, his other hand softly pulsing with chakra ready for either a clone technique or a chakra bomb. A shift of Sasuke's shoulder against his told him the other boy was doing the same, and Kucho was only a fraction of a distance further.

"Clear," Kucho spoke first.

"This direction too." Sasuke agreed.

Naruto had been kept facing the door, their best overwhelming force in case of someone coming up from behind. "Yea, clear." None of the three dropped their guard, Sasuke and Kucho glanced up at the scroll, the obvious meaning ignored. This was a test that could be wrapped in pretty poetry but they knew better. You didn't have an ANBU member as your Jounin sensei who was treating you like actual subordinates and not pick up on a few things. They may couch this all in lovely haiku and soft words like 'duty' and 'improvement'.

Haku and Zabuza had ripped that blinder off the rest of the way for them and Kakashi had not tried to argue against reality. This was a test, a mission, one that they could kill during, and nearly been killed already.

"Scrolls?" Naruto finally asked. "They said not to open them before...so we do it now?"

"All of them." Sasuke agreed with a sneer. "What are they going to do, dock us extra credit?"

That made Naruto snort in amusement and he pulled out the two earth scrolls he had on him, the real ones not the clone fakes. Those had dispelled a half hour ago. "Got two earth."

"Earth." Kucho agreed, still holding their original scroll.

"Heaven." Sasuke hummed. "All at once? Ready?"

"Wait a minute, teme! I need a clone to do both of mine!?" Naruto huffed, having already done so and tossed the spare scroll before he thought twice. "Actually, make my clones open all of them. Who knows if they really are scrolls or booby trapped or something horrid is going to come out of them?"

"There's nowhere else to go, we reached the tower as the objective was stated." Kucho pointed out. "As no one is present to give them to clearly we are to open them now. Anko-sama practically made us all determined to do so at the earliest opportunity with her wording before we had them turned over to us."

"All the more reason not to be careless." Sasuke nodded. "Anko is...peculiar."

With no one able to argue that Naruto had his clones go to the middle of the room, and on three each of the four scrolls was unrolled.

The lunging forms of two ninjas actually rushing each other and one very startled Iruka screaming though at being in the middle, that they hadn't expected.