Sasuke was running up the trunk of the three alongside Naruto. He was finally getting a hang on it.

Nothing had changed really, he was doing everything the same as before. The thing that had changed was his drive. But as he was nearing the top of the tree, his grip slipped and his body fell.

Falling faster and faster until hitting the ground.

Sasuke bounced in his bed. The entire experience had felt so real. But he was alone again. Alone in his apartment back in Leaf, his rival had gone back to Mist.

But his mind dragged him back to wave. It was an exhausting trip and he really needed the rest. So he just had to close his eyes again and try to fall asleep again.

-x-

Next morning, he arrived at their normal meeting spot. And for once, Kakashi had arrived early.

"The Chuunin exam is near, so to prepare, I feel you should spar against each other. Sasuke and Sakura, you're first," he explained as he made a large circle in the training ground to mark an arena.

The two of them stepped in preparing for the fight. And while Kakashi counted down, a heavy mist gathered around them.

What was going on?

He saw something swinging towards him and he was forced to jump. Sakura was swinging a huge sword against him, where had she even gotten that from?

"Are you really an Uchiha?" Sakura asked him from the mist before attempting another swing at him.

"Where is your Sharingan?" She taunted him.

He tried flinging one of his signature fireballs at her, but nothing happened.

"You really are useless, all you're doing is holding your team back," she yelled at him.

"Stop it!" he cried out with his eyes closed.

But there was no one there. Only him in his bed. It was another dream. He needed fresh air. He didn't even bother getting properly dressed. His pyjama would do, no one would be out noticing him anyway so.

He slipped on his sandals and took to Konoha's nightly streets. Things weren't good at all. There was only one place to go in his mind, the memorial stone.

-x-

"Is everything okay?" Sasuke heard Kakashi's behind him.

"Would you believe me if I said yes?" Sasuke answered.

"No, I wouldn't. So what's bothering you?"

"Everything," he sighed. "I still haven't unlocked the Sharingan. I feel I'm holding the team back. Haku was toying with me, I didn't stand a chance. And Naruto's teammate managed to stop you from killing Zabuza and got rid of Gato's gang. I need to get stronger, but everyone just leaves me behind in the dust. No wonder my father saw me as a disappointment."

"Sasuke, look at me." Kakashi said, "You're not a failure. Naruto's teammate is not a fresh genin, he has a lot more experience than you think. Can you promise me to keep what I'm saying next a secret? You cannot tell anyone, not even any imaginary friends if you should have any."

Sasuke nodded.

"Naruto and Yagura are what's known as Jinchuuriki. When the Nine-tails attacked Konoha the 4th didn't kill the beast but sealed it inside Naruto. While Yagura has the Three-tails inside him. Drawing on those powers and only the very best can defeat them. So please, don't compare yourself to those. As you may know, the Chuunin exam is up soon, and more often than not, Uchiha awake their powers during the tense situations you'll encounter."

"I see," Sasuke replied. "But I'll still try to keep up with Naruto as long as I can. And you better be right about me getting the Sharingan during the exam."

"If you don't awaken it on your own, I'll give you my own, deal?"

"Deal."

"You can stay here as long as you want if you've trouble sleeping. I'll cancel tomorrow's meeting."

"I don't think that's necessary."

"It's not a suggestion."

-x-

Naruto was full of energy. He was back in Konoha and ready to show everyone that's he's a badass ninja. His team had been selected by the Mizukage to represent the village during the Chuunin exam. With his awesome team, it was a given. He'd gained some new tricks since wave and Chōjūrō was getting better with his sword. And Yagura didn't need any new tricks to kick ass.

But there was one thing he needed to do before anything else. Visit the old man Teuchi for some ramen.

"Naruto, is that you?" Ayame called out as he sat down at the stand. "Where have you been, have you been cheating on us with another ramen stand?"

Naruto chuckled, "I visited my friend in Mist, and I decided to become a ninja there since I didn't have any friends back here in Konoha."

"I'm happy for you Naruto. Here's a free bowl of Miso Ramen, on the house," she handed her a steaming bowl of deliciousness and Naruto began to eat as he had never tasted food before.

It didn't take many seconds before the bowl was empty.

"Sorry, I've to go find Sasuke and Sakura," Naruto said.

"That's them right?" Ayame asked pointing towards a group of people, including a pink haired girl.

"Yep, thanks for the food," Naruto said and ran towards the group.

"You know that kid is the Hokage's grandson right?" Sasuke asked a black-clad genin from Suna.

"And we're the Kazakage's children. He should learn to show some respect," he replied.

"Just let him go," a blond girl beside him said.

Naruto decided to not read the situation and just barge in.

"Hi, you're here for the Chuunin exam too right?" He asked the group from Suna. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto."

"That's the plan if my idiot brother stops trying to get us kicked out of the village. I'm Temari and that's Kankuro," she said.

"Gaara," a voice coming from a redhead on a tree branch behind them, with a large ceramic gourd on his back.

"Nice to meet you," Naruto said with a huge grin on his face.

"We need to go," Temari said and dragged Kankuro by his suit away from them.

"Kakashi is entering you guys in the exam right?" Naruto asked the group of Konoha-nin.

"Yes, and he promised me that I would gain the Sharingan, one way or another during the exam. So you better watch out," Sasuke answered.

"What other stuff have he taught you since wave?"

Since wave? Sasuke thought. Kakashi had shown them one thing since they graduated and that was tree-walking. A skill he only managed with the help of Naruto. Yes, he had gotten battle experience from wave but no new tricks up his sleeves. Their sensei really needed to teach them something new, and that fast.

"It's a secret, you'll just have to see when you fight me," Sasuke said with a smirk, "And you?"

"Secret," Naruto grinned back.

"We need to find Kakashi," Sasuke whispered in Sakura's ear.

"We need to go, see you later Naruto," Sakura said and left with Sasuke, leaving Naruto alone.

-x-

"You really should have asked earlier you know," Kakashi told his students.

"We wouldn't need to ask if you had been a better teacher, how do you expect us to win the exam with what we know now," Sasuke answered.

"I don't, there will be time if you reach round three however and I intend to use that to great advantage. But you're wrong about you being unprepared. Treewalking will become very useful, though saying any more would be spoiling it and could get you disqualified. And keeping calm in battle is more important than knowing a thousand Jutsu," Kakashi reasoned.

"While you might have a point, the later were more Zabuza's work. Maybe we should find him, along with Haku, us three would create a perfect genin team. How does Zabuza-sensei sound to you Sakura?" Sasuke suggested to his teammate.

"I like it, sure he was terrified and all that, but that just means that no one would want to mess with us."

"Very funny. But there is something we can do in a short amount of time. Crafting and detection of traps. And with the added pay from the A-rank mission, I can supply you with some explosive tags. If you show you can handle them properly that is."

"So tree-walking and trap marking, are you telling us that we're going to be staying in the forest of death during the exam?" Sakura asked.

"Of course I'm not telling you that, that would be cheating," Kakashi answered.

"Why not tell us all the answers we need too while you're at it?" Sasuke asked jokingly.

"Oh, you won't need them," Kakashi replied. "I need to gather some equipment, meet me at the training ground in an hour."

-x-

After a day of rest in Konoha, Naruto and his team were ready to take part in the first part of the exam. And they were currently waiting along with the other examinees.

Though looking around him, everyone looked so intimidating, especially those from Hidden Rain. He was glad for his team. Chōjūrō might have shark teeth, but Yagura was anything but intimidating and would for sure keep them safe.

He noticed some commotion in the corner of the room. A silver-haired Konoha-nin was showing off some cards. He was curious about what it was all about so he followed his teammate towards the boy.

"Gaara, from Suna… Hmm… Not much info on him. Several C-rank, one B-rank. All without a scratch. Impressive," the boy known as Kabuto said.

"B-rank, what's the big deal? We did an A-rank without a scratch," Naruto bragged.

"Can you look them up," Sasuke asked from the side. "Uzumaki Naruto and Yagura from the Hidden Mist, I don't know the name of their last teammate.

"Sure…" Kabuto said and started looking through his deck. Once more after his first search failed. "Sorry, I've nothing on them, though I do notice that Naruto is a former Academy student here in Konoha."

"You're not so good of a spy after all," Yagura taunted, knowing perfectly well why Kabuto couldn't have gathered the necessary information.

"I'm not a spy, information gathering like this is a completely legitimate hobby. If you were chuunin material, you might have understood," Kabuto laughed back.

It wasn't time for much more banter as Ibiki and his army of Chuunin examiners had arrived the scene. Everyone was handed out a number with their seat number, ensuring that teams couldn't just sit together and give each other the answers.

They were given an hour to complete the test and it contained ten questions and told that if they got caught cheated they'd be docked in points. Five strikes and they were out.

Naruto was not happy, written tests were his weak side and these questions made no sense. How where they supposed to know these kinds of things? He wondered how his teammates were doing, but they were sitting behind him, and if he turned around they might be thinking that he was cheating.

There must be something he could answer. What's the best ramen flavour for instance. But as he turned the pages, it only got worse. He could at least start on the first question.

"Question 1: Name all the known hidden villages"

Leaf, Sand, Mist, Rain. Then he had to guess. Stone, Lightning, Ice…

"Question 2: What was the cause for each of the three great ninja wars?"

Who knows stuff like this… Naruto sighed and just rest his head on his desk. And this was the easy portion of the test, the free points you'd get before stuff got real. He'd fail and his friends wouldn't become chuunin, all because for him. Or if he cheated, he'd probably disappoint Yagura by not taking it seriously and put Mist in a bad light.

But he couldn't do anything, just wait till it was all over.

When 50 minutes had gone by, Ibiki was ready for an important message.

"Now, there is one last question and if you don't want to take it, raise your and you may leave and take your team with you. If you choose to stay and you fail, you and your team will no longer be able to become Chuunin."

What should he do, Naruto was in turmoil. If he stayed and failed. Yagura wouldn't become a Chuunin and then he couldn't become Mizukage. If he left, he'd disappoint his friends, but wouldn't destroy their chances in the future.

There was only one thing he could do, and it wasn't easy. He slowly raised his hand to signalize he wanted to give up. Other teams around him had already left, so he wouldn't be the first.

"Hold it"

Yagura yelled out from behind him.

"How stupid do you think we are? The Mizukage would never agree to this. And even if it was true, we would continue on and just jump straight to Jounin if we couldn't become Chuunin."

Naruto put his hand down in an instant. His friend was right if he couldn't become Chuunin he just had to move up another step. They were a badass team that wouldn't be held down for long.

"I guess your team is staying. Do the rest of you believe him? You know, it could be a ploy to make you fail." Ibiki said.

"Why would he try to make us fail like that?" Some random Genin asked from the corner.

"If your village doesn't have enough competent ninja, that means more business to Mist," he answered.

The girl did raise her hand, she was convinced and took with her team with her. But that was the last surrender.

After a painful minute. Ibiki brought good news.

"You all pass. The tenth question was all about your willingness to take a risk even if the information you had on hand was incomplete and that you were willing to sacrifice personal prestige for the mission."

"What about the first 9 questions?" some genin asked.

"It was to test you in information gathering. Which was why we encouraged you to cheat. Normally you'd only get one chance, but then none of you would take the risk," Ibiki explained.

"And what if we didn't cheat?" Sakura asked.

"If you already had the information, then mission accomplished. And if knew you couldn't get away with it, then in many cases it would be better to not try. There is a difference in taking a risk and throwing away your life. If you're doomed to fail, all you're doing is helping the enemy upping their security and securing their secrets.

"Passing this test doesn't mean you're ready to become Chuunin, but it shows that you're not completely useless and falls for simple mind-games. Calm your nerves down and be prepared for tomorrow, next part if much worse. And if you think I'm sadistic, then you've not yet meet Anko."

-x-

Team Mangetsu was at the small apartment they had rented for the trip and their sensei had prepared dinner for them.

"Am I a bad ninja since I didn't get that we were supposed to cheat?" Naruto asked the others around the table.

"No, being a loyal and honest ninja is a valuable quality. Though there are times where we're supposed to break the rules. Even if some edgy genin would claim that being a ninja is all about cheating and deceiving. Proper conduct is important if you want to become and stay a prosperous village. Trading short term victory for long term loss would corrupt a village," Yagura explained.

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked curiously.

"If one promoted the most brutal ninja, those who would be willing to stab their fellow ninja in the back to get what they wanted, how would the village turn out?"

"Everyone would stab each other in the back?" Naruto answered by repeating the question.

"And what would that lead to?" Yagura prompted.

"The village would be at war with itself?" Naruto suggested.

"Exactly, and no one would trust you to hold your deals," Yagura answered. "Though, one also need to make sure to not be let walked over and be taken advantage of. Being a leader is a difficult balancing act. We'll be tested in ways we don't realize tomorrow. Becoming Chuunin is the first step to becoming a leader and we need to act right even we're not told how to act," Yagura told him.

Truth be told, was he even the fault of what had happened to his village? Sure, he wasn't in control of himself, but was the village already in decline when he picked up the hat all those years ago? People who had to kill their classmates to graduate wouldn't come away from it without issues, and there was no one from the younger generations in power back home.

Was he messed up in the head without knowing it himself?

-x-

Team 7 had used their time well, prepared with explosive tags, ninja wire and different other equipment needed to create traps, and what they didn't have on them they could gather in the forest.

They were far from pros at the moment, but a lighting course from Kakashi was better than nothing. And Sai seemed to catch everything quickly. So now they could sleep safely at night, even if they mostly wanted to be done with the exam before the need for sleep caught them. But as a rookie team, that wasn't going to happen. Even if they gathered the requisite scrolls, running towards the tower was just asking for them to be stolen.

"I need you all to sign a waiver before you start," Anko called out and then you'll get your scroll. If you want to quit, now is your chance.

"What's that for?" Sasuke heard Yagura ask their examiner.

"In case something happens to you. You get injured or killed by another team or the forest itself, we're not liable for anything," Anko explained.

"You're making genin kill each other to get a promotion?" Yagura asked a bit more softly, as he was visibly shaking.

Naruto was quick to follow up with giving his teammate a comforting hug.

"We're not making anyone kill anyone, but if it were to happen we're not blaming anyone. If you're this afraid kid, just leave and come back when you're a couple of years older."

A combination of hugs, but mostly rude comments seemed to wake him up again. No one insults his age.

"I'm not afraid, I'm going to beat this exam without hurting anyone!" Yagura yelled out. "Why don't you change your name to Bloody Leaf while you're at it?"

Anko just ignored him and moved on.

-x-

Team Mangetsu had reached their gate, equipped with one of the many Earth Scrolls and was now inside the infamous forest of death.

"What was that about with Anko?" Naruto asked Yagura.

"Bloody Mist is an old nickname of our village. We used to require academy student to kill one of their classmates in a similar kind of exam, letting the weak and soft die, and the strong and merciless live. It wasn't til Zabuza graduated it ended," Yagura said.

"What happened?" Naruto asked.

"He killed his entire class, leaving only him to graduate. The village was forced to end the practise as it was too costly. Which is how he got the nickname Demon of the Mist. But really, he's partly a hero. It has been well over a decade since that day. That's lots of classes who didn't have to suffer through the same experience and overall saved more lives than what he took at the days of his graduation," Yagura explained.

Naruto thought for a moment before asking his next question, "So that's why you were shaking outside? Do you know someone who had to partake in that?"

Yagura stiffens up for a bit before answering, "I don't want to talk about it, maybe one day, but not today."

He couldn't exactly tell his friend that he himself had to kill one of his classmates.

"We need to put up defences. Help me create a large cloud of mist Naruto, don't hold back. If we cover the entire forest, no one can sense where it comes from," Yagura said before turning to Chōjūrō "You can sense our chakra right? Keep close and warn us if we drift apart. "

-x-

"Do you sense that," Sakura asked her teammates as it began to be harder to see around them.

"Mist," Sai stated and looked at Sasuke's frozen body. "Anything wrong dickless?"

"Not now, Sai" Sakura grunted at her creepy teammate. "Sasuke, try to focus, we can do this. Defeat them and take their scroll, then we can run to the tower and get out of here."

It had gone all well in Wave. It was Sakura that had frozen up and could act. Why was it so hard now? The sensation of a huge ass sword swinging at him swept him.

What was different now?

There was no Kakashi to bail them out, there was no sensation that everything was bound to go well. It was real and they were on their own.

He needed to steel himself. He didn't have any reason to be afraid of their team. They were strong but not murderous monsters. Naruto he knew, his blue-haired friend looked harmless and his sword didn't wake as much terror in him. And the idea that genin would be allowed to kill each other made the last one shake.

But yet, his brain had made one big association to the mist.

Death

They were all keeping their eyes and ears open. Standing still to not draw attention to their position and making sure they didn't miss any sound.

But after what felt like minutes and probably was minutes too. Nothing happened. Not even a tiny rodent ran nearby.

"We should move on," Sai suggested and pulled out one of his scrolls he used for his drawings "The mist is everywhere, they're not targeting us. Let's the mist to our advantage."

Sai started drawing a bird, and after a few moments, he had it ready and could bring it to life and jumped on the back, signalizing to the others to do the same.

"Why didn't you do this before?" Sakura asked him as she climbed up on the bird.

"Without the mist, we'd be seen flying over the trees and could be shoot down, now we have the perfect cover."

As soon as Sasuke got a steady grip, Sai took to the air and started to fly over the canopy. And they were right, the mist was just as thick in the air as back on the ground and there wasn't possible to see any discerning landmarks in any direction. So they had to fly low, not only to catch any easy prey to get a scroll from but if they accidentally flew out of the area, they'd sure be disqualified.

Sasuke did start to feel a bit better now that they were in a much better position. It was unlikely that any other genin team was doing something similar to them. Creating birds wasn't exactly a common skill.

-x-

Naruto, Yagura and Chōjūrō were facing their first enemy. One of the many nameless Rain teams who seemed to have found a way to partially counter the mist.

"Just give us your scrolls and we can move on," Yagura yelled to his enemy.

"You seems to be one of the weaker teams here, taking yours will just be some fun warm up in case we meet some real ninja. You're the guy that began shaking and pissing your pants earlier after all," one of the enemy Genin taunted.

"Let's knock them out," Yagura gestured to his team.

They had planned for this and Naruto and Yagura starting sending multiple waves of water dragons against their attackers while Chōjūrō was being ready to counter anyone charging at them.

The attack didn't do much, only created some large puddles around the enemy.

"You know what our village is known for right? Rain. You're not the only water-based village. Someone must have wanted you guys dead for them to send you here," more taunts hurled at them from the Rain-nin.

A quick nod from Yagura was all the signalling Naruto needed. One of the many advantages of water Jutsu was how versatile they were as soon as you had a body of water to work with. And that included the water clone.

Without warning, multiple clones of Naruto and Yagura formed from the puddles and appeared around the other team. Punching and kicking them, while Chōjūrō was running at them at full speed to take advantage of the distraction.

It was a short encounter that ended with a smack to the head with a heavy sword.

Chōjūrō then went onto checking their bodies for anything useful.

"Looks like they just had another earth scroll," he said and threw it to Yagura. "And some bagged food on them, should we take it?"

"No!" Yagura answered with no hesitation. "They may have poisoned it in order to trap any attackers, and if it isn't poisoned, we don't want to starve them when they wake up again. If we just find the right scroll, we can get out of here before we get really hungry anyway."

-x-

Kakashi was barging into the Hokage's office.

"When did you plan on telling me that Yagura was entering the exam?" He yelled at Hiruzen.

"Is this how you great your Hokage? Besides, when were you going to tell me that he took over Wave while on your mission there? I read your report, and it said nothing about that or the 'Great Yagura Bridge' named in his honour," the Hokage inquired.

"I might have forgotten something, I apologize, but that doesn't explain why you let that madman play around with our genin," Kakashi argued.

"It has everything with you Kakashi, if it wasn't for the mess you created on your trip there, he wouldn't have any leverage over us. And it's not like having him here isn't advantageous for us. Having Naruto visit Konaha again might turn him around," The Hokage explained before pointing to his crystal ball and asked. "Do you know what this is?"

Kakashi gave a silent nod.

"I'm keeping watch over him, and he's behaving, barely using any force to defeat his first opponent. He's showing chuunin like behaviour, and if he gets to the last round, I'll be sure to recommend him for promotion," he said as he laughed.

"And him changing the weather in the forest just make it a lot easier for the jounin and ANBU to stay hidden while they are keeping watch over the genin. Making sure none of them are stupid enough to kill each other for the sake of a promotion. We've already had to disqualify several teams. What are they thinking, that attempting to kill our genin will gain them any favours? If we actually let genin kill each other we would all be at war due to ninja seeking revenge for their fallen."

-x-

Team 7 had no luck trying to find anyone. Turns out that flying over everyone else drastically reduced the chance for any encounters. But finally they found someone, or rather someone found them. Their flying ink bird let out a cry before it poofed and left them falling to the ground.

The ground gave them a somewhat soft landing, but it was still hard enough to leave them unable to move for the moment.

"Who of you have the scroll?" The girl on the team asked.

"I've it, it's a heaven's scroll," Sasuke answered.

"Dang it," she cursed. "Since we're all from Konoha, let me introduce you to my team. I'm Tenten and that's Hyuuga Neji and Lee," she said as she was pointing to the respective ninja. They were close enough to see through the mist.

"I'm Uchiha Sasuke"

"Haruno Sakura"

"Sai"

Each of them replied back.

"Oh, you're the last Uchiha, do you have the Sharingan yet?" Tenten asked.

"No, I don't. It would be useful here," Sasuke replied.

"So what's do you say to us teaming up? Neji can easily navigate through the forest with his eyes. Though the first earth scroll goes to us, what do you say?" she suggested.

"I don't think we have any choice, it's probably going to stay like this for a while," Sasuke answered.

"You know what's causing it?" Lee asked.

"It's the Mist team, and they seemingly have a lot of chakra to waste," Sasuke answered.

"So, if we can find them, we can tell them to turn it off?" Lee asked back.

"No," Neji interrupted. "I've seen their chakra, more than anyone else here by a wide margin, even that creepy grass-nin wouldn't match them. We shouldn't mess with them. I can't guarantee to be able to block their chakra path before getting defeated myself, and you're of no use as long as you can see."

"You're right. Kakashi told me that something is up with Naruto's friend. I'm not allowed to go into details. But I have a nagging feeling he could defeat all six of us alone if he wanted to. He stopped Kakashi from killing a missing-nin in Wave. Kakashi graduated quite early, same with… ," Sasuke was about to mention that man, but he stopped himself. "If he has been a genin since he was seven or eight, he'd have many years of experience by now and should really be a Chuunin already. And Naruto claimed they had completed an A-rank. It may have been involving wave or it could be something else. And lastly, him being shaken up by Anko's threats isn't a sign of inexperience, but rather previous experience in the manner. I'd guess some of his former teammates died which is why Naruto got into his team."

"So then we agree on avoiding them?" Tenten suggested, "If he's overprotective of his team, he might not take any chances."

"I think so, even if Naruto is friendly with me, this is a competition and we're from different villages. It's a tense situation and we're enemies here."

-x-

The smell was horrible, Temari thought to herself. And it was just a question of time before someone would stumble upon them.

Right as he said that, the silhouettes of another genin team appeared in the mist. And suddenly the mist started to clear around them, making the clearing much more visible.

Their headband was clear as day, Hidden Mist.

The one on the middle, purple hair and a scar down his left eye looked around at the corpses lying around before he took a step forward and looked at them.

"Hi, I'm Yagura, who are you?" He greeted with an arm stretched out.

"Stay away from us," Temari yelled at them.

"Why?" Yagura asked and cocked his head.

How stupid was he?

"My brother will kill you," she tried to explain.

"Him?" Yagura pointed to Kankuro.

"No, not him," she growled back at him and subtly nodded towards Gaara, to make it even more obvious, while trying to not piss him off.

"Ah, Naruto," he said, pointing to one of his teammates. "I didn't know he was your brother, he never told me that he had a sister in Suna. I guess I can see it now, you both have blond hair. But I don't think he's going to kill.." Yagura said and paused for a second. "Oh, you mean the cute redhead? He looks quite harmless, I just want to hug him. Besides, what makes you think you have a chance against us?"

Great, she found a guy who was even crazier than Gaara. Using the words, cute, harmless and hug alongside her brother was the words of a madman.

What could she say to him to make him leave? She did not enjoy seeing the blood fo her enemies flow. Yagura might be crazy and annoying, but that didn't warrant a death sentence.

What went through that monster's head now. Normally, she'd assume he'd attack right now, but he hesitated. Though normally people would be afraid of Gaara, not borderline flirting with him.

She could see that the boy whispered something to his teammates, then a bit back and forth arguing before they pulled back at several meters.

He then turned towards Gaara again and yelled, "Attack me!"

Gaara didn't make a move, was Gaara afraid of the boy?

"Attack me or I kill you!" Yagura yelled again.

Temari and Kankuro did the only thing sensible and steered away from them. The boy clearly wanted to die, and she had tried to stop him several times.

Gaara's sand hurled towards the boy and Yagura slammed his hand towards the sand. From the point of contact, large corals started to grow and were spreading towards Gaara. Making the sand unusable in the process.

Gaara pulled as much sand he could away from the spreading corals and tried hitting his enemy again, but Yagura was too mobile for that and the process repeated.

She could see her brother getting agitated. Gaara was a one trick pony, and that tricked tended to work against everyone, apart from this one. She really hoped he wouldn't release the Shukaku inside here, that would ruin the entire plan.

"See, I told you that he was harmless," the mist boy called out to her. "No wonder he's so angry all the time when you're mean towards him."

Mean? He killed people, and he was not harmless. When she got the chance, she'll pummel that stupid head of his with her fan.

"This is starting to get boring," Yagura complained, "I thought we'd get some real challenges now that we're about to become Chuunin. Time to stop playing around and take this seriously."

What, he was holding back? Temari wanted to scream out to whatever god had forsaken her. You didn't play around while fighting Gaara, you didn't hold back. You performed 110% while trying to not die.

Out of nowhere a water clone feel from the sky and hit Gaara's shoulder, making corals spread around and imprisoning his body. Completely trapping him and making his body immobile. And there was no sand left to attack, as it was all trapped by the enemy's Jutsu.

Her brother was defeated by a little pipsqueak.

Gaara started to scream and shut his eyes. Though there was no sign of Shukaku escaping.

"̪̉I̧̪͑̈́ ͙͋l̩͞o̦̺͑̈s͖̀t̝̅…͓̂

͚̖͆͡"͈͉́̌M͚̌ǫ͕̑͗t͚̽͋͢ĥ͜ë̱́ṛ̅…̖̊

͎̥̑͞"̧͚͒͌M͇͆ȳ̢̧̐ ͖͊ẽ̤͓͑x̫͇̒͛i̥̳͒̌s̮͊t͇̿e̡̔ň̨c̬̤͒͘é̥͓͗

̧̳̃͊"̩̉Ȋ͢…̛̪̍ͅ

̠͎̏̚"̯̒͡ͅS̘͆t̙̿͑ͅa̘̕ÿ̼̻̽ ̬͔͗͝ȁ̱͓̓ẁ̧à̗y̟̏"̞͖̿́

Gaara started to shake and mumble like crazy. But it didn't stop Yagura from approaching and Temari had no idea what he was planning to do.

But hugging Gaara was the last thing she thought anyone would do in this situation.

"It's okay," Yagura said and the corals started to dissolve as he was embracing her brother. She saw his hands glow as Gaara's body stopped moving around.

"Did you kill him?" Temari asked. Her eyes were wide, her world was turned upside down.

"No, I forced Shukaku to leave for a moment," Yagura answered. "And I told you that I was going to hug your cute little brother, so why do you look so shocked?"

"Gaara, you lost. It's time to move on. There are more to life than this. You're allowed to lose a battle. You don't need to kill anyone anymore to prove your existence," he whispered in his ear before raising his voice again. "You're not alone, I and Naruto are Jinchuuriki's too. Let us be your friends. I invite the three of you out for lunch together when we get out, what you guys like to eat?"