Konan sped through the trees in superhuman, fast leaps. She had important information for Pein and the others. She felt almost naked as she only had regular clothes, four kunai and two scrolls of paper that did not even have any explosive tags written upon them.

She was following the river up to the Valley of the End when she paused. The red-head frowned as she looked around. Everything looked the same, but their was an unease permeating the air. A thick, fetid atmosphere seemed to have eclipsed the area, much like the leavings of chakra after battling a Tailed Demon or its container.

And yet the area itself seemed untouched since the last time she had been by. The two ninja of antiquity still stared at each other across the waterfall, as they always had.

'Though there might be a reason for that,' Konan mused. If the Uchiha of Team Seven became the container of a Tailed Demon, then the entire team could be called Team Demon. Instead of merely 'the new three ninja'.

That such a thing could be possible was something Nagato had never planned for and should be impossible. But somehow Konoha had figured out a way to bind a Tailed Demon into a teen, a secret thought lost to that hidden village of the Whirlpools. Konan shuddered at the thought of the Professor, The Legendary Sucker or the Toad Sage with the power of a Demon on top of their nearly legendary power. Orochimaru having that sort of power nearly made her physically ill.

With that thought driving her, she continued her run to the Land of Rain.

Behind her, black sand started to weep from the statues.

Akatsuki was once more called to order. Pein's lavender Rinnegan eyes studied all of various members of the group. "Konan has returned from her recon of Konoha."

Kisame Hoshigaki sneered at the female ninja. "I don't know why we even have her. She's weak and now that damned big-titted cow in charge of Konoha knows how she spies." He leaned on Samehada in his projection. The living sword of shredding seemed to pulse its scales.

"While it is true that Konoha is now aware of how to notice my spying, I feel it was worth it for the information I managed to recover," the girl with the paper flower in her hair said. "I have discovered the container for the One Tail."

"Ah right! That means its Art Time!" Diedara almost shouted. He, like most of the members of Akatsuki, was here only in projection in the cave before the demon sealing statue.

"It is Sheila of the Leaf," Konan stated.

That seemed to confuse the other members.

"So her seal is unstable? How long until she dies and it fails?" Kakuzu the ancient ninja from the era of the First Hokage asked.

Pein interceded at this point. "She shows no sign of ill health. Nor can we discount that she might have figured out a way to seal a Tailed Beast into an adult. Or even a very young chunin. She seems to have a very keen mind."

Sasori clattered slightly as he stood in his hunched over way. "You are not seriously considering that Konoha has figured out a way to seal the Tailed Demons into full adults and allow them to access the beasts total powers, are you?"

The Rinnegan studied him carefully. "We have to consider it possible. If each of the Kages or other S-Rank ninja of the main villages were to be able to gain that power..."

Hidan seemed unimpressed. "Each of us can easily defeat-"

"Don't be a fool, death priest." Sasori seemed very intent. "Defeating children with the power of a Tailed Beast is nothing compared to the likes of the Hokage or the Tsuchikage. Can you imagine the Raikage with the power of the Three Tail on top of his own lightning speed?"

"So we need to double team the One and Nine Tails, right?" Diedara asked in confusion.

"They are under the protection of Jiraiya," Itachi noted, his own Sharingan studying every member closely. "Also, while we could potentially muster enough power to defeat him, two demon containers and my brother, they are likely to almost instantly summon reinforcements as they do against the Sound in their war."

"I have been speaking with a master of time-space techniques. He is sure that he can counter their ability to summon reinforcements... at least once. The area that can be sealed though is only about ten kilometers wide. It is likely that they will appear at the edge of the field and then track us at full speed to where we will have to enact our ritual." Pein let that sink in to them.

"Then we better make it count," Kisame remarked harshly.

"And it is still too early. Our timeline is to start to take the Tailed Beasts starting next year. So we must spy on the 'Neo-Sennin' and learn their weakness," Pein ordered, causing grumbles among the attendant monsters.

That was when the black and white Zetsu finally spoke. "Master Pein, I must admit that I can't keep those three under watch. They have somehow figured out a way to spot me."

"Doesn't the girl use clones to continue to work and study within Konoha?" Itachi asked in his flat, dead tone.

"Both spies are unable to directly keep an eye on Konoha?" Kakuzu said as he narrowed his beady eyes. "That is worrisome."

"Then it will fall to you, Sasori of the Red Sands, to keep us appraised of what is going on within Konoha," Pain stated.

The beetle-looking member of Akatsuki nodded slightly. "I will need the assistance and knowledge of Itachi in my endeavors."

"You will have it," the missing ninja of the Uchiha stated simply in reply.

Sasuke did not feel pain in his eyes as he shifted it from black obsidian to three tomoe, then to shuriken Mangekyo. In the reflection of the mirror, he saw the pale-silver edging and could not be sure what it meant. Could it have to do with how Sheila had activated them to break her out of his own Tsukuyomi? He shook his head as he exited his little wooden cottage.

"Morning!" Naruto called out as he opened the door to his own little house he had created. Wood techniques were the best for the comfort of home! "Where's Sheila?"

"I think I heard her head out for a run. She will be back in about ten minutes," the last, loyal Uchiha stated simply as he started to warm up.

The young member of the Senju clan looked a bit confused. "You know, I still don't understand where she is running. The island is way too small for her speed."

"She's running on top of the ocean, Naruto." Sasuke tried to ignore the blonde's ability to be dense at times.

"Oh, I guess that works."

Sasuke sighed. There were days he wondered how even with that "secret test" that Naruto became a ninja. That was when he tensed at someone intruding through the sensor wards of the island. "Naruto, we have unexpected visitors."

They both took off to the other side of the island, seeing a group of ninja walking on the surface of the ocean from the north.

"Sound ninja. How did Orochimaru find us?" Naruto asked even as he sent off several clones to pass on messages to warn of the attack.

They barely reacted to the sneak attack from behind as two large snakes tried to bite them, missing by the barest of margins.

The figure behind them made a 'kukukuku' sound. "Much better than just a year ago."

"Don't you have a village to run?" Sasuke remarked in a seemingly bored voice.

"He probably has to use his desk for a boat!" Naruto joked with a terribly wide grin on his face.

That caused Orochimaru to hiss at them in annoyance. "It took a while to find your lovely little hidey hole, but I really need to get rid of you before you manage to destroy everything I've worked towards. Konoha was supposed to be a mere shell of its power, not suddenly the preeminent Hidden Village," the Snake Sennin said with a cold smile on his face. "I will enjoy-"

"Lord Orochimaru, she's returning," a red-headed girl with glasses called out as she opened her eyes.

With a flash, Sheila reappeared on top of a boulder overlooking the Sound Ninja. "They finally found us." Her blue-green eyes were studying the Snake Sennin and his forces here. When she spoke, it was in a strangely coded way that only her two teammates understood. "He has three jonin level people here at least. The rest are chunin at best-"

Orochimaru smiled nastily. "It's so impolite to hold a conversation and exclude us. We will have to train some manners into you for the last moments of your life."

Around the island a purple-green barrier rose up and sealed them in.

Sasuke's Sharingan was whirling as he traced the chakra patterns. "A-Rank anti-transportation barrier. It will even stop most summons."

Only Sasuke and Sheila actually noticed the subtle widening of the leader of Sound's eyes. "Kill them all," the Missing Ninja called out.

"With pleasure. You guys all talk to much," a man with spiky dull blond hair shouted, even as his arms transformed in a similar manner to the curse seal. With a roar, he charged forward and swung his massive fists at the nearest Leaf ninja, causing Naruto to bounce back in a dodge while twenty clones appeared.

"Let's get wild!" the young Uzumaki shouted as he pulled out a kunai and charged up rasengans in each of the clones hands. Then he tossed the kunai a bit haphazardly at the Sound Ninja. With a flash he and his clones traversed the distance to his Flying Thunder God seals and killed three chunin with streamers of light.

Only Karin, the chunin sensor, had properly detected his attack, while the jonin had managed to mostly get out of the way. Well, except for the hooded one in the middle who had not bothered to flee. Little flakes of his body just started to swirl back to reform his body.

"Impure World Resurrection-" Sheila started to say when she grabbed her neck and shoulder in apparent pain with her left hand. Something seemed to be bulging from her neck like some giant boil as her triple redundancy seals sought to contain the cursed Seal of Heaven.

"Seal of Heaven unlock," Orochimaru called out as he finished his hand-seals. "Jugo, kill her"

The half-transformed berserker roared as he charged forward, slamming his gray fists down in a massive pile-driver attack. Two dainty hand had caught them, much to his and Orochimaru's surprise.

"You can control your chakra in such a state?" the rogue sannin asked even as he dodged (by the barest of margins) Sasuke's Lava Edge attack. The chakra lava attack blasted a fifty foot long divot into the island, causing Karin to whimper and scramble away.

Naruto blinked in shock as the ninja with shark-like sharpened teeth just blew apart into water from his Rasengan. "Whoa-what!?" The water fist blasted his chin and sent him flying. Two of his clones popped up out of the ground and caught him, one going so far to slap him coherent.

The Mist Missing Ninja frowned at that as he was not quick enough to capitalize on the opening. Jugo was having a bit of a problem and even Orochimaru had to focus on his Sharingan using foe. "Kabuto, start killing them already," he complained loudly.

The dead Sound Ninja medic nodded as he tossed his hood back. He charged forward to sever hamstrings or tendons, killing two of Naruto's clones with a bit of effort. "You've improved, boy," the traitor to the Leaf noted in a deadened voice.

"Man, that is so creepy," Naruto complained even as he made a hand-seal and disappeared with a flash of yellow. His after-image was punched through by Kabuto.

The remaining chunin except for Karin were busy activating their second level seal, seemingly turning into inhuman looking monsters. Jugo was chasing after the black and white camouflaged demigoddess, weathering the blows raining down upon him. He had a grim smile on his face. "Having a problem using your ninjitsu?" he asked in a condescending manner.

"Yes, so change of plan," the girl said as she slipped out two short swords that were similar to Roman gladiuses. It was a moment of concentration and they started to crackle with lightning through her mastery of the divine nature of the Storm, not a ninja technique. She suddenly charged back and slammed both sword hard on his huge, gauntlet-like arms. The double boom of thunder was nearly deafening and blasted Jugo over two hundred feet into the ocean.

"What the hell was that?" one of the transformed monsters asked even as they blurred over to surround the demigoddess.

Said demigoddess narrowed her eyes, even as she brought into this world a pale fragment of war; the Perfect Soldier, cold and ruthless. Suddenly, all of the second-stage curse seal chunin had to steel their raging will, shying away from her as she appeared behind the first one, removing his head with a splatter of blood.

The undead Kabuto charged at her, only to see her move at nearly flicker-movement speeds of about fifty to seventy-five feet a second as she beheaded yet another stage-two heaven seal user. "You will eventually get tired," Kabuto said, a dark glint in his eyes. There was no conflict with wanting to kill the girl that captured him. That had led to his death by torture, after all. Rapid flicker travel would- Kabuto suddenly stopped chasing her as he suddenly noticed something.

There was no swirl of leaves, water droplets, sand, dust or mist when she moved.

"You aren't using chakra," the undead genius declared even as his arm was ripped off by one of Naruto's rasengan. His dead flesh swirled back together.

Orochimaru flickered away from Sasuke faster then the boy could keep up. "What are you gabbling about?" He guessed that the old adage about if you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself. "Seal of Heaven- burn." His hands were flickering though seals faster than most jonin could even see. Then a final seal as he substituted one of his mud clones that exploded from Sheila and Naruto attacking it. "Expel."

The young scion actually screamed this time as the center of the blister that was the cursed seal ejected all of its absorbed, malignantly changed chakra in a spray of black blood. It actually ripped a greater portion of her own chakra out in the process. With her eyes closed for just a second, Kabuto struck with his lethal chakra scalpels across her neck. She collapsed onto her face, a large pool of blood forming on the rock of the island they had called home.

"Sheila!" Naruto shouted as he created two rasengans and slammed them home through the Impure Resurrection's torso.

Jugo charged in and roared as he reshaped one of his arms into a vicious, claw like a razor edged, alien scorpion and ripped off the boy's right arm as he spotted the opening the boy's frontal assault had given him. "Got you. That just leaves the Uchiha for you, Suigetsu. Don't forget, Orochimaru wants him alive."

"I know," the Mist Ninja snapped back.

Said Uchiha was very seriously considering the matter. He could probably defeat one of the Snake's jonins, but with the number of ninja and Orochimaru himself... He flung one of his improved kunai in an apparent near miss against Jugo and the redhead sensor (that was sneaking around) and then made a handsign.

The moment Sasuke appeared on the water he was charging the barrier as he pulled out a very wide, flat dagger covered in runes from a sealed space on his arm. Effectively what he had was a portable barrier that reacted very violently with it struck another barrier technique. Now if he really was twice as powerful as one of the Sound Ninja outside, he might not fry himself like a bug.

The flat, glowing, seal-rune covered dagger slammed home against the purple barrier. Both techniques struggled against each other for just a second.

"No!" Orochimaru shouted, though whether it was to stop Sasuke's apparent suicide or if he had divined the reason for the reaction.

The Sound Ninja at the west most point of the four corner seal technique felt the barrier react, then wondered why everything was spinning around as his head splashed into the water. Then the rest of his body followed as it forgot how to mold chakra.

With a flash from hidden seals on the island, Leaf ninja from Konoha appeared. Tsunade Senju, the Fifth Hokage stared haughtily at her old team mate. At her side was the near giant of the Toad Sage, Jiraiya. The other side had a silver-haired jonin with one Sharingan eye revealed. More jonin, special jonin and even a few powerful chunin had been transported by the summoning technique.

"Orochimaru, it is time to die," the buxom leader of Konoha declared.

The leader of the Hidden Village of Sound just chuckled. "You don't think I am going to stay here where I'm outnumbered-!?" His swipe across his arm's tattoo seal had failed to summon a new breed of snake that could swallow him and then return to their jungle lands.

At that point, the Sheila that had appeared at Kakashi's side, reacted to the sight of the figure bleeding out. The clone realized that her real self was on the edge of death. She frowned as she thought over the medical techniques she could use. With a shake of her head, she realized that they would take too long in the middle of a combat. She latched onto the divine ichor transplanted into her and then healed up the Sheila dying on the ground. This overloaded her fragile cloned existence, causing her to revert to black inky blood in a spray of smoke.

"I'm alive?" Shelia croaked. "Then we succeeded at drawing him into the trap." She struggled weakly to her feet.

"Yes, Orochimaru has been drawn into our trap. It appears you managed to figure out how to pierce the enemy's barrier. Well done. As expected of Team 7. Now, kill his underlings. The traitor is ours." Tsunade blasted forward in a blur, covering the distance in half a second and lashing out with a kick.

Orochimaru ducked the kick, but not her other foot as Tsunade seamlessly continued the spin to lash out to his face with a perfectly controlled snap-kick to his face. He rocketed away to smash into a large obsidian boulder with bone-breaking force.

"That's better than you have been-" The snake sannin heard the chakra grinding through the air as his right side armor was ripped of by Jiraiya's Rasengan.

"Good student's push their teacher." The old pervert created another Rasengan in his hand, larger and more tightly controlled.

Orochimaru had to vomit a replacement body, shedding his old damaged one and then slipping under both of his old teammates well planned attack. "We shall have to see. Let's test how long you can last," he said with a smile still on his face.

The red-headed sensor ninja from Sound had thrown up her hands. "I surrender! I surrender!"

"Oh, you bitch! I'm going to rip your head off for that," Jugo complained loudly even as he turned his fists into rock-like battering rams. The kunai into his back hardly annoyed him. But the flash of Sasuke arriving, a Chidori already landing from his version of the Flying Thunder God punched through the half-monster ninja. Jugo looked down at the crackling hand that had emerged where his heart had been. With a pained groan, he collapsed to the ground, dying.

"I'm just about spent, Kakashi," the last Uchiha admitted. Two special jonin had stabbed down with a kunai and a short straight blade on Jugo's neck to make sure he was dead.

"Don't worry, I think we can handle this," his masked ex-teacher said in a way that almost seemed like a smiling wink.

Kabuto was busy fighting against Maito Gai, Asuma Sarutobi, Anko Mitarashi and Neji Hyuga

Naruto had never stopped glowing with the hellish aura of the Nine Tailed Fox. "Damn that hurts," he complained. How was he supposed to fight?

"Naruto. One second." Sheila moved next to him, feeling the drain on her body and mind greatly. She was holding out a strange, silver amulet in front of her.

With a shout of surprise, Naruto suddenly flexed his regrown arm. "Whoa, cool! Did you learn that from Granny?"

"The copycat Kakashi?" the half-water Suigetsu said. "Too bad your Sharingan can't copy my power." He charged forward, only to see his punch pulverize the ground and not the two Sharingan-wielding ninja. He ignored throwing stars, kunai and even one massive club that splashed into his watery form from several of the reinforcements.

"Hmm. Tricky. I suppose I could see if you can survive being electrocuted, but I suspect you can with that strange form." Kakashi suddenly started to make two sets of hand-seals, then suddenly exhaled a cone of pure cold ice-shards right in the Missing Ninja of the Mist. With a single forefinger, he flicked the abruptly created ice-statue with one finger, knocking it over.

Anko smirked at that.

"Decided to use some physics against him, Kakashi?" Sheila said, before swallowing three soldier pills and crunching noisily on them. She made a face at the bad taste of the pills.

"Just a little research for an upcoming mission, I think. Water freezes or turns to steam, but it takes a lot more chakra to heat up the water than it does to freeze it."

Sasuke nodded at that as Tsunade and Jiraiya continued to battle their old teammate. "They are going to destroy our island."

"We expected that," Naruto noted as he watched the previous Team 7 continue to battle. "Man, this might take a while."

Off in the distance on the horizon, three ninja were standing on the ocean's waves while they studied the fight off in the distance.

Pein's Rinnegan took in the details that only the possessor of an eye-technique bloodline could hope to see. "How long, Zetsu?" His red hair could possibly stand out on the waves, but he doubted anyone would see them at this distance.

"About twenty minutes," the black and white spy-monster of Akatsuki stated. "Though it appears it was a trap of some sort."

"Yes. Orochimaru was tricked into attacking them on Tsunade's order. Thankfully, while these Neo-Sannin are dangerous, they are not quite to the level of their mentors," the other red and black cloaked Akatsuki said. His swirled mask only had one eye hole which the Sharingan stared out of.

"They are altering the face of war and commerce. I have heard that Konoha can deploy their ninja to their borders within mere hours," Pein said as he watch passively. "This allows them to utilize their ninja more effectively. They waste less time on travel, so earn their village more money."

"We are still undercutting their business," Tobi noted.

"Only Sunakagure is feeling the effect of our plan to cripple their economy. And they have finally moved to choose their new kage," Zetsu interjected helpfully from his half-opened Venus flytrap that floated on the surface of the water.

"Yes, that might start to hinder our continuing objective in the Land of Wind," Pein said. "There. That is a very subtle barrier. ANBU masks."

Both eye techniques had finally spotted a group of ANBU that had set up in an nearly invisible fog bank. The genjitsu was subtle, but nothing that their eyes could not pierce once aware of it.

Zetsu smirked evilly. "So it is time to kill them and let Orochimaru rampage some more."

"A shorter, monkey-masked ANBU?" Tobi noted suddenly. "Sarutobi. While we might be able to defeat them and free Orochimaru, but one of us might die against him."

"I thought the Third Hokage had retired?" the black and white plant-thing asked in confusion.

"With his wife who was killed during the Nine Tails rampage," Tobi said in such a manner that almost seemed to allude to something deeper. "He will probably keep himself busy in the background. Perhaps replacing Danzo as the Root of Konoha."

"It is approaching the climax," Pein said as he turned his superior vision back to the far off battle.

Tsunade smashed her fist into the ground right next to Orochimaru again. "Wood prison encompassing style!" she abruptly called out as a huge amount of trees suddenly exploded out of the ground around the snake master.

"So you mastered that?" her old teammate said as he just barely escaped being imprisoned. The sleeves from his fancy kimono were not so lucky.

"Oh, no. I've barely started to learn. The fact that I can use some of the techniques in my healing is very useful," the busty leader of Konoha stated. The smirk on her lips said there was more to what she was saying than what was actually given out.

"Ku-ku-ku. This is really annoying," Orochimaru said as the ground was again pounded. If he had dared to slip into the ground to fight from below like he normally did, Tsunade would crush him. Damn her impossible strength. Another Rasengan nearly hit his leg even as he dashed backwards onto the water. His hands started to flash through a set of hand-seals, unleashing a dragon of water that roared like a waterfall as it charged towards them.

With a massive splash, it engulfed the Hokage and the Toad Sage's location with crushing power. It was the whirring-grinding noise of shaped chakra that gave Orochimaru just a split second warning as they came flying out of the Sun from their flicker escape upwards. The whirling attack missed even as Orochimaru started to smile when one, glowing green finger touched the back of his neck.

"You always did dodge to the left when you were surprised," Tsunade said as she landed lightly on the water, sheathing a rune covered kunai in her belt. Using one of the Neo-Sannin's teleportation techniques had been tricky in timing, but well within her capabilities. Especially as she could study the original Thunder God Technique.

Orochimaru was gibbering insanely in his mind as his body (his wonderful, immortal body!) betrayed him. Everything below his neck quit responding as he splashed face down into the water.

Jiraiya reached down and then pulled his old teammate out of the churning surf. "This is your end. I made a promise that I would bring you back to Konoha. And I am, with you as a prisoner."

The two of them walked back to the shattered island as the rest of the attack squad worked on containing the the Impure Resurrection of Kabuto.

"We'll have to look at a better way to counter this technique," Tsunade said seriously as the high level jonin worked at immobilizing him long enough to seal him away.

Finally after three more minutes, the undead was hidden within a massive amount of wrapped up bandages with a seal upon him.

Anko blew a raspberry at the captured undead. "I guess we need to find his sacrifice." The special jonin almost skipped away from Asuma, Maito, Kurenai and Inoichi. She stopped right next to their one captured Sound Ninja. "Hi!"

"Hi?" Karin responded carefully.

"You're going to tell me all about his sacrifice for the Summoning: Impure Resurrection technique. Or I'll string you up by your guts and lets snakes eat them in front of your face." Anko looked terribly cherubic (and oh so wrong) while saying this all with a cheerful tone of voice.

"EEEEP!"

Konoha was celebrating the end of the (mostly) one-sided war. It had been almost a week of open market parties and feasts. But all things came to an end. Especially for those just entering the truth of the ninja life.

Blue-green eyes looked over the expectant faces of the eleven years. Sheila stood in front of her students next to the chunin Iruka Umino. When she had started teaching two years ago, she had been the assistant and he the superior, but with her promotion to special jonin, she had been bumped up while the chunin had been working on the more standardized and improved curriculum she had laid the foundation on.

Konhamaru was giving the girl an odd look as he realized her black and white 'leaf' armored vest had changed. Hanabi Hyugi had also noticed, but had not deigned to make any visible note.

"Congratulations, graduates. Each of you has passed all of your tests with a grounding in what you are going to be expected to do as ninja of the Leaf," the young jonin said in a cool, collected voice but let a hint of pride show. "Everyone here has earned this and has exceeded the new requirements. Some of you flourished, all of you struggled at times."

Iruka nodded. "After this day, you will not be my students, but full fledged ninja of Konoha. We will start with your first team. Team 2 will be Hiroki Ugumi, Hebisu and Moegi, your jonin teacher will be Maito Gai."

The door opened and the green spandex wearing taijitsu specialist stepped in. He gave them a thumb's up and smile. "Come with me. I shall ignite the fire of your youth."

Several more teams were assigned when Iruka got to Team 8. "Konohamaru Sarutobi, Hanabi Hyuga and Itomi Abami. You will join jonin Sheila."

The class looked quite comical. "Noooo!" Konohamaru shouted out. He had thought he would escape his fiendish teacher. "I wanted my rival Naruto as teacher!"

Sheila coughed behind her hand to hide her smile. "Unfortunately, Jonin Naruto is currently undergoing advanced training outside of the village for a few months. You three, come along." Sheila had been a bit miffed that Jiraiya had taken him to talk to the Toad Clan. She really needed to look at a summon contract for herself.

She led them to the rooftop where she had them introduce themselves, their likes and dislikes.

"Very good. Usually you need to ask about your teacher, but you three already know about me. Now that you have passed the graduation test, you must still pass my test to qualify Team 8." She gave the three students a moment and it was the boisterous Konohamaru that figuratively blew up.

"WHAT!? We worked hard to pass that test," the grandson of the Third Hokage shouted loudly, getting a wince from the other two genin.

"So you think you are better than myself, every other jonin and all of the Hokages since the Third?" she replied dangerously, leaking a little killing intent.

"My grandfather took this test? Then I'll pass it for sure!" the scarf-wearing eleven year old promised.

"I would hope so, as this test still has a greater than fifty percent failure rate." Sheila hoped she had changed that by actually implementing team training exercises during class, but that would depend on how they meshed together. "I want you to show up at Training Ground Three at dawn. I don't suggest you eat, unless you want to puke it all out. It will be survival training."

Hanabi looked slightly ill, still remembering the chunin exam where the young jonin in front of her had humiliated her cousin, Neji Hyuga, who was very well known as a genius of the clan. Her sister had improved, but the fights between Hinata and Neji still generally went to the older boy. He had even just barely made special jonin.

Ikomi Abami looked decidedly unwell, as he was the bottom end of the class and knew he had only passed due to overworking himself for the last six months.

Jonin Sasuke Uchiha nodded to the chunin guard and secretary to the Hokage. The tower had been reinforced since the attack a few years ago.

"Go right in," the Hyuga said as she studied him closely.

"Thank you, Hebari," he replied politely, stepping through the door in the old Hokage's peacetime office.

The wide, open windows showed the magnificent view of the Konoha bluffs with the five busts of the Hokages. Tsunade Senju smiled, her lips clamped down on her old pipe as the scent of tobacco drifted across the room.

"You are looking well, Hokage," Sasuke said in a faintly mysterious manner. In fact, she looked nearly as young as her specialized genjitsu made her appear as. Though that seemed to be the only thing that it actually covered up. He turned to the two assistants of the leader of his village. One was the special jonin Shizune and the other was (he believed) the specialized clone of his teammate Sheila as they plowed through the early morning paperwork. Sasuke nodded gravely to the two young women.

The busty blonde narrowed her chocolate brown eyes for just a second, then smirked. "I'm glad you can tell. I have a top secret S-Rank mission that I need you and at least three chunin to undertake."

"Hnn." The last loyal Uchiha was intrigued, though he did not want to show it. "What is the objective?"

"Protection detail and to assist in the removal of two Akatsuki." She smiled as the dark-haired teen was suddenly quite visibly interested. "We don't know that it will be your brother..." After she trailed off, she pursed her lips. The boy had proven his loyalty and deserved to know the truth. "Shizune, I need the latest update reports on injured shinobi at the hospital. Why don't you stop on the way back for some special sake and buns."

The woman looked up at her old friend and mentor in surprise. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Sheila-" Tsunade frowned as she remembered that it had been Sasuke that required the demigoddess to join his clan. "Please get the three of us a cup of tea."

After Shizune had departed on the entirely unnecessary task and the tea procured, Tsunade leaned across her mostly clean desk to look at the young jonin of Team 7. "I am afraid we shall have to discuss unpleasant matters concerning your clan," Tsunade announced. "As you know, we have been undergoing a deep interrogation of all Root ANBU and decoding all of Danzo's records." Here the Hokage shook her head. "It appears he's been coveting my hat since the Second Shinobi War. It's quite possible that he's compromised and damaged Konoha more than any single ninja in the history of the village. It's a very sordid mess and not even T&I or my code breakers know it all."

Sasuke was quite tense all of a sudden. "And what does this have to do with my clan?"

"Danzo was playing both sides against each other until he lost control of the clan leader of the Uchiha. Your father, Sasuke. Fugaku Uchiha had been carefully prodded into believing that Konoha saw the Military Police as being unneeded and curtailed as suspicion that your clan was behind the Nine Tailed attack fourteen years ago." Tsunade clenched down on her pipe savagely.

"No Uchiha would have been behind that attack," the dark, intense young man stated coldly.

"Yes... and no. One Uchiha was behind the attack, attacking the current demon container while she was weak and killing the Third Hokage's wife. The Fourth Hokage ended up battling someone who claimed to be Madara Uchiha and if they weren't him, then they were a very close fake."

"And you didn't exhume the grave of my ancestor?" Sasuke inquired.

Tsuande gave him a flat look. "Well given he was exiled after the battle with my grandfather, there are more rumored grave sites of Madara Uchiha than you can imagine. Hell, he's rumored to be buried under this very tower."

"Oh," Sasuke stated aloud in confusion and realized how bad of a tunnel vision Itachi gave him. He should have known that. He shook his head. "Wait, you said that Danzo fed bad information to my father until he lost control of the situation."

"Yes. Then at that point he pressured the Third Hokage and his advisers to wipe out the Uchiha clan before they could implement their supposed coup attempt." The old woman leaned forward. "Here is where things get confused. According to my old teacher, he never expected that Itachi could succeed at destroying your clan. He expected that Itachi would damage their leadership and perhaps kill most of the elders."

"Itachi killed them all! All except me!" Sasuke said in a loud, barely controlled voice. For him, this was the equivalent of a screaming fit.

"Danzo made sure that his orders included killing you, but that Itachi refused. Sarutobi believed after a careful check of the scene that Itachi was helped. He suspected Danzo and his Root, but according to Danzo's own records, he does not know who assisted your brother in murdering your clan. He only suspects that it has to do with a certain organization." The Fifth Hokage's warm, chocolate eyes tried to convey her sympathy. "My teacher felt the loss of the Uchiha was one of his greatest failures of his rule of Konoha. While we are hardened ninja, he never condoned the wanton slaughter of innocents. He personally helped clean up the slaughter of the women and children of your clan so they could be properly interred."

Sheila was frowning severely, as these were in none of the records that she had ever been given access to. "Lord Hokage-"

"Why was he declared a Missing Ninja?" Sasuke asked coldly.

"Danzo had covered up his orders and it was expedient." Tsunade sighed as she knocked the ashes of her tobacco out of her small pipe into a clay bowl, then set it on her large desk. "And, to be quite truthful, Hiruzen did not want this ugly mess to come to light. Better a single traitor that had done an atrocity than admit that one of Konoha's founding clans had been purged due to the threat of a coup. Spun this way, Konoha's weakness was shown as a possible strength that we can create such ninja while he worked to solidify the village."

Sasuke's black eyes were staring through the old woman as he tried to figure out what to say. To do. He felt as taut as a dry, wooden crossbow under too much pressure. Ready to snap.

Sheila was continuing to listen intently. "We don't know everything that happened there, do we?" The young jonin was not very happy at all with that thought.

"That is correct. We are sifting through shadows under a sliver of moonlight at night. Without a means of gathering more direct information, we don't know how an entire clan was killed, and more importantly who was behind it."

"Dead men tell no tales," Sasuke said bitterly with a sigh.

The young demigoddess frowned. "That's actually not true. Fifth Hokage, we do have eye witnesses of the events and a more in depth source of Danzo's treachery."

"And where exactly did you dig up these sources?" Tsunade asked as she refilled her pipe with tobacco with a hint of a smile that was almost condescending.

"Genetic samples and a forbidden technique. Perhaps the forbidden technique. Summoning: Impure World Resurrection." Sheila let them both take in a hissing, stunned breath. "Because Danzo himself knows what he did not write down and we can ask the slaughtered members of the Uchiha clan who murdered them."

Sasuke felt like someone just grabbed his chest and heart, squeezing it crushingly. He could not forget Orochimaru's use of that jutsu over the last few years. Nor could he forget how Danzo had to use what happened to his family to collect every set of Sharingan eyes for his own collection. However even in his complete disgust he couldn't discount how pragmatic and karmic this idea was.

Tsunade, for her part, was just as horrified at the thought. She clamped down hard on the thought of this technique ever being used for such evil, selfish reasons. Protecting Konoha was not selfish. "And who would you use for your sacrifices?"

"Irredeemable prisoners of war, of course."

"And that reminds me that we need to find better ways of disposing of enemy nins," Tsunade mused out loud given the fact of how Orochimaru's resurrected her grandfather and grand-uncle. "And perhaps ways to keep our own from being used that way as well."

Sasuke had been thinking hard on the matter. "Itachi is not the traitor we thought?" he muttered to himself.

"And is infiltrating Akatsuki on behalf of Danzo, part of his 'punishment' for not killing you," the older woman said as she took a careful sip of her tea, luxuriating in the simple pleasure. "That is, unfortunately, a group we have little information on yet. Though having Danzo's records, we have learned some worrying things. All of Akatsuki are S-Ranked Missing-Ninja except those from Rain. And that Pein is leader of Rain. He seems to have some grudge against Konoha."

Sheila shook her head. "Or against Jiraiya specifically. Konan mentioned that we should not send him to negotiate for her release. I think we need to get some specific information about those people from him."

Tsunade nodded, as that had not occurred to her. "So Itachi is on a deep cover mission at this time that is of vital importance. Which brings us to your mission, Sasuke. I need you to play bodyguard for Sheila's genin team."

The last Uchiha raised one dark eyebrow ever so slightly, as if querying her. "Sheila is competent enough to defend herself."

"And three snot-nosed genin? Besides, I want to set up a trap and start to winnow Akatsuki of their forces." The busty leader of Konoha frowned, upset at what she was about to say. "So they are bait."

"If they pass their test tomorrow," Sheila noted aloud.

They all nodded at that. Sasuke stood up and excused himself, as he had a lot to think about.

Sheila stood looking over her genin team who were all tied up to trees. "I'm impressed. It only took you about three hours to finally get the hidden meaning of my test." She pointed to the center tied up genin, Konohamaru Sarutobi, who was bound quite thoroughly to the tree. "You three actually passed the test."

She gave them a smile at that. The improved training at the academy had focused more on team building exercises. Both in following orders and in being able to give them.

"We passed!" whooped out the young Sarutobi. Even being tied upside down to a tree with thick ropes could not dampen his enthusiasm.

Hanabi nodded. "What now, teacher?"

Ikomi Abami nodded, his dull brown hair matted down with sweat and grime instead of sticking up like the head of a ragged brush like normal. "Yeah!"

The young jonin removed the ropes from the three genin with a single hand seal, send them rolling back down to the ground. "D-Rank missions. Luckily your missions you had as trainees in the Academy count, so we can hopefully get you to a C-Rank here in only a few weeks," the blonde demigoddess admitted. "Konohamaru and Ikomi? Head out for lunch. Report to the Hokage's tower in ninety minutes. Hanabi, come with me."

She waited for them to disappear out of the hilly, forested area of Training Ground 3, before turning back to her youngest and most taciturn member. "Is there a reason you have recently taken up wearing a headband?" she asked casually.

The young Hyuga froze at that. "It is a matter of clan business." She had not thought that anyone would have spotted her wearing her leaf headband protector as anything important.

The blonde girl knelt down next to the girl. "They finally confirmed Hinata as Clan Heiress, didn't they?"

"Even if such a thing existed, it would be a clan secret," the young girl said. She did not want to go into how much it had hurt, especially with the elders finally overriding her father and elder sister's objections.

"I need to know for sure. Some of the people that we are dealing with have access to training in the sealing arts," the jonin said with a strange firmness.

Hanabi finally nodded, removing her headband protector. The central 'X' of the Caged Bird seal sat upon her brow, showing her new status within the clan. Her pale eyes closed, fighting back tears of shame. It had seemed like so long ago that she had been a rising genius, even beating her much older sister.

But that had changed four years ago. Hinata had returned home from the Academy with a quiet determination. Her older sister had never explained what had caused her to change, but she had somehow developed a calm acceptance for fighting, even being willing to hurt her younger sister. Hanabi had actually started to improve even more at that point, but Hinata had stopped being a pushover.

If she ever had been.

"Hmm. Interesting design," Sheila stated under her breath as she willed her Sharingan eyes to relax. She made a single hand seal.

The young genin cried out in pain, collapsing while holding her forehead. "What-!? Why did you do that?" she asked in a quavering voice as she pushed up from the ground to her knees.

"I was determining if I was going to allow a member your branch house to be on my team." The young demigoddess frowned. "I'm leaning towards 'no' right now, as you can be attacked or killed quite easily once the weakness of your seal is known."

"You have been studying our family's seal for that long?" the young Hyuga asked even as she gulped.

"No, I figured it out just then. Others, on the other hand, may have had more than enough time to decipher the seal." Sheila paused just a second. "I can not state that protecting your bloodline is not important, but with such an Achilles Heel, Konoha's strength is but an illusion."

"The clan will never agree to removing the seal. If it is at all possible." The young kunoichi was confused. She thought that mastering seals required years (if not decades) of study. "How did you decipher the Caged Bird Seal so easily? I refuse to believe that was the first time you had seen it!" A bit of her cold arrogance had returned, battered though her ego had become after being sealed.

"Hanabi, I know that people use the term genius loosely. Maito Gai espouses the genius of hard work, while Kakashi holds that some people have more talent, though he too believes in hard work. My genius is literally superhuman in degree and scope. I have, in the last three years, studied over a hundred years worth of seals with an ability that almost no one else can even understand. Genius, savant, talented... all of these are but pale echoes to me." In fact, Sheila had been able to decipher weaker seals like the one that bound Shukaku to the Sand ninja Gaara within her first year. And her ability had only grown.

The young demigoddess laid her hand upon Hanabi's brow, causing the girl to think she was being condescending to her. Sheila nodded, getting the last bit of information via touch. While she was not quite a sensor, you had to be at least partially sensitive to explore the greater secrets of the ninja arts.

Hanabi blinked as Sheila started to make dozens, if not hundreds, of hand seals in meticulous order. Then, between one blink and another, Sheila's hand was back upon her brow.

"You might want to put your headband back on," the young demigoddess explained casually. "You are excused from our afternoon D-Rank missions. I would like you to pass on to your father that I would be happy to look at a seal to safeguard the Hyuga secrets that do not include such flawed controls that anyone can figure out." She then patted the girl on the top of her head and smiled.

The young Hyuga turned her mirror-shined protector around, seeing her unblemished forehead through the symbol of the leaf. "I-I-" She was literally unable to form a coherent thought.

"You are welcome."

"Thank you!" Hanabi forgo her normal haughty decorum and hugged his new jonin leader tightly. She then tied her headband protector back on and dashed out of the rugged, forested clearing and headed home as fast as her short legs could go.

Sheila sighed to herself. "Her father is not going to be quite so thrilled."

"What gives you the right to interfere with my clan?" Hiashi Hyuga asked in a simple, flat tone across the dining table from Sheila. Hinata and Hanabi were both present, on each side of the table from the two jonin. The remains of a scrumptious looking, classical dinner was laid out.

"I am only concerned where it intersects with the safety of my team. Such a glaring weakness in your protection is something that I can not allow with my team. So I removed it. As I am not an unreasonable person, I offered my help in an alternate solution to our conflicting issues." The dim, soft lights from the paper lanterns in the corner of the classic, paper-paneled walls seemed to give the conversation a slightly strange cadence. This was a place of tradition, fitting that everyone present wore expensive and fitted kimonos of style in understated colors.

The older Hyuga frowned at that. His pale eyes were narrowed in deep, frustrated thought. "Speak of your offer. Perhaps it will forestall the Elders from declaring war upon you."

"You seek to make it that the Byakugan can not be stolen. I have no problems with the secrets of Konoha's clans being kept hidden. Even if I have been adopted into the Uchiha, I would rather create my own techniques than steal ones from everyone else." She waited for him to nod in acknowledgement. Even the two young sisters nodded at this. "The dead man trigger within the seal, on the other hand, is an entirely different thing. This puts Konoha, my team and your daughter at risk from anyone that can trigger the secondary function."

"Such a secret is never given out, so it is meaningless to consider." Hiashi's tone was firm and polite.

"And it only took me about two minutes to decipher it from looking at the seal. Your clan has been lucky that no one else has figured this out since you created it," Sheila countered politely.

"Two... minutes?" Hiashi asked as his demeanor of superiority slipped. "Even the Fourth had said he would need weeks of study-" He clamped down hard on his emotions. He should have never admitted to talking to Minato Namikaze about the Caged Bird seal.

"I will admit that I have certain skills that allow me to cheat by deciphering the seals. My understanding of seals is probably as close to perfect as I can get without actually having read every hidden village's secret stash of seals. Which is why I offered to replace the one I removed from Hanabi with something that will work better." There were benefits of being a demigoddess of intellect, after all.

"How would you safeguard the clan with this seal beyond making it so that no one could remove our eyes?" the clan head demanded.

Now to the unpleasant part of the conversation. "The Caged Bird seal is to keep deserters and traitors from leaving the clan with your secrets, is that correct?" she asked.

Hiashi paused.

"Yes," Hinata said softly. "Our history tells us of other clans that fell when their secrets became common or public. We fear that end." The young heiress looked down upon the table morosely.

"I do not think another trigger to kill your traitors is the correct response. In lieu of this, I suggest that a tracking function that can be put into a seal that can be used by everyone in the clan."

"Unacceptable. Our clan could be tracked down and killed with impunity," Hiashi stated firmly, still the epitome of elegance and tradition.

"I had assumed that you might think of this that way, hence the concept that it requires at least five members of your own clan to be able to use this feature. The seals will interact in a fundamental way to allow you to know, as a clan, where those that are lost are located," she continued carefully. "This way no single traitor can harm your clan, but it removes the unjust pain and killing ability of the Caged Bird seal."

Both young Hyuga girl were very focused on this.

"Father, I would ask that we agree to this. I would even allow myself to be the first recipient of this new seal, so that there is no longer a Main and Branch part of the clan. Just Hyuga, as we should be," Hinata said with soft strength.

"It does address the greatest weaknesses of our current seal. Will you be able to teach us how to put it on our young?" Protection of the Byakugan and the ability to deal with traitors without the cruelty of the seal. It was an elegant solution.

"I would be quite willing to replace any Caged Bird seals and teach your own seal masters how to use this one. I would ask that I be allowed to place a similar seal with the tracking function upon any Konoha ninja at the behest of the Hokage." Sheila smiled impishly at him.

"The Hokages would like to keep their own renegades dealt with... I see no problem with this." Hiashi nodded.

Sasuke and his three chunin team ghosted behind Team 8 on the ground below. He felt it quite appropriate that Hinata Hyuga and Kiba Inuzuka were both part of his team. The last member was the Hokage's apprentice, Sakura Haruno. At least she had left most of her fangirl persona in the past, though she seemed to enjoy flirting with him.

Sheila looked over her genin team. "All right. Do you have everything for a three week mission to the Hidden Village of Waterfall?"

Konahamaru looked pained. "Yes. Really, we know what to pack."

Ikomi actually agreed for once. "Woohoo! First C-Rank mission! Look out world, here comes Team 8!"

The young Hyuga had to control herself not to roll her eyes in derision. Her headband protector was tied around her arm, allowing everyone to see the new seal that adorned all of the Hyuga except some of the die-hard Elders of the clan and her father. The almost Celtic-looking rune pattern that made a flower pattern on her forehead, down her nose slightly and curled around the eyes in sharp fangs gave her an exotic quality, she thought.

The Branch House members were suddenly finding the idea of not having a sword hanging above their heads liberating, though one Main House Elder had been attacked in the last month. That Neji and Hinata had both stepped forward and punished the attacker had helped quell an unsteady situation.

Sheila half-expected some hot head to attack her at some point shortly, but it appears that her prowess in the chunin exam years ago had given her a bit of a reputation as well as being a full jonin at fifteen.

The younger team headed out the gates and almost directly north, making a good pace through the trees. Only Ikomi appeared to be having some issues, as his chakra control was never the best.

They had crossed several ravines via wooden bridges as they continued to the north and west for the rest of the day. The Valley of the End was off to the east of them as they approached their first resting point. They picked a large tree on the edge of a ragged field.

"What happened here?" Ikomi asked as he brown eyes studied the area.

"A rather large batted during the Third Ninja War. It was the first time that Stone Ninja were pushed back. Several important jonin made their names in the battle here." Nowaki, Tsunade's brother, had been killed in the ambushes leading up to the attack. "It was called the Battle of Gold."

"Which Jonin?" Konohamaru asked curiously. "I know that grandfather was here, but I don't remember anyone else."

"The White Fang of Konoha, Kakashi Hatake's father Sakumo Hatake, made one of his last efforts in the war here. And this was one of Minato Namikaze's first battles as the Yellow Flash."

"The Fourth Hokage? Whoa! He has that unstoppable Flying Thunder God attack!" the excitable 'dead last' of this years genin shouted. Which really just meant he needed a bit of toughening up.

"It's not the attack that is unstoppable, but how he could use it," their young jonin leader explained as she made a small, smokeless campfire with a set of one-handed seals. "He was incredibly fast in his techniques and how he used them."

They settled down for the night as Sheila made a half-dozen shadow clones for perimeter watch, passing on an 'all clear' to Hinata.

It was Ikomi that came running up about a half an hour later. "Teacher! I found something pretty cool." He held up a rusty kunai for her inspection. "I found it in a tree. I think its one of seal-marked kunai that the Fourth Hokage used."

"It doesn't have the extra wing-blades-" Sheila noted as she took the blade from him, only to stop in shock.

This was her variety of seal-marked kunai. She tossed it across the way and then with a flash of teleportation, caught it. "So I was here at this battle." That brought a smile to her face as she realized she must have improved her understanding of time-space techniques enough to travel back to the battle.

In the distance Sasuke looked at the kunai that Sheila had in her hand and a tightness settled in his stomach. Was there going to be a rank higher than S for the secret of time travel? It seemed like he would find out, he decided. This was obviously too sensitive to send by anything less than personal teleportation.

He turned to Hinata. "You are in charge while I make a report to the Hokage. Treat this as at least an A-Rank secret."

Hinata just nodded as she started to put together what she had seen. Time travel?

Kiba's eyebrows shot up. "What? Did I miss something?" the tracker asked almost too loudly.

The other girl nodded slowly. "Yes, so don't ask." Her green eyes were glaring at the Inuzaka ninja.

Sasuke tossed the Hyuga heiress one of his specially marked kunai. "I'll be back shortly." With three handseals, he disappeared to a secreted seal in the Uchiha district. In moments he was moving across the rooftops at a blistering shunshin pace.

"Man, I hate missing things. This is going to bug me for the entire mission." The feral-looking boy looked quite irate at himself, slamming a fist into his palm.

Konohamaru had slipped off to try and find another kunai like Ikomi had. He was actually stealthy as he traversed the bushes on the edge of the rough and pock marked field. He stopped at what he thought was likely the center of the battle where a twenty foot section of black sand seemed to sink into a depression. He fingered the grit, noticing that it seemed as abrasive as coarse sand. "Weird." He brushed it off his leg, even as he finally gave up the hunt.

So he did not see a clump of grass fall onto the dead black sand, withering to dust over the next hour.

"The Hidden Village of Waterfall. They are nominally an ally of Konaha, so try to be polite," Sheila said to her genin team as they trotted down the trail. "We are supposed to deliver the treaty papers and get an update on military matters."

"And we do this every month?" Hanabi asked carefully.

Sheila nodded. "It is considered to be an easy C rank mission for genins." Either rookie genins like her team with a jonin leader or veteran genins that had not passed the chunin exam for one reason or another.

The team moved through the lightly forested area at a good pace, keeping an eye on out for ambushes. Up ahead they started to hear the thrumming of waters as it thundered onto a lake.

"Hold up," Sheila called out. She was looking off into the distance and to their left. She created a pair of clones and sent them to start circling the area while approaching the lake where the Waterfall ninja were waiting for them.

The three ninja in front of them matched the description of some of the more powerful of the small village.

"You are the courier?" the older, grizzled man called out. He seemed to be looking for something in their appearance.

"Yes." Sheila frowned. "Did you send an escort? You seem to be looking for someone else."

"We sent Fu out to meet you at the border. We'll take your papers and then we would ask that you depart," the old jonin said.

"The Leaf is an ally of the Waterfall. We would be more than happy to sweep a patrol on our way out back to the Land of Fire." She gave him a grim look as she handed over a scroll.

"We would appreciate it." With that, the three ninja of the Waterfall swished away.

"Hanabi, scan out to the limit of your byakugan," their own jonin ordered. "Ikomi and Konohamaru, I want you ready to fight at a moment's notice. We are moving out." With that, the blonde teen led them into the trees in the direction she had looked at earlier.

Their shadows were nearly invisible as they followed the group.

"This is just freaking great. She really did a number on my arm," the lanky gray-haired man complained as he held his strange triple-bladed scythe. His left arm was laying on the ground still wearing its red-clouds sleeve of his robe.

Kakuzu sneered at him, though it was hard to tell with his brutish features under his mask. "I'm just glad she was out here on her own with only a couple of genin." Several strands extended from his sleeves to start stitching his partner together.

Those ninja of Waterfall were quite dead, while Fu lay in a crumpled heap, broken and battered and quite unconscious in the woods.

Hidan grimaced as he grabbed his arm and held it up to the stump where it had been attached. "We have some company."

"More Waterfall trash?" Kakuzu asked in a disparaging tone. "If only they were worth more so I could wipe out my village for the fee."

"No, it's the One Tail container and three genin," Hidan said with a smirk on his lips as he readied his scythe. "We should capture her, too."

"She isn't our target," the ex-Waterfall ninja noted. "But I hear she has a seventy-five thousand Ryo bounty. And even more if brought to the Land of Wind." Avarice was always the mercenary's weak point.

"Yeah, their new Kazekage doesn't like her much, does he?"

Sheila stopped instantly as she spotted the red clouds on the robes and crumpled forms at their feet. Three shadow clones popped into existence to immediately turn around and snatch her genin to disappear in a flash of light. "Akatsuki. What are you doing here?"

"She's not alone," the death priest noted.

"The rest of the Neo Sannin?' Kakuzu inquired even as he readied himself. "Not all of them, just the Uchiha with a Hyuga, Inakuza and some girl with pink hair. So only two A-Ranked brats and some chump chunin." Grudge tendrils were moving through the ground from his feet, setting up seals at the edge of huge circle that he was in the center of.

Sakura's forehead showed a throbbing vein as she had to almost be physically held back by Kiba on the limb she sat on. "Chump chunin?" she bellowed while shaking her fist at the missing ninja of the Waterfall.

Both members of Akatsuki looked at the girl like she was insane.

"Has that village always been full of lunatics?" Hiden asked his partner.

"Pretty much," the other missing ninja replied. Of course, it was also rumored that the more crazy you were, the more powerful you were also.

It would be nice to have Naruto here, Sasuke had to admit to himself, but even so the three chunin on his squad and Sheila should be more than enough-

"Barrier activation, one-thousand feet out," Hinata called out as her Byakugan spotted the lime-green energy field appear. It would be nearly invisible in the air, but her eyes were Hyuga after all.

Kakuzu noted the variant seal on her forehead. "Branch house sealed? I guess I won't be stealing your eyes easily." The black market in eye-technique eyes was always good money.

"There is no branch, only the whole tree that is Hyuga," the quiet girl said in quiet determination. Now that she did not have to worry about her younger sister being sealed with the old mark, she could show herself more fully.

"You guys don't have any idea what you are dealing with," Kiba boasted. "Come on, Akamaru."

The huge wolf-hound barked an affirmative.

Hidan, the Akatsuki member with the tri-scythe, looked bored as hell. "Yeah, yeah. Can we just kill them now that they can't run away?"

"Remember, we can't kill Sheila," Kakuzu said even as he started to go through hand seals for a grand fireball.

Sasuke's triple-tomoe Sharingan was spinning already, allowing him recognize the technique before it was finished. His hands flashed through a double set of seal as he expelled 'howling blizzard' blast from his mouth, snuffing out the fireball.

The death-priest looked at that and whistled. "I guess their dual-chakra techniques are superior to your boring old techniques."

"Shut up, Hidan. Shouldn't you be killing those chunin?" the missing ninja from the Waterfall nearly growled out.

"Yeah yeah," Hidan shouted as he charged over toward Hinata, Sakura and Kiba with his Inazuka partner. The scythe whirled around him in a flailing, dangerous way.

Sakura and Hinata were able to dodge or deflect using their special training and styles, but Kiba and his partner both got hit with minor cuts. Hidan then bounded backwards at a rapid pace while smiling maniacally.

A mystical symbol-circle appeared at Hidan's feet even as a skull like appearance of white tattoos appears on his face. "You're fucked now. Jashin be praised."

Sakura was sidling to the left, while Hinata was moving right. Sasuke was keeping an eye on both enemies while Sheila was discovering that the whole area was sealed from spatial movement as she failed to teleport to her special kunai.

"Interesting counter," she said, even as she blitzed through hand-seals faster than most jonin could even follow. Slamming her palm to the ground, she sent out her own barrier to within just inches of Kakuzu's barrier.

"What was that?" the old ninja demanded as she tossed a kunai again.

With a double flash, she snatched the unconscious Fu from his feet and reappeared over fifty feet away.

"A counter-counter, of course. It's one of those we knew you knew that we knew you knew about countering spatial teleporting, so we came up with our own counters to counter it. Duh." Her eyes had already noted that Fu was beaten nearly to death and would not wake up for quite a while.

"Say, kid, sorry to do this to you... No, I'm not really... but I need to start weeding out you punks," Hidan called out Kiba. The Inuzuka was preparing one of his family techniques with Akamaru when Hidan stabbed himself in the leg. "Take that, you little ass-wipe."

Kiba and Akamaru had both collapsed to the ground as matching wounds appeared on his calf. "What the hell," the wild-looking chunin asked in surprise.

"Sympathetic damage transference. Sakura, destroy that mystical circle without getting cut," Sheila called out.

The strawberry-blonde nodded as she rapidly parsed the words. "Shannaro! You bet!" With a kya, she charged towards Hidan and then slammed her heel down on the ground in a massive heel-kick. When her foot slammed against the ground, it shattered the ground in a ten foot circle and destroyed the symbol.

Hidan had found himself airborne for just a second as the sound of chirping from behind him. A lightning covered knife-hand stabbed through his heart. "Oh, damn that hurts. Shit. Fuck."

Sasuke pulled his hand out of the enemy ninja, looking quite surprised that he was still talking. In fact, he wasn't stopping, so hopped backwards before Hidan could sweep around and cut him with his scythe. "You know, that's an instantly lethal technique." Stupid Kakashi couldn't even create a proper instant-kill technique.

"Jashin ain't going to let no shitty little kid kill his high priest," the death-priest stated loudly and then started to laugh.

"He's all yours then, Sheila," Sasuke called out much to Hidan's confusion.

Her response was to form the wood release effect, trying to trap Hidan with the rapidly growing branches, but he was amazingly fast, surprising all of the Leaf Ninja with his blurring movement. He not only flipped and spun out of the way, but his weird triple-scythe cut any thin branches that might have impeded his motion.

From Kazuku's back erupted four masks that started to spit out fire, lightning, earth and wind techniques at all of the them, forcing them to break off their attacks and back off.

"They are monsters," Hinata said in a soft voice.

Sasuke gave her a quick glare as he went through some more hand-seals to unleashed a torrent of lava at Kakuzu which the strange missing-ninja avoided by the narrowest margin. "They're all S Rank Nins," Sasuke told her as he caused most lava to spew up from the ground. "That's almost a requirement." He was not going to mention that he and Sheila were at least A-Rank in the other nations Bingo Books.

Hidan didn't like the look in Sheila's eyes as she seemed to be tracking him. Then there was a loud swish filling the air and the twisted priest was struck by several red-glowing kunai as she teleported in and out. Something about the attack hurt him even more than he expected. Little wounds like that should barely affect him, but these actually caused him to stumble.

Sasuke hit the Akatsuki death priest with a massive burst of lava from under him.

"I just hope that doesn't just piss him off," Kiba called out.

"Anger is good," Sheila said.

"You little kids burned me good, but I'm so going to murder you-" Hidan was shouting when he was knocked out of the way by a massive gust from Kakuzu again.

"Shut up, Hidan, and start killing them." The man with four mask growing out of his body on ropy tendrils looked incredibly angry.

That was when Hinata appeared next to a mask and tapped several spots on the tendril and mask, causing the mask to fall down to the ground.

"What did you do to my mask?" Kakuzu demanded even as she spun into some defense as his attacks found her. A flicker-flash from Sheila got the Hyuga chunin out of the explosion of fire, wind and lightning that rained down upon where she had been.

"She's a Hyuga, dumb shit, so she used her Gentle Fist crap on it." Hidan seemed pleased that his partner was also having problems.

"I figured that out," Kakuzu growled.

"There you go, Kiba. Keep your partner out though, I can't really heal him like I did you," Sakura explained as she finished stitching his leg back together. The Inuzuka nodded as he got back to his feet.

Sasuke threw one of his special kunai, even as he went through the handsigns to activate the lightning edge.

"Brat. Like I'm going to let you hit my lightning heart-" Kakuzu said as he moved the mask out of the way of the blade while he got it ready to unleash another lightning technique.

With a flash and a sweep of a controlled lightning edge, he cleaved the lightning technique and mask in one arc. He kept up his motion to zip out of the combat range. "So that's how Kakashi did that. Kakuzu's got hearts inside each mask. So we have to kill him three more times."

Hidan started laughing. "Man, two jonin and three chumps are making us work for it."

Sheila held out her hand, causing a swirl of dust to pull out of a vial pouch on her black and gray jonin vest. With a hiss it turned into a swirling disk centered on her flat hand. With a blur of motion, she charged over towards the death priest. They both swung out.

Hidan had a smirk on his face until the head of his scythe fell off. "Wha-!?" Then he fell into multiple parts as his torso was split in half and both of his arms came off from one cut.

"Sasuke," the demigoddess called out as she sent the diamond dust back into its pouch.

They both ran through the same set of double-hand seals. Two gouts of lava erupted from the ground and then splashed through Kakuzu's desperate water burst to engulf the helpless, swearing member of Akatsuki.

"One creep down, one ugly to go," Kiba crowed even as he launched himself into a ripping fang attack. A massive fireball, amplified by wind hit him, sending him rolling to the ground with heavy burns despite the defense the attack gave him. "Shit."

Hinata landed in between him and Kakuzu, hands up in the gentle fist pose, her Byakugan gaze holding her steady. Sakura appeared next to Kiba and then disappeared with a swish of a replacement.

The remaining Akatsuki seemed unperturbed by the standoff with the three Leaf Ninja. "You know, if you were the First Hokage, I might be worried. He was a tough fight."

"He really was," Sheila agreed, surprising the old missing ninja. "I think he was more undead than you though."

"You fought Hashirama Senju?" Kakuzu asked warily. He had used that so often for intimidation that he had not thought someone would use it on him.

"I think its an Uchiha thing," she admitted. She flickered out of the way as tendril vines shot from the earth below her, puncturing her afterimage.

"What is it going to take to kill you?" the ninja from the Hidden Village of the Waterfall asked angrily.

"More than you have," Sasuke said with a smirk. "I mean, you had these masks to use multiple elements and you can't even combine them right." He started on a blindingly fast set of doublet hand-seals and breathed out a spray of ice daggers that blew right through the fire and wind that Kakuzu tried to use to block it.

Even as she landed from her dodge, Sheila was finishing her hand-seals and then slapping her hands on the ground to create a huge tree to try and engulf the missing ninja.

He leaped up into the air to avoid the tree, trailing tendril vines. Hinata skidded over to where they stretched from the ground to start tapping them with her fingers. Each one she tapped snapped and ripped as the chakra in them quit controlling their ability to stretch.

The missing ninja hissed in annoyance as he lost his control of his leap. He snagged against another tree that had suddenly grown. Branches reached out like limbs to get the ancient ninja this time.

"Your bounty should be double what they are asking. No, triple," Kakuzu remarked as he was finding this fight was getting harder and more dangerous. It seemed like that village had each generation try to top the previous ones. And what the next one would do to top these definitely concerned him.

"Now, Sasuke," Sheila called out as she flipped two of her special kunai into a spin in the air in front of her. Her modified (and harder to use) technique activated just after she caught the two blades and then threw them at the missing ninja from Waterfall. They replicated, but kept a rather random portion of the momentum and spread out in a cloud as they shot at him.

Sasuke nodded, even as his silver-rimmed mangekyo sharingan activated and he tossed another of his teleport kunai to the left of the Waterfall missing ninja.

Kakuzu snarled even as he used his two remaining external hearts to to send out a blistering whirlwind of superheated fire and wind. That should melt the kunai. "You two are the dangerous ones-"

And his world suddenly filled with gold flashes as he saw dozens of the blonde girl's after-images, grabbing a stabbing seemingly everywhere with her teleport blades. His body, composed of his Earth Fear Grudge tendrils, was almost entirely shredded.

But the last thing he saw with his pale, inhuman eyes was two red eyes with swirling, shurikan tomoe. He suddenly found himself in a black and white world.

"This is my version of Tsukiyomi. But rather than controlling this world to force you to relive torture for days, dying over and over... I am just going to slow everything down as we destroy your body..." Sasuke's voice said from the darkness.

"What do you mean?" the quasi-immortal missing ninja demanded.

"We've already destroyed your last heart and chopped off your head. I just don't want you enacting a suicide technique," the last loyal Uchiha said simply.

"Yeah! We showed him," Sakura nearly bellowed out in the real world. She pumped her fists in a quick victory pose.

"Kiba, Hinata; gather up the surviving Waterfall ninja. We are going to evacuate to back to Konoha," Sasuke ordered as he felt his Sharingan powered genjitsu fail with the death of the ancient member of the Akatsuki. The young jonin found irony in the fact that after he put aside his need to become stronger than his brother that he'd taken part in defeating two of his associates.

And knowing the truth of things wondered if Itachi was proud of him. Something he never thought he'd muse after that night again.

"Right," Kiba stated as he lifted up one of the Waterfill nins.

Ice shards and snow filled the area with the congealing lava, freezing it solid and breaking it in black shards of razor sharp rock.

"Kiba, you are up. Recover everything of the enemy ninja," Sasuke ordered. "Sheila, I want a destruction seal out to half a kilometer."

"Not asking for much, are you. That going to need a ton of chakra," the demigoddess complained.

Sasuke quickly helped gather most of the remains of Kazuku and Hidan (who's scorched head was still swearing at them).

"Why are we gathering this up?" Kiba complained.

"S-Rank secret. Ask again and you'll be visiting T&I, Inuzuka," the Sharingan user stated in a cold tone.

"O-oh, sorry," the chunin said, shocked at the insinuation.

"Hinata, is the enemies anti-teleportation seal still in place?" Sheila asked, black marks having formed around her eyes, making her look comically almost like a Japanese raccoon with gold and black diamond irises.

"Their technique is disrupted," the Hyuga heiress confirmed.

Sasuke picked up the defeated demon container of Waterfall. "Give us thirty seconds warning, Sheila."

Two clones poofed into existence next to her. "Thirty seconds," she called out as the three of them started to flash through dozens of hand seals in a flicker as marks appeared on the blasted, churned earth.

In a flash, they disappeared before the half-kilometer was raised by a pillar of superheated fire that scorched everything down to the ground.

Outside the barrier, a strange bird with purple Rinnegan eyes watched from the shadows in a tree over a mile away.

Pein's real face frowned in his hidden base deep within the Hidden Village of Rain. "Konan, prepare for a direct assault on Konoha. They have become too dangerous."

His long time friend looked surprised. "What happened?"

"Kakuzu and Hidan have been defeated and their bodies removed from the battle site, then the area was cleansed in a kinjitsu technique that destroyed the whole area. Tsunade, the Fifth Hokage, is trying to be tricky." The haggard form of the real Pein frowned from his Throne of Thorns (as he privately referred to it).

"Is that wise, Pein? Konan asked carefully.

"It is necessary."

She nodded then left the room.

"Tobi," Pein called out to the seemingly empty, shadow filled room. "No, with that posture, you are here as Madara."

"Do you really think that it is the best time to attack Konoha head on?" the masked figure said, his one Mangekyo Sharingan swirling angrily.

"I have Leaf jonin who politely wanted to speak to Nagato of the Hidden Valley of the Rain. She is also currently carrying a letter from my old teacher. They are circling close and may unveil our conspiracy. Rain may not survive if Konoha attacks," Pein said in a hard tone.

"You knew there may be sacrifices that must be made, Pein," Madara said in a warning tone of voice.

"I would rather sacrifice Konoha," the leader of Rain retorted.

Madara just nodded, a smile hidden behind his swirling mask.

A young figure left the hidden exit (never entrance) to Konoha's Torture and Interrogation Division. The ANBU mask was a simple affair, as they all were, but was a slightly different style of bird with 'horns' than most in Konoha had seen before. With a swish, the ninja disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

The interrogation of Kazuku, the S-Ranked missing ninja had been quite illuminating. The fact that Zabuza Momoto had been used for the Impure World Resurrection had bothered Sheila, but she tried to squash her feelings about the swordsman.

Sheila had a small frown on her face as she removed her owl mask as she entered her apartment. A soft glow of seals upon the wall lit up as she considered the interrogation that she had just left. Akatsuki was wanting to gather all of the Tailed Beasts together in a statue that Pein could summon. Fu was recovering in the Konoha hospital under a subtle genjitsu to encourage her to stay, as she would feel worse than she really was. Sheila had mentioned that the older girl may need to be around demon containers that did not feel alienated.

Tsunade was gathering her shinobi, as she was not going to stand for a minor village being behind such a group of S-Rank criminals. She was even considering invoking the mutual defence part of the Suna-Konoha treaty. But that might entail 'buying' Suna's cooperation.

And the Hokage was willing to give back Shukaku.

It had taken everything Sheila had to not show a really negative reaction, as she needed the One Tail for her plan. So when she activated her normal security seals, the ANBU watching her did not catch that she activated fifteen extra layers.

Because she was not going to let future politics that were not going to exist dictate about her going back into the past and rewriting things. She slipped scrolls into several pockets on her black and gray leaf-patterned gi. Her seldom used pistol was verified to be ready and cleaned.

She quickly penned a letter explained her leave-taking and her reasons.

All that was left was to bend space and time. The teen demigoddess felt her eyes turn golden with a diamond in the middle as she entered her 'mindscape' to stand before the one occupied of the nine cages in the dark cavern.

"Shukaku."

The one-tailed tanuka looked up. "Come to try to convince me to be less crazy?" it asked, echoes of the mad priest that had been bound into Shukaku long ago still in its voice. "Or have you come to bloody your sand again?"

"I'm coming to get a large amount of your power, as I'm leaving."

The tanuka made of malevolent chakra snorted. "No. No-no-no-no-no." It then threw itself at the unbreakable bars of its seal-prison.

"I didn't say I was going to ask," the demigoddess replied. "I've been siphoning off power for over a year into a separate seal. Filtered through a wood release technique, it has none of your anger and madness. I wanted longer, but Tsunade is threatening to have me give you back to the Fifth Kazekage, Gaara of the Sand."

"He understands anger! How to spill blood on the sand! All for his mother that spurned him with her death!" The tanuka chittered as it arched its back.

"From what I can gather you and the previous Kazekage did your best to destroy Gaara's mind and destroy his trust in anyone by having his uncle try to kill him," Sheila noted. "Sounds very much like what my family would do."

"And they are all dead," Shukaku cackled.

"Only in a certain frame of reference," the demigoddess said. She closed her eyes, then opened them in the real world.

She started to go through handseals in a flicker, hundreds in a row each with an exacting, precise amount of chakra; shaped, formed and with exacting control to fill the seal that grew on the kunai in front of her. The array glowed a soft red of demonic chakra, seemingly sucking in all light as a fractured line of existence had red light drawn through it across her body from her right hip to her left armpit.

Pain was growing in limbs as space and time continued to be bent, folded and mangled in a very specific manner. With a flicker of red light, she disappeared.

In a perfectly circular area centered on where the kunai had existed, the wood of the floor started to crumble to black dust at a fast pace. Within a minute, the room and everything in it was cascading downward in black dust. But in the apartment that she shared with only one other tenant, there was no one to notice, as Naruto Uzumaki was completing his sage training with the Toads.

It was ANBU that first noticed something odd, as the roof of the building developed a perfectly round hole in its roof. It made the first investigator sick when he went in, so the team pulled back.

Tsunade arrived at the ten minute mark. "Crane, what's going on?"

"Some sort of destruction technique. It's perfectly circular, centered on an apartment on the top floor," the ANBU responded.

"From the north side or the south side?" the Hokage asked with a frown.

"The south-east side-"

"Sparrow, get me the Sheila at the library. Now," the old woman said angrily. "Mouse, get me Sasuke Uchiha. Tell him he needs to explain some things about his clan member."

Both ANBU swished off at top flicker speeds.

Sasuke showed up very quickly indeed. "Lady Hokage?"

"What was your teammate doing that is destroying that building?" Tsunade demanded in a very imperious voice. She watched the young jonin zip up and then zip back.

"She must have used a time-space technique. It's crumbling like that sand from the site of the Battle of Gold where one of her genins... found one of her weapons that must have been at that battle. " Sasuke realized he'd have to stop Sheila from trying to alter time. Again. Was he going to spend his entire life doing this?

That is if Sheila wasn't killed because of this.

"I need Jirayia and Naruto recalled immediately. I want to know why this is happening," the Fifth Hokage declared.

Sparrow reappeared with Sheila in tow. "Lady Hokage?" the clone asked carefully.

"What is going on?"

"I- woke up about ten minutes ago with the memories of being created almost a week ago, Lady Hokage. I don't know specifically what is going on-"

"Quit hedging. This is not a spur of the moment thing. What were you planning?" Tsunade demanded.

"I'm must be going home earlier than planned. I don't understand why its crumbling like that though-" The clone stopped as thought as hard as possible. "I hate being stupid. I'm only a fraction of the normal me. But I think I made a horrible mistake."

The leader of the the Hidden Village in the Leaf frowned. "What did you break?"

"I think I might have broken... space and time. Catastrophically." The clone looked worried.

"So we need to evacuate the village to the shelters?" the Hokage asked.

"That's not quite the scale we need to be looking at," the clone said unhappily. "Think 'planet' and 'other dimension'."

"Uchiha, get Jiraiya now." She snapped around to her ANBU. "Get a barrier up using eight ANBU at a minimum."

Sasuke did the handsign to activate his teleport technique to the kunai he had given Naruto earlier

Konan had crafted a new tree overlooking Konoha in the distance out of her sheafs of paper. It looked quite peaceful at night. She narrowed her eyes as she looked back to her longtime companion and friend, Pein. His six Rinnegan imbued bodies were arrayed around his 'throne' that he was bound to in his near crippled form.

"Tomorrow will be a crimson dawn." Pein's ragged form sat in stillness, his lavender ringed eyes closed.

"And Konoha's lies will finally be wiped away," Konan replied softly.