Finally I'm back into the routine of writing regularly. This story has been spinning around in my mind for a little while and as my life has pulled itself together and I now have the energy and time to write regularly I've decided that this is what I want to write. I've already have a pretty good idea for where this story is going, and I am just overflowing with inspiration for it. The reason this chapter is not filled grammatical mistakes and spelling mistakes is all thanks to my awesome beta Osavia.

If you are one of my old readers I just want to say that my old stories are abandoned, and the chance that I'll ever go back to them is tiny. I haven't been writing regularly this last few years, and now that I've gotten back to it I'm into new fandoms and have new ideas.

Well I hope you guys like it. Please leave a review and tell me what you think about it, reviews always motivate me and give me inspiration :)

Disclaimer: I don't own either One piece nor Naruto. If I did Naruto would not have ended the way it did and One piece would probably not be as awesome as it is.

One piece and Naurto crossover – Chapter 1

The sun rose on a seemingly ordinary day over the Elemental Nations. Over the fire country the sun shone clear, promising a warm and sunny day. The taste of summer hung in the air and the population of Konoha hoped to get another peaceful day, so that they could continue the celebration of their new Hokage in-between work.

The sunny mood did of course not reach everywhere, and one place it did not penetrate into was a laboratory deep underneath the ground in the Land of Sound. There the air was instead heavy with pain, misery and the sort of hope humans feel when they have nothing left, but behind all the misery there lay a thick layer of unusual expectation. The expectation warned the inhabitants of the laboratory that something important and unusual was happening and they all felt either hope or dread as they contemplated the future.

Deep inside the laboratory lay a small cozy-looking room, where a lone snake-like man sat. The room did not look like most other parts of the laboratory, it was painted in soothing light browns instead of stark white and there was a comfy looking sofa across one wall instead of uncomfortable but practical chairs. If asked, most inhabitants would never have thought that such a room even existed within the laboratory. The man inside of it, Orochimaru, was deep in thought planing on how exactly to get his hands on Uchiha Sasuke, and more importantly: his eyes. The plan was of course already made, but he thought it over once more as its success was vital.

Not even Orochimaru, brilliant as he was, had a clue of how important this day would prove to be for the future of the Elemental Nations. In his thoughts this was the day when the final stages of the plan to acquire the body of Uchiha Sasuke was set in motion. He never thought about the fact that maybe somebody else knew what he was planning. Even then Orochimaru would never be able to imagine that anybody was able to infiltrate this deep into his secure laboratory without him getting informed, even though he knew that there existed individuals more powerful than him. In hindsight that was quite foolish of him, but for all of his brilliance he had a tendency to be blinded by his own arrogance.

The man who did fit all of these criteria was Tobi, a hidden member of the group known as Akatsuki, and he was just as interested in Uchiha Sasuke as Orochimaru was. Tobi himself was an Uchiha and he could clearly see the potential in the young Sasuke. Therefore he was quite interested in seeing how Orochimaru's plan turned out. More importantly he was interested in seeing if it would lead to Sasuke becoming a useful pawn, because powerful Uchihas were always valuable if you knew how to use them.

This led him to the decision to spy on Orochimaru this very day. It was something he did occasionally, as he liked keeping himself updated on what Orochimaru was planning. The man had after all once been a part of Akatsuki, and therefore held some valuable information. Tobi didn't really worry about getting into the laboratory and neither did he think too deeply on how to do it, he just did as he always did when he felt like spying. Using the jutsu Kamui he teleported himself from his current location to the laboratory Orochimaru was currently inhabiting.

In a row of coincidences this simple action had unforeseeable consequences. While Tobi was teleporting one of Orochimaru's uncountable experiments, this one to explore time-space and eventually create new jutsus based on the new knowledge, was triggered and the time-space around the laboratory was effected just enough for Tobi to end up two rooms away from the one he was aiming for.

The sound of breaking glass and dripping liquid resounded out and Tobi felt his lower body being submerged under a thick liquid and sharp glass shards cut at his legs and lower torso. As he tried to locate himself he felt how the liquid sapped at his chakra, first slowly and then faster and faster. He had ended up inside one of Orochimaru's abandoned laboratories filled with abandoned experiments, and the lower part of his body had ended up inside one of the abandoned containers.

Tobi smashed his way out, no longer caring about the noise he made, and for one second all was still. Then the world started to shake and all turned into chaos.

The shaking did not simply stay within the laboratory, or even the Land of sound. No, from there it expanded to the entire Elemental Nations and the damage caused was unimaginable. It was as if an extremely powerful earthquake had hit, with the epicenter being Orochimarus lab, and the size of the disaster was beyond any ever known. The shaking was not an effect of an actual earthquake though, it was simply one of the effects of the unknown substance inside of Orochimaru's lab coming in contact with a teleporting jutsu. The other major effect wouldn't be discovered until a few days later, when a shaken merchant group traveling towards Konoha arrived a bit late, delayed by the earthquake, and found the entire village seemingly abandoned by all of its inhabitants.

Tsunade was having a good day, unusual as that was. She had just finished the risky operation on Lee, he would make it without any permanent damage, and the sun was rising to a new day that promised to be sunny and cloud-free day. Currently she was headed towards her quarters in the Hokage tower where she was going to catch a few hours sleep before going back towards work, which wasn't even half as unpleasant as she had imagined it to be. Right now in this moment, with the sun shining down on her as she walked through the pleasant and peaceful streets of Konoha, life seemed rather good, even though she had taken the Hokage's position. Of course that was when it went to hell.

All of a sudden the ground quaked in pain, and Tsunade felt her chakra quiver in answer. Immediately she threw herself into battle mode as she started to analyze the situation. The shaking could just have been an unusually powerful earthquake, but if that had simply been it her chakra wouldn't have responded as it did. This was something else, and whatever it was, it was bad. She could feel it.

When not detecting an immediate threat in her vicinity, she moved her hands to form seals that would alert every ninja within the borders of Konoha that there was an emergency. Most ninjas had probably already noticed that something was wrong, but if they hadn't this would alert them and, even if they had, this would confirm that it was serious.

"Secure the borders of Konoha!", Tsunade screamed towards the Anbu guard that always followed her. "Send a team to check the ambassadors from Suna, make sure no harm come to them, and get me Nara-san and Jiraya on the situation now!" Tsunade knew that her Anbu guards would know what she meant, and that they would obey, which left her free to focus on other matters. With all her considerable speed she sprinted towards the Hokage tower, heading for the hidden scrolls. Since she had no knowledge of what had happened, she needed to make sure that the important assets of Konoha were protected.

Before half a minute of the quaking had passed, Tsunade felt a shifting in her chakra that seemed to draw her toward something with unparalleled power. Even though she had stopped moving entirely, it felt as if her body was being drawn towards the center of the shaking. She then felt her chakra hit a barrier of some sort and it felt more powerful than any barrier she had ever felt before. It was as if her very being passed through that barrier, a barrier that never should have been crossed, and she felt the world turn dark.

Sasuke was angry. The first thing he remembered as he slowly returned to consciousness was his recent confrontation with Itachi and his own utter failure. Even though he had spent all his time training, focusing on the day when he would finally kill Itachi, he wasn't getting strong enough. Then there was Naruto, who was getting stronger by leaps and bounds, making the raven-haired boy furious with envy. It felt as if Konoha was intentionally holding Sasuke back, refusing to teach him what he had right to learn just because they were afraid he would become the next Itachi. That would explain why the dead last had suddenly become so much stronger while he hadn't.

Snarling inside, Sasuke clawed his way back to consciousness. He wouldn't let them keep him here inside the hospital where he would grow weaker every second. No, he would wake up and show them all, especially Naruto, how strong he was and that he refused to be held back any longer.

Somebody screamed in fear and pain close to him, filling his mind with terrible memories of that night and of memories from the invasion. He could hear the screams of the dead in his mind, and he shuddered with anger, clenching his hands painfully. Then somebody else screamed, someone familiar, and he was brought back to reality.

As Sasuke opened his eyes his mind was greeted by an unimaginable sight. He lay on the ground, grass tickling his body, under the open sky, surrounded by the sounds of battle. Around him ninjas seemed to be fighting huge beasts, while protecting clusters of civilians. The battle surrounded him as far as he could see and he could spot several people who laid still on the ground, either dead or severely wounded. His first reaction was that he was dreaming or that this was some genjutsu placed to mess with him. Maybe he was still in Itachi's power, because he wasn't anywhere he could recognize. By the look of small trees around him, and the beasts who were even worse than those who inhabited the forest of the dead, he wasn't anywhere within the border of the Land of Fire.

Quickly Sasuke activated his Sharingan, only a heartbeat having passed since he opened his eyes, to further analyze the situation. Then he snapped his head to the right as he once again heard a scream he recognized. It was Sakura and it sounded just as it had when she had been in Garaa's claws. He felt ill as he once again was reminded of his failure and rose from the ground. Without thinking he ran towards Sakura, letting the flow of the battle overtake him and bury the spinning thoughts inside of him.

A huge tiger was pressing Sakura towards a small tree that looked like it was closed to snapping. Close by a bunch of civillians huddled together, protected by a few genins and a chunin. The chunin tried to draw the tiger's attention by throwing a shuriken at it, but the attack only made the tiger press down harder on Sakura. Quickly the tiger opened its mouth, bending down its head and getting ready for the first meal of the day, and before the other ninja could blink Sasuke was there. He had a chidori charge ready and plunged his hand through the tiger's heart. The animal didn't even have any time to scream.

"Sasuke-kun", Sakura stuttered in shock. "Are you okay? Are you sure you should be up already?" Even with all the seriousness of the situation, Sasuke couldn't help but roll his eyes. Typically Sakura, always worrying about him when her time would be better spent worrying about herself.

"I'm fine", Sasuke growled. Even if it wasn't entirely true he was fine enough to fight at least and there wasn't a chance in heaven that he was staying out of it anyway.

A small snake slithered through the grass towards Sasuke, having slipped past the other ninjas. Before he had time to react Sakura slammed a kunai through its head, killing it without hesitation.

"They are poisonous", she warned him. "The smallest bite could kill you." She moved until she stood back to back with Sasuke, taking up the position that Naruto usually had.

"Where's Naruto?", he asked. Where was the dobe, and why the hell wasn't he here protecting his precious Sakura-chan?. Even though he wasn't worried about the idiot, he couldn't help but think that the fact was strange.

"He went to distract the animals away from the civilians", she stated. A big bird swooped down towards the corpse of the tiger, but one well-throwed shuriken from Sasuke scared it away. "I don't think you should waste your weapons on the birds. They aren't going for anything that is still alive, and I doubt that we have any extra supply here." He could hear how Sakura forced herself to sound calm, but he could still detect a bit of panic in her voice.

"We're going", Sasuke hissed. No way he was letting Naruto take all the fucking glory again like he had with Garaa. This time it was Sasuke's time to show what he had, and if Naruto even thought about dying to these over-sized disgusting freaks of nature he would kill Naruto himself.

"Okay", Sakura answered after a sharp breath. Then she moved away from his back towards the group of civilians, already speaking to the other ninjas there, and Sasuke heard himself exhale a breath of relief. He told himself that it had nothing to do with the fact that he was worried about whether Naruto was okay and everything about the fact that she hadn't argued against the danger of him proving himself like usual.

Soon the two of them were moving north from where he had saved the girl from the tiger. At first they ran past more clustered groups of civilians with ninjas protecting them, but then there were only higher level ninjas around them, jonins and chunins, who were guarding the perimeters. Most of the ninjas were too busy fighting the beasts and making sure that not too many passed the perimeters to notice two relatively small but quick genins, but not all of them.

"Sakura-san", a man called. Sasuke ignored it, not caring if someone spotted him and wanted to stop him, but a light touch from Sakura on his shoulder made him turn with grumble. The man who was quickly making his way towards them was Yamanaka Inoichi, Ino's dad and clan head of the Yamanaka clan.

"It's dangerous here", the man quickly continued. "The two of you shouldn't be out here. You should either go back and guard the civilians or go towards the center too see where your help is needed. This is not a place for genins." Sasuke barely held himself back from rolling his eyes.

"I'm sorry Inoichi-san", Sakura said. "But Naruto disappeared out there to divert attention and he hasn't come back." The man looked at them with a worried frown, and Sasuke remembered that Ino and Sakura had been close friends which probably meant that Yamanka had met Sakura quite a few times before. That would explain why the man looked so worried, but Sasuke thought it was simply unprofessional.

"We need to hurry", Sasuke bit out, disliking the fact that he had to speak. It was clear though that if he didn't, they might get stuck here far longer and they didn't have time for that.

"I see", Yamanka answered. Then he threw Sakura and Sasuke one small compact ball each, and looked them over with a serious face. "I would send a jonin with you, but there are no to spare, and just sending more people will make you a bigger target. These are small fireworks, send them up in the air if you require immediate assistants. I will not see more people die here."

"Hn", Sasuke grunted and before he could decide whether to give a more complete answer the man nodded towards them and turned around to return to the fighting. Deciding to think over the encounter later, Sasuke turned around back towards the outer perimeter and started moving with Sakura quickly catching up to him.

Sakura directed them to where she had seen Naruto disappear into the forest and they quickly found the trail. There were dead beasts all over, some small other big, and the area around was infested with animals. Some of the animals were fighting each other, others were just walking around aimlessly and some were gorging themselves on the already dead ones. Snakes with deadly venom were crawling all over the place making Sasuke curse. Now he had to have his Sharingan activated no matter how much chakra it drained.

The two of them moved in sync with each other, letting the sounds of the animals hide their own. Sakura quickly jumped up the trees, and Sasuke followed, recognizing sound strategy when he saw it, but then Sasuke took the lead as he was the better tracker of the two. As they moved further away from the other ninjas Sasuke couldn't help but wonder how far Naruto had moved and what the hell the idiot was thinking.

"Stop", he said, arm snapping out and catching Sakura just as she leaped off another branch. The two of them were sent hurling down to the forest floor, as the branch Sasuke stood on couldn't take the weight of the both of them. With an agile flip he righted himself up and where able to help Sakura land without hurting herself.

"Sasuke-kun…?", Sakura asked sounding somewhat confused. Sasuke sighed and pointed to the tree he had stopped Sakura from jumping to. On the branch she had been going for a brown skinned snake lay camouflaged, and Sasuke would swallow his own tough if it wasn't poisonous. On other branches at the same tree other snakes of the same kind laid sprawled, and Sasuke could make out other snake infested trees behind it. Even though it was strange, with being up in the trees and all, it was most definitely a snake nest.

"Thank you", Sakura breathed. "Where does the trail go now?" He pointed to the same tree again. "Really!", Sakura started to rant, forgetting to be quiet, but a swoosh of massive wings interrupted her.

Pulling a Kunai from his weapon pouch, thank god the medics had let him keep it on him, he dodged to the side. With a swift turn he was greeted by the sight of a giant beetle, its eyes focused on Sakura. It was more disturbing than any animal he had ever seen before including the animals in the Forest of Death.

He jumped backwards, landing on a tree trunk and springing himself forward with his Kunai ready. With a scream Sakura distracted the beetle, sending a quick nod towards Sasuke, easily avoiding its clumsy hits. It was quite slow but it looked stronger than any bug had the right to be. With the force of gravity and all the strength he could summon Sasuke hit his target with a Kunai, only to have it snap back and barely making a dent in the thing's hard shell. Chidori would clearly be needed for this.

"Stop Sasuke-kun!", Sakura screamed moving between the bug's clumsy attacks. "You can only do two of those a day and we will probably need it later. Please, just look for a way to get out of here."

Maybe Sakura had a point, but Sasuke couldn't stop himself from hissing. Even if it was the right, the smart, thing to do, it still felt like admitting that he couldn't beat these animals. Twisting around he scanned the surrounding seeing how plenty of animals seemed to be making their way towards them as if sensing the unrest. Quickly he ran towards the left, expecting Sakura to follow, weaving between the animals with true focus on the best path to move.

Sasuke had to hold himself back from running as fast as he could because he had to let Sakura keep up with him. It felt weird to do this without Naruto. Now there was no one who bounced around with endless energy, no one to scream at Sasuke for being a bastard or going too quickly and no one to break the silence between Sakura and Sasuke. Instead the two of them moved in silence and they quickly got around the snake nest and back to Naruto's trail.

If possible Naruto seemed to have gotten even more destructive than normal after the nest, and there lay splintered trees and gruesome animal corpses in their way. Soon they came out from the forest, though the trees were too small for it to be a proper forest, and the sound of a heartfelt scream made Sasuke move as fast as possible.

Pressed back towards a cliff Naruto was surrounded by three huge boars. One of them had fallen down to the ground, taking its last breath, but as he watched Naruto dragged himself out from underneath it. As Sasuke hurried towards the blonde he quickly analyzed the situation. Naruto was moving slower than usual, much slower, and he held his arm at an awkward angel. There was only one shadow clone, and that one was quickly dispelled by one of the boar's headbutts.

With a kunai still clenched in his hand Sasuke came down on the monsters like a nightmare. The first boar didn't even have time to scream before Sasuke killed it and the second was too far into its attack towards Naruto to avoid his strikes. With the enemies dispatched Sasuke forced himself to breath, reading himself to tear Naruto a new one, but when his eyes snapped up he was met a completely unexpected sight.

Naruto was swaying on his feet, barely standing upright, pale and with sweat pouring down his face. His teeth were clenched together and his face was contorted in a grimace that spoke volumes of how much pain Naruto was currently in. Sasuke had never seen Naruto look so sick, before.

"Naruto..", Sakura exclaimed, and Sasuke felt his stomach clench in guilt. When he heard Naruto's scream he had totally forgotten Sakura. It was fine he told himself. Sakura was here now and clearly not much worse for wear, except being out of breath, which made it fine. "What's wrong Naruto?"

"Poison", Naruto hissed out between clenched teeth. At their shocked expressions Naruto clearly forced himself to continue. "Will be fine. Need to rest though."

"Are you sure?", Sakura asked sounding besides herself with worry. "I saw a Jonin get killed by being bitten by one of those snakes."

"Yes", Naruto bit out, before falling down to his knees. He was stopping himself from screaming out loud and Sasuke couldn't help but morbidly wonder how much it hurt for Naruto to be this incapacitated because…. It was Naruto after all. This was the guy who had slashed his own wound just to prove he could keep going at their first serious mission.

A tiger lunged at them and Sasuke was forced back into reality. He slipped under the tiger's guard, dodging the snapping teeth and clumsy claws, kicking it under its jaw and sending it flying. Moving in tandem with him, Sakura jumped and hit the tiger in its exposed throat dispatching it with a callousness he hadn't thought she had in her.

He moved with his back to Naruto, forming a guard with Sakura, his focus on their surroundings. It didn't take long to realize that they wouldn't be able to stay here for very long. The animals were simply too many and too strong.

"Naruto", Sakura said. "How much time do you need before you can move?"

"A few minutes", Naruto growled. "But I won't be able to do much more than move then." Naruto sounded strained at the same time as his voice was lower and more feral than usual. Cursing at himself for letting himself get distracted, Sasuke turned his head to get a quick glance at Naruto and he was shocked at what he saw. Naruto was coated with a thin layer of red and malevolent looking chakra and when Sasuke focused on sensing it he became sure that he had felt it before. '

"Okay", Sakura answered. Sasuke forced himself to put his thoughts back and focus on the situation. "I have a plan on how we could get back easier I think. Sasuke-kun do you think you could keep guard yourself a short while."

"Hn", Sasuke answered and turned his back toward Naruto again. Quickly he threw himself at the animals that had advanced on them while they were distracted. Most of the animals weren't very hard to kill by themselves, they were neither intelligent nor trained for battle, but there were a lot of them. Swaying in between their attacks, he always stayed one step ahead with the help of his Sharingan. He focused more on defense than usual, because while they weren't trained, the big animals packed quite a punch and the snakes all had deadly poison. If he was unlucky one hit was all it would take to put him down.

He lost himself in the battle, his reality swindling down to his movements and the movements of his opponents. Adrenaline flowed through his body, time slowed down to a crawl and he was free. Dodge, strike, duck, evade, strike, dodge, kill. Fighting was all he knew.

"Sasuke", Sakura called. "We need to move soon." Sasuke honestly couldn't tell if it had been seconds or hours since Sakura talked last time. Logically it had probably been a few minutes, indicated both by Sakura's words before and the dead animal corpses surrounding him but it felt both like an eternity had passed and like it had just been a few seconds. "Can you distract some of the animals?"

"Of course", he answered. He threw a glance at Sakura and froze for a second. Sakura had blood up to her elbows and was surrounded by disjointed meat. Intellectually Sasuke knew that Sakura was a ninja, trained to fight and kill just as he was, but he would never had thought she had the stomach to cut up just dead animals.

"Catch", Sakura said and threw a few lumps of meat at them. "Use that to distract the hungrier of the animals." Her plan was smart, her brain had always been quicker than she herself was, and he nodded to her before he threw himself back into the action.

Carrying four big lumps of meat made dodging harder so he had to stop attacking completely. Thankfully that was fine because his goal wasn't to kill them anymore, he just needed to get them to focus on something else.

He took one of the bigger lumps of meat and waved it in front of the animals making sure to catch their attention. Then he threw it as far as he could, which was quite far, and watched as at least a few of the animals turned in that direction chasing after the meat like the starving beasts they were. He quickly threw the other three lumps as well. Then he sprinted back towards Naruto and Sakura, hoping that they were ready to move because the animals wouldn't let that distract them for long. He didn't know why the animals were acting so aggressively, because if it was just hunger motivating them it would have been easier to pray on the animals that had already fallen than on either of the ninjas. It was almost as if the animals could sense that they were intruders and that they wanted them gone from their territory.

When he reached the cliff end Naruto was standing up, but his legs were still shaky and his skin unnaturally pale. Saukra was standing beside him carrying four slabs of meat and she threw four others at him.

"Sasuke-kun", Sakura said sounding unsure. "If it's fine with you I don't think we should move back the way we came, it'll probably be crawling with animals drawn by the disruption and corpses."

"Hn", Sasuke said thinking about it. "Maybe. I'm not sure how to find the closest way back though if we move away from our original path."

"I've already mapped out the place in my head. I might get a bit lost, but I should be able to find the way back as long as one of you can point out the direction we are moving in." Sakura sounded unsure and nervous, but even then Sasuke was surprised that she had dared to take charge as much as she had. He wouldn't have thought she had it in her, and damn if she hadn't surprised him too many times already. He disliked realizing that there were more to people than he had previously thought.

"That should be fine", Sasuke said. Between him and Naruto they could pretty much always point out were north was.

"Naruto, do you think you are strong enough to sticking to the cliff edge?" Sakura looked and sounded worried.

"Yeah", he said still sounding a bit rough. "As long as you don't expect me to carry anything it should be fine."

"Okay, let's move." Then he ran straight at the edge of the cliff, making sure to use the right amount of chakra to stick to the ground, and soon he found himself running vertically downwards. Naruto soon followed, and Sakura came a bit behind him clearly keeping an eye on Naruto. Sasuke made himself slow down a bit, because otherwise Naruto would probably end up falling to his death. The idiot's steps were unsteady and he kept stumbling, but it wasn't like he would ever complain about Sasuke going too fast.

"This way", Sakura pointed, and the three of them stopped running straight down. Instead they veered a bit to the right, now running diagonally down the cliff.

After a while they reached the ground and then moved up to the trees. They had to take a short break as running down from the cliff had apparently taken more out of Naruto than he had thought it would. After a few brief seconds of rest they continued to move. At first they ran relativity undisturbed but then they started to encounter more and more animals. When there was just a few of them Sasuke and Sakura could easily take care of the ones they couldn't outrun at Naruto's pace, but soon they started to get crowded.

Sasuke was forced to acknowledge that if it hadn't been for Sakura's idea to use meat to distract the animals it would have been a lot harder and it was already hard enough. When they finally heard the sound of other humans through the forest Sasuke took a deep breath of relief, not that he would ever admit it. Soon they could see a four man squad of chunins coming towards them, and they were not looking very pleased.

"Follow us", the leader said shortly turning her back to them as she saw them nod. It was clear that at least one of them wanted to chew them out, but seeing the state Naruto was in held them back. Naruto really didn't look well and Sasuke would bet that it was only willpower holding him up.

They ran a few more hundred meters and then they were in the clearing that Sasuke had woken up in what felt like days ago. There were significantly less animals attacking now, and a lot of ninja seemed to focus on building easily defensible barricades and clearing out the dead instead of just defending.

"Naruto!", someone screamed loudly and then Iruka was running towards them. "What were you thinking running out like that? You were lucky that Sasuke and Sakura were reckless enough to run after you and that the three of you were apparently lucky enough to make it back relatively fine." Naruto just stopped instead of arguing back as usual. Then his eyes rolled back and he crumpled down to the ground. Before thinking Sasuke caught him, being quicker than both Iruka and the other chunin.

He let Naruto down gently to the ground and then forced himself to shut his Sharigan off. They were safe and he had already spent way too much chakra. Now that he thought about it he felt a bit unsteady himself.

"Sasuke, you should probably sit down", Sakura said with a faint tone of worry tainting her voice, and Sasuke thought she probably had a point. His vision started to tunnel and as he moved to sit he felt the world turn black. Damn it, was the last thought running through his head before he was completely unconscious.

Sweating and swearing Tsunade battled with the poison that had infected her people. Her teeth was clenched and her entire focus lay on the unconscious body before her. The man was a Jonin and one of the later victims to the damn snakes, and she was getting out the poison from his body now. She had already lost a few ninjas and even more civilians and there would be no more of her people dying today.

The snakes' poison was tricky to treat, almost as hard as some of Chiyo's poisons and Tsunade feared what it meant that such deadly poisons had developed naturally. It didn't help that the different snake species had completely different types of poison, forcing her to create multiple antidotes. In the end though the worst part was how quick the poison could kill. The first civilian who had been bitten had died just five minutes after it happened. It took a bit longer for it to kill the ninjas, their chakra helped the body to fight the poison, but even there the time was short.

She continued to work and refused to let herself feel her own fatigue. She had already been up for too long when this disaster started, if it hadn't been for her seal she would have fainted either from chakra exhaustion or ordinary exhaustion long ago.

"Next", Tsunade called indicating to the other medics that she was ready for the next patient.

"That was the last one, Tsunade-sama", Shizune answered. "The battle seems to have pretty much ended, and there are no more vitally injured. The other medics can take care of the rest now, you should rest." ..It was over? It felt like days, no years, had passed since the strange earthquake that had somehow gotten them here, wherever here now was, had started.

"I still have work to do, Shizune", Tsunade answered tiredly. "I need Jiraya to update me on what has happened, and then we have to start making a plan on how to deal with this situation." Even though she knew she didn't have time to rest she let Shizune lead her a bit away from the temporary medic camp, sat down on the ground and slowly shut her seal.

"Could you send someone to get Jiraya for me", she asked Shizune after a brief moment of rest.

"Of course Tsunade-sama." Shizune smiled at her before she left, leaving Tsunade feeling a little better. Then she moved into a more comfortable position and started to think about what needed to be done.

"Hokage-sama", a stressed voice called out. No civilian would have been able to hear that the voice was stressed, but she had long since learned to pick up on hidden stress and worries even from her Anbu. "Please, you need to look at Naruto and Sasuke as soon as possible."

Naruto's name threw her out of her deep thoughts and when she focused back on reality she was greeted by the sight of a somewhat stressed Kakashi carrying both Naruto and Sasuke as gently as he could. The fact that both Naruto and Sasuke were unconscious and that Kakashi was carrying them so gently told Tsunade enough about how bad it was.

"What happened!", she snapped as she rose. She first took Naruto and then Sasuke from Kakashi's grip and put the two of them gently down on the ground.

"Naruto was bitten by at least one of the poisonous snakes according to Sakura and Sasuke is probably suffering from serious chakra exhastion."

"Damn", Tsunade muttered as she activated her seal again. Gently she moved chakra into her hands and started to scan Naruto's body to find out exactly what she needed to do. "Tell me all you know of what happened."

"Of course Hokage-sama", Kakashi answered. "Naruto apparently tried to distract away a big group of animals from the civilians by getting them to focus on him instead. It was in the hospital area, he probably saved a lot of lives by doing it since there weren't enough ninjas around and the medic-nins had to focus on the patients who had their conditions turned worse by the quake. He disappeared into the forest with a hoard at his heels, but didn't come back.

"Sasuke woke up a while after, and Sakura updated him on what had happened. That was about one hour ago according to Inochi-san, who saw them leave. The two of them then went after Naruto. When they found him he was down and if they had been much later he would probably have been eaten. He had already then been bitten, but seemed to be able to partly heal himself. Sasuke and Sakura gave him some time to rest and then the three of them moved. Naruto fainted the moment he heard Iruka's voice and realized he was safe. Sasuke fainted just moments after and Sakura reported that he had used two Chidori's and had the Sharigan on the entire time."

The brat was damn lucky to still be alive. By the levels of poison in his blood system he had obviously been bitten multiple times and the only reason he was still alive was combination of the healing speed the Kyuubi gave him and the resilience of the Uzumaki. Quickly she got to work on getting the poison out of him. Thankfully he had been able to weaken it enough that it was relatively easy to treat, otherwise it would have taken a long time considering how much of it there was.

Then she moved on to Sasuke and damn if that kid wasn't an idiot too. He suffered from serious chakra exhaustion, which in itself was bad enough, and he had just woken up after being under the influence of Itachi's Tsukuyomi. He shouldn't even have been up and moving yet, and now...

"Damn idiot brats!", Tsunade hissed, while trying to lessen the damage. "What are you teaching them, Kakashi, that has both of them acting this self-sacrificial?"

"Ehm.." Kakashi muttered, denying her a proper answer. Not that Tsunade herself was all that surprised. Kakashi himself was known to take stupid risks if he thought it would save his teammates, but that he seemed to pass the same on to his students was just wonderful, wasn't it?

"At least train them to think a bit more" she said. "And train them to listen more to Sakura, she seems to be the only one with some restraint and brains enough to know that dying isn't a good way to save other people."

"Of course Hokage-sama", Kakashi answered sounding suspiciously bright. "I'll do that right now." Then the damn man disappeared. God how aggravating he was.

She forced her aggressive feelings back and turned her entire focus back to Sasuke. She had to transfer quite a bit of her chakra into him, which would lessen the effects of his chakra exhaustion and make him heal quicker in general. Then she did what she could to make sure that he hadn't aggravated the effects Itatchi's Tsukuyomi had on him and then finally she put his body into a deep and healing sleep that would last at least a couple of days.

After finishing, she moved back a bit and took a couple of deep breaths. Then she forced her body to slowly relax and shut her seal down for the second time this day. Pure exhaustion threatened to overtake her but she refused to give in. There was still work left that needed to be done.

"Tsunade-hime, you're not looking to well", an annoying sounding voice said as its owner sat down beside her.

"Jiraya, how long have you been here?"

"Oh I arrived just in time to hear you chew out Kakashi", he answered sounding amused. "How are the boys?"

"They'll be fine this time, but if no one teaches them to think, it won't stay that way for long." She sent a pointed glance at Jiraya, whom had been teaching Naruto for a while as well as the bastard. "How's the situation?" No matter how worried she was for Naruto because of his stupid self-sacrificial tendencies she had a job she needed to do.

"The animals are no longer attacking and we're currently working on putting up a temporary shelter that will hold the entire village and be easy enough to defend. Some squads are working on gathering up the dead animals that could be suitable as food and some others are starting cooking fires. Then there are Anbu squads who have been sent out to both scout this place and find water, with the latter being the priority. They should start fixing food relativity soon, and quite a few civilians are going to help with the cooking. We should be fine for at least another day, maybe two, but we need to start planning on what we are going to do next."

"Good work, Jiraya", Tsunade answered with a smile. It was damn good luck that he hadn't had time to leave Konoha yet before this disaster struck. She didn't know who she would have left in charge otherwise as she was forced to deal with the poison.

"I should be saying that to you Hokage-sama", he said with a teasing glint in his eyes.

"Tch." Hadn't she been as exhausted as she was she would have hit him, but now it was just too much work. "How are the ambassadors from Suna?"

"They're well", he answered, once again serious. "They helped quite a bit in defending the civillians, and the jinchuriken kid doesn't look as bad as he did before. He seems to have a better hold on his sanity now, though I would still like to take a closer look at that seal of his. It doesn't look as if it is the most well-constructed of seals."

"That's good, I guess.. Do you have any idea of how we should handle them?"

Tsunade forced her tiredness away, she couldn't let sleep deprivation affect her. She was the Hokage of Konoha and she needed to be able to think clearly to make the decisions that had to be done. She didn't know what happened or if there was anyone to blame, but if there was and she ever got her hand on the bastard... She'd make sure he would regret ever being born for putting her in this mess just after she had taken up the post of Hokage to boot.

This chapter sort of mutated on me as I wrote it. I was going to have one part from Sakura's POV and one from Naruto's, but those will just have to wait to the next chapter. Even though it become much longer than I thought I'm still pretty have with how it turned out though. So please leave a review and tell me what you think and what worked for you and what didn't.