I am truly sorry for the long wait. I just can't seem to find the drive anymore to write. It seems these days all I do is right a simple paragraph or a one-sentence dialogue. I might send for a beta reader in the near future if anyone is interested.

The Bandit Invasion force, led by the Waterfall chunin traitors, were nearing the village. Due to most of the force being non-shinobi, they had to set a much slower pace then what they used to. It frustrated them, since the clone earlier most likely gave their enemies a warning.

Little did they know, they had already been scouted.

A kunai had landed near the chunin with an explosive note attached to the handle.

"Scatter!" the leader yelled. The chunin leapt out of harm's way along with a few bandits. A split second later, it exploded, sending a few enemies into the air with severe injuries.

The leader scouted the area, noticing several dozen figures in the trees. The residing smoke and shade from the trees kept them from being identified.

"That's far enough!" yelled a voice in trees.

The chunin leader stepped forward. "Get out of our way! We don't have time for this crap!"

"You are trespassing into our village," yelled a second voice. "I think that is our business, seeing as you've scratched out your waterfall symbols on your headbands."

"And leading several thugs towards a defenseless village," said a third.

"Well, so what!" yelled a random bandit. "We're getting paid to do so! Now beat it, before you become our first victims!"

While everyone was arguing, the leader was still watching the trees. He counted nearly fifty figures surrounding them, waiting to attack. His first thought was that they were regular clones. However, his eyes and instincts were telling him that they were pretty real. He also saw that even in the shade, the figures looked similar in appearance and size.

It's that Leaf freak's shadow clones…

"This is your last warning! Turn around and leave!" yelled one of the clones.

The threat fell on deaf ears as one of the ronin drew his sword. "Make us!" Following that statement, everyone drew their weapons.

"Charge!" yelled the chunin leader as his comrades roared with anticipation.

"Attack!" yelled the clones as they leapt from the trees to meet them in the fray.

With the fight progressing, there were five individuals watching. One individual was Kakuzu. Years of experience on the battlefield, an amount of time experienced by only a few who lived as long as he has, let the S-Rank shinobi know that this was a fight between two evenly matched groups. On the invading force, he saw that everyone except the chunin were only there for a nuisance or distractions. The five chunins, however, were seasoned and fearless. While their skill levels were not as high as his, they knew how to fight.

Then Kakuza turned his sight towards teens hiding in the trees. He saw his targets, more or less presented on a silver platter by fate itself. The jinchuriki, as well as their teammates, were genins. But for the blonde one to summon nearly all of the shadow clones to counterattack the invasion was an impressive feat. He was now more than ready to try his luck against the genin. But first, he was going to enjoy the show.

The other four people were watching the fight with a calculating eye. Each one was hoping to catch some weakness in their enemies' battle with Naruto's clones. The fight was fast, especially when the Waterfall ninja were dispelling the shadow clones with ease.

20 seconds into the fight, Naruto finally spoke.

"Nearly a quarter of my clones have been dispelled already. Most of them were from the chunin, a few were a lucky shots from the samurai when they weren't looking. All of them were attacks to kill."

"So they're not messing around then," Ino stated grimly. She hoped no noticed her limbs were beginning to shake.

"Nope," Naruto agreed. "From one-on-one fights, it almost like going up against Iruka-sensei at the academy when neither of us had a clue on how to fight. That means we can't afford to make any mistakes."

"Also means we can't fight fair," Fu said.

"When our lives are on the line, we can't fight fair," Shino pointed out. "They won't and neither will we."

With that they each took a moment of silence to accept their fate. It was now kill or be killed.

"So are you ready?" asked Naruto. He turned to watch their reactions. It might also be the last time he saw them.

"Yes," Shino answered. His hive were buzzing louder than he had ever heard before

"I think so," Ino admitted quietly and raised her hand to grip her sword.

"Ready," Fu said.

"Alright then, on my mark, I want each of you to pick a chunin target. Remember, you three are going to have a short window," explained Naruto. "My clones and I will take the other two."

"Are you sure?" asked Fu.

Naruto nodded. He then took a deep breath, pulled out a kunai and a lump of ramen dough, and channeled his chakra into his feet. The force from the release launched him off the surface of the branch to high above the fight, rotating with ferocity.

"Ninja Art: Ramen Storm!"

The boy watched his attack rain down on his foes and clones. Several clones were immediately dispelled. The attack force stopped and try to free themselves from the dough that had now glued their limbs together, cemented their feet to the ground, and even made them stick to each other.

"What the hell is this stuff?" one samurai yelled as he tried to free his sword which somehow got stuck to his hair.

1….2…..3….4..

"Now!" yelled Naruto.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Shino blur from the trees with Ino and Fu right behind him. He couldn't worry about them right now, he had a job to do. On his descent, he picked out his targets. He decided to go for the chunin that was leading the attack along with another chunin nearby. He landed in the middle of the fray, right between three bandits who were still trying to free themselves.

Naruto leapt forward, dodging bodies and leftover dough that was still expanding.

5….6….7….8..

With his kunai in hand, he made several gashes into nearby enemies to make an easier effort for his remaining clones to finish them off. He tried to ignore their yells of pain as he made his way to his first target. His picked target was struggling to free one foot stuck to ramen dough on the ground and trying to throw off a dough ball on his hand that had swallowed his kunai. He saw Naruto approaching.

"You're dead, punk!" he yelled.

"I don't think so,. Naruto answered. He leapt into the air and threw several shuriken stars at the man's neck. The chunin ducked but stumbled to one knee when he lost his balance.

9….10….11….12...

Naruto landed and threw a kick to the man's head. He connected to the chunin's nose, breaking it and sending him onto his back. The chunin tried reach for a spare knife on his leg holster, but Naruto stepped on his wrist. In that one second, the two fighters looked at each other square in the eye. Naruto, with his face showing determination and small hint of sadness, looked on his opponent's face, which showed fear. In that instant, the man knew he was about to die.

13…14…

Naruto thrusted his knife forward into the man's neck. Blood spewed over his hand as he listened to his enemy's dying gasps and gurgles.

15.

Naruto withdrew his kunai and walked away from the dying man. But he knew he could never walk away entirely. His mind was slightly reeling from seeing the emptiness in the dead chunin's eyes.

The time limit was over. All around him the chakra was gone from the ramen dough and was beginning to peel off the enemy. Several foes were already free and attacking his clones. Naruto tried to find the leader but somehow lost him when engaged the first chunin.

"Watch out, boss!" yelled one of the clones.

Naruto didn't answer, instead backflipped from his spot. As soon as he leapt, he felt the chunin breeze behind his back. He landed on his feet and had his kunai braced for an attack. He saw the leader, holding a kunai as well. The man growled in frustration and grabbed a piece of ramen dough on his wrist. He threw it to the ground, then glowered at Naruto.

"Nice trick, punk. You managed to stop our attack as well as disable us. Not only that, you managed to take down one of my comrades."

Naruto flinched. He looked at his hand, which was still covered in the dead man's blood. He hurriedly wiped his kunai on his pant leg.

"Feels unnatural, doesn't it?" said the chunin. He had a dark smile on his face. "You're going to be seeing your hand red for weeks. No matter how much you clean it, it doesn't ever go away."

"Shut up," growled Naruto. "I did what I had to do. My mission is to protect the Waterfall Village."

"And mine is to capture it. Lord Kakuzu would not be please if I failed my mission. So it looks like I'm going to have to kill you to accomplish that."

"Bring it," said Naruto as he braced for an attack.

"Gladly." The chunin charged forward.

Shino hurried as fast as he could to his target. A chunin who was struggling with Naruto's dough, which had glued his hand together. He outstripped Fu and Ino easily, intent on making it before his target could get away. However, before he could reach him, a samurai took a swipe at his head, causing Shino to duck and roll underneath the swing. He saw that the samurai had one Naruto's ramen balloons on his back. It seemed to slow him down but not by much.

"You're dead you brat!" the samurai yelled as he charged Shino.

Shino pulled his kamas from his sleeves and braced for the attack. The samurai swung at Shino's head, which he ducked and swung one kama at the man's chest. The samurai backed away in time. He then spun around and swung the sword in an upwards arc towards Shino's leg. Shino backed his leg in time to avoid, just swing it into a spinning kick to catch the man across his face.

The samurai's nose broke, making him drop his sword as he tried to stem the flow. Shino took advantage of the moment and slashed under the samurai's armor at the armpits. The samurai fell, screaming and clutching his wounds.

Shino slashed the air to spin the blood off the blades. Looking around, Shino spotted the chunin again. The man was pulling apart the ramen dough, which meant the time limit must have been up. Shino hurried forward before the it was too late.

The chunin saw Shino coming and gave a roundhouse kick to his head. The boy ducked under the kick and aimed a kama towards the man's neck, causing the man to lean back to avoid it. The chunin used the momentum to continue into a backflip and kicked Shino in the wrists. The boy's weapons flew out of his hands. Shino didn't have a chance to recover them when the chunin finally removed the rest of the ramen from his hands. He was now armed and prepared.

"Almost got me," the ninja growled. "But in our line of work, almost doesn't cut it."

"True," Shino agreed. "So let's finish it."

The chunin charged. Shino waited until the right moment to make his move, which was to used his speed to avoid the kunai thrust. The chunin was shocked at the boy's speed as he just seemed to phase through the boy's afterimage. Shino used the moment to throw an elbow at the chunin's head, catching him with a solid blow. The chunin reeled forward from the blow and landed a short distance away.

Shino prepared his insects to drain the man's chakra, but a simple bandit had a moment of courage. He tried to ambush Shino from behind but his insects alerted him of the danger and attacked the bandit instead. The bandit's form was surrounded by hundreds of insects. In mere moments, the man was dead and his body had been drained of what little chakra it had.

However, those few moments were enough for the chunin to retaliate. Before Shino could turn his attention back to his main opponent, he felt a solid kick connect to his back. Pain erupted in Shino's spine as he flew through the air. He hit the ground and kept rolling. Even rolling across the water of a nearby pond.

Shino was able to control the roll, adding chakra to his hands to keep himself elevated on the water's surface. He wasn't fully trained to walk on water like Naruto was. He felt his arms sink halfway into the water before he could adjust.

As he got to his feet, he tried to adjust to his bodies injury. He had some scrapes from rolling on the ground. The biggest injury was the blow to his spine, which almost felt like it caved in. It wasn't too bad, but the breath had been knocked out of his body and was almost sure that at least two ribs were cracked.

But before he could try to retaliate, the water began to churn beneath him. Shino looked around to see what was going on. The chunin was calmly walking on the water with his hands in a tiger symbol.

"Water Style: Water Prison Jutsu."

The water began to roil and rise around Shino into perfect sphere. Shino had a moment to take a breath before he was submerged completely. He tried to push and swim his way out, but the fast current and chakra made it impossible to burst through. He could the distorted image of his captor laughing at him.

'It's useless,' the chunin mouthed.

Shino grabbed a kunai from his pouch and tried to stab the man's hand, which was in the sphere to keep the jutsu going. However, it just bounced off, making the chunin laugh harder.

Shino was trapped and running out of ideas.

Ino saw Shino and Fu bound away towards their targets. She hurried forward to the chunin she chose to attack. She pulled her father's sword from her back and prepared to attack.

Her opponent, a tall chunin, was completely covered in Naruto's ramen dough. She wouldn't have a better chance than now.

But before she could even engage her target, a bandit brandishing a knife and a missing nin from what looked like the land of stone.

"And where are you going, missy?" the bandit sneered, twirling his knife in his hands. It was clear he was an expert with it.

"Back off," Ino warned. She held her sword in front. "Unless you want to be diced into a salad."

"That's cute," the missing nin chuckled. With a small shock, she saw that he was a only a few years older than her. "A blonde bimbo trying to intimidate us."

Something inside Ino snapped.

'Oh, they're going down!' a voice screamed in her head.

She charged forward and swung her sword at the genin's neck. The boy ducked under her swing and pulled a kunai from his belt. Ino saw him draw his weapon, leapt back, and prepared for his attack. The bandit struck first though, throwing one of his daggers at Ino. The knife clanged against Ino's sword. The genin pulled several shuriken from his pouch and threw them. Ino leapt and twisted her body to avoid the spinning stars. When she landed, she smirked at her opponents.

"What was that?" she asked. "The academy students in my village throw better than that."

The bandit and genin growled with annoyance. They both rushed her together. Ino engaged the bandit first, blocking a knife strike towards her stomach. She swung her sword upward at the man's neck. He leaned his head back to avoid the thrust. However, Ino took the moment he wasn't looking and kicked the man between the legs. The bandit gave a girlish shriek and dropped to the ground, holding his injured area.

The genin engaged her next, barely glancing at his pained comrade. He swung the kunai towards Ino's neck with an amazing amount of speed. Ino barely had a second's notice to block, but she did just in time. But the genin was striking again before Ino heard the cland of steel. She blocked the next strike that was aimed at her stomach.

Ino met each blow the Stone genin was able to throw at her, but each blow was weakening her. The genin was physically stronger than her and was wearing her down. The next strike the boy made caused Ino to duck. The strike severed several inches of her blonde ponytail.

Ino froze when she saw her hair fall to the ground. She glared menacingly at the boy, who froze when he saw her look.

"Do you know how long it took me to grow that?" she growled.

"We're in the middle of fight and you want to talk about hair?" the genin said.

"Don't worry this fight is over!" She charged.

The genin raised his kunai and blocked her strike. The two fighters then locked blades. Ino kept pressing her strength into her sword, hoping to overpower her opponent. But the genin kicked Ino in the stomach, breaking the lock. She flew a short distance and slammed into a tree.

The Stone genin pulled out several shuriken stars and threw them towards her. "You're right, it is over."

The stars impacted onto Ino's body. All of them landed on large artery points, killing her instantly. A second later, she poofed in cloud of smoke. Instead of a body, the stars were on a log.

"Subsitution!?" the genin yelled.

Ino then burst out of the tree limbs. She swung her sword towards the genin's stomach, trying not to wince as the blade slice through the muscle wall and cut deeply into organs.

"Of course I'm right," she muttered as the boy fell screaming to the ground.

A second later, something heavy impacted her right shoulder. The force was enough to make her drop her sword. Before she had a chance to recover, a strong arm wrapped around her neck and lifted her off the ground.

"You should have killed me when you had the chance," a deep voice growled. Ino realized it was the chunin she was supposed to take down.

The arm wrapped tightly around her neck, cutting off her airway. Ino let out a choked gasp while she tried to pry the arm off.

"I'm going to enjoy this."

Fu kept her eyes on her opponent while Shino and Ino rushed off to meet their targets. Her target was chunin who was struggling to remove dough from his hand. The swelling sphere had swallowed up his kunai.

She hurried forward, pulling out her own weapons. It was a pair of bladed Tekkos(*), given to her from Taka last year when she turned 15. They were one of her most precious treasures.

And now, she was using to kill a fellow Waterfall ninja who turned traitor. The chunin saw her hurrying towards him.

"YOU!" he growled.

She swung her fist towards the man's chest, causing him to leap back. Through unfortunate circumstances, he stepped on one of Naruto's ramen spheres.

"What the hell is this crap?" he snarled. He struggled to pull his foot free.

"It's going to help to end you," said Fu.

The chunin smiled. Now, Fu got a good look at her opponent. It was Kurumo, one of the chunins who always gave her a hard time. When she was younger, he would always try to trip her whenever she passed or would roughly brush past her shoulder. And on several occasions, he would chewed out for his behavior by Taka.

"End me, huh?" Kurumo smirked. "Well, you're welcome to try, little bug."

Fu felt her anger rise at that comment. It was one of the names besides 'monster' or 'insect' that would cause her blood to boil.

She charged forward, hoping to disable him before Naruto's jutsu wore off. She jumped and swung her leg towards Kurumo's head. The man ducked, then swiped his knife towards Fu's heart. Fu blocked with her left Tekko and punched Kurumo with her right. Because he was still pinned from the ramen dough, he couldn't dodge quick enough. The bladed Tekko caught him in the face, slicing deeply into his check.

Kurumo yelled and clutched his face. Blood was dripping rapidly through his fingers.

"You're going to pay for that, you little bitch!"

He reached into his pouch and threw several kunai at her. The speed they flew caused Fu to dodge them, but one was able to catch her in her right arm. Right above the elbow. Fu yelled and grasped the knife, dropping both of her tekkos in the process.

Kurumo pulled another knife from his pouch. "You're so lucky I can't kill you right now."

"What?" Fu hissed through clenched teeth.

"I don't know why Lord Kakuza wants a freak like you alive as well as that Leaf nin but we have our orders. Trust me, I would kill you now if I had that option."

Fu's mind was reeling. First, was the fact that Kakuza was actually alive. The second was the order not to kill her. She didn't understand. Everyone in the village wanted her dead, especially the ninja who lost comrades when the Nananbi was free. So why was she supposed to be spared?

Kurumo finally pulled his foot free and ripped off the ramen on his hand. He settled into a defense stance, holding his kunai in front of him.

"However, as long as your alive, Lord Kakuza never said what kind of condition you had to be in. I think you can survive having your arms and legs cut off. I'm sure that monster could keep you alive." With that, he charged forward.

Fu quickly reached down to grab her tekkos, but was not quick enough. Kurumo slammed into her, causing her to land hard on her back. She barely had a moment to breath before a kunai was about to be rammed between her eyes. She reached up and caught his wrist.

Kurumo chuckled as he slowly overpowered her, aiming his knife towards her left eye. "Maybe I'll just blind you. I can live with the fact that I'll be the last thing you'll ever see as you spend whatever time you have left in darkness."

Fu struggled to hold back Kurumo's wrist, but she was losing. She could only watch with horror as the point drifted closer to her eye.

Naruto. I'm sorry.