For hours now, the biting rain had doused their spirits. Within an hour of leaving, the mild shower had intensified into a torrential downpour and had thus nearly doubled their travel time. The three ninja had been ill prepared to face nature's vengeance, but now some six hours later, they were within sight of the facility and soaked to the bone.

With no caves to take refuge in within the low foothills around the facility, the unit backed off to a dense thicket about a kilometre east of the area. Unfortunately the trees did little to stem the forceful rain, but at least they were able to block out the chilling wind.

"So," Hinata said as she shivered, causing rivulets of icy water to leak down from her bangs and glue them to her pale cheeks, "considering the situation, I'm fairly certain that flooding is going to be an issue."

"Wow, your insight never ceases to amaze me Hinata." Sasuke's childish retort echoed annoyingly as she glared at him through squinted eyes. Her patience was running very thin and she had little interest in his antics at the moment. However seeing her irritation only egged him on, "Have you any other profound words of wisdom or precognitive knowledge?"

"You mean other than telling you that you're a bastard and to piss off?" The brief silence thereafter told her that he had not prepared any immediate rebuttals, so she continued, "Yes, because of this ludicrous rain we're going to be encountering flooding for sure, this is pretty obvious. That being said, the flooding should also give us some advantages. If we take out the exits and sabotage whatever drainage systems are working, then we could completely flood the facility."

"That is an intriguing idea lady Hinata, but would that not mean that we would drown as well?" Shashu spoke uncertainly, obviously sceptical of the merits of her idea.

"That would be the case only if we destroyed all the exits."

"Okay, then what are you suggesting. Please describe the entire plan rather than pieces otherwise we will simply criticize all the pieces separately." Neji spoke calmly as he watched Hinata curiously.

Hinata became flustered by her cousin's marginally insulting comment, but after a few seconds was able to catch up with herself and explain her idea, "Okay then, this mission as you all know is both assault and rescue. Correct?" They all gave a quick nod, "Then taking the new situation into account, we have three mission points: Ascertain whether Naruto is alive and if so rescue him, elimination of the enemies within the facility, and elimination of the facility."

"What do you mean elimination of the facility?" Sasuke interjected in a questioning tone.

Glad that Sasuke was deciding to be curious over aggravating, she decided to answer him rather than just ignore him as she was starting to feel that he deserved, "There are weapons and facilities in there that we don't want other groups to be able to get their hands on. I want this place flooded entirely so that nothing inside can be used again if possible."

"Fair enough, get on with your idea then." He had too admit that he was curious what she was planning.

"Good. First of all, since there are four entrances to the facility, I want all of our entrances to be separate."

"Separate? Wouldn't that be too risky?" Neji spoke up curiously.

With a sigh she continued, "Yes it would be dangerous, but without doing so we couldn't seal all the entrances." She raised her hand to prevent them from interrupting her for the moment, "Now before you all start cutting in again, let me finish. I want all of us to enter the facility through different entrances, and while Shashu holds one and prevents people from escaping, we'll blow the doors behind us as we enter the facility."

"Okay, that's a fair strategy, but that still doesn't remove the problems we'll encounter by being separated." Sasuke spoke, his tone calm.

"If we don't split up, it will take too long to get out. If we set the facility to flood after rescuing Naruto, then there's too much chance of survivors overwhelming Shashu, if we do it the other way then we may not be able to get out in time. Because of these, we all need to take different routes and focus on different tasks."

"And what would be our allocated tasks lady Hinata?"

She smiled, glad that at least Shashu was not criticizing her ideas before they were made, "Shashu, you will guard the last entrance and ensure that we have a safe retreat. Additionally, you will eliminate anyone who approaches the door unless they are accompanied by one of us. Sasuke, I want you to locate some kind of drainage station and sabotage the pumps. I don't know that much about machinery so I leave the method entirely in your hands. Lastly Neji, you are significantly more practiced with the Byakugan than I am, therefore I would like for you to move through the facility and kill anyone you come across while using your eyes to spot stragglers through walls. Try and head towards the officers quarters to check if anything could be useful for us. Is that all understood?" She looked around at her gathered allies, they all nodded in confirmation, but Sasuke had a wry smile that she didn't trust. Deciding she'd probably scold herself later for asking, she looked to the smirking man, "What's so funny Sasuke?"

"Well I was just amused that you left the rescue out of the assigned missions."

"So? What's so funny?"

"Nothing, I just found it amusing that you're going out of your way to be the one to rescue him."

Her eyes narrowed as her face flushed in slight embarrassment, "Sasuke, will you grow up and take this seriously? There are four of us, and exponentially more of them. If you really think going in there with a broken nose will help your odds of getting back out then I'll be more than happy to oblige you. Otherwise, if I see you so much as smirk before we're on our way back to Konoha, I'm going make you regret it."

Though Sasuke was far from afraid of the young Hyuga's abilities, he was wary of women who could level such a threatening tone towards him; it vaguely reminded him of how Sakura would often threaten Naruto. With a dismissive wave of his hand he looked away from her, "Fine, fine, I'll tease you later. Just get him out of there and don't make us need to drag your ass out of the fire."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, she had no idea how Naruto and Sakura had put up with his cocky attitude for all these years, "Right, so that aside… let's move out!"

The small unit returned to the foothills around the facility, continuing to curse the constant nagging rain. Once in sight of the facility, Neji had used his Byakugan to locate the patrols that were above ground and the unit then split up to silently remove their threat… it was a brief and effortless affair.

Sasuke returned to their meeting spot weighed down by four of the black powder weapons and a like number of packs. Dropping his load to the ground in front of Shashu in a mass of clanking, he laughed, focusing his attention on the man in front of him, "How can you see these things to be a threat? If they don't see us coming then they can't even defend themselves, so why would these weapons make a difference in our need for caution?"

"Sasuke…" Hinata started forward to scold the aggravating man, but Shashu raised a hand to halt her.

"Now Sasuke," Shashu spoke, his tone calm, "I've explained this to you all before, but maybe you need another round of it in a more direct description." Sasuke snorted indignantly but Shashu merely ignored him, "If I were to hit you with a throwing needle from a hundred feet, would it damage you?"

Deciding to humour the older man, he spoke indignantly, "No."

"Now what would happen if after being hit with the needle, I pounded the end of it with a sledgehammer?" Sasuke did not respond, "Now what if instead of the needle, I just put a foot long nail on the end of the sledgehammer and hit you with it? That is more or less what it feels like to be hit by one of these. All it takes is a lucky shot, so watch yourself." Sasuke huffed and turned away, leaving Shashu to plunder the weapons and packs for additional munitions.

After performing a final scan of the surface using Neji's Byakugan, the four grouped together in a final huddle.

"Alright guys," Hinata's voice was confident as she spoke to the three men for what she hoped would not be the final time, "I'll be going in through the north entrance. Sasuke, you take the east and Neji the west. When you have finished your designated tasks, head to the south entrance and provide support to Shashu until we're all accounted for. After that we leave and seal the entrance behind us. We good to go?"

"Yes lady Hinata."

"I've been ready for ages."

"Ready."

She smiled one last time despite uncomfortable rain beating against her back, "All right, good luck everybody."

Shashu stood knee deep in water as he pushed open the large metal door built into the hillside. Once the door was free of its lock and partially opened, the built up water poured through the opening, pushing the door open the rest of the way and almost taking him off his feet and down the dark stairway.

He looked down the stairs, seeing nothing but flickers of a broken light bulb. The water rolled down into the gloomy darkness, licking the worn stone stairs. With an irritated sigh, Shashu stepped through the door into dingy stairway.

Once inside and out of the rain that thankfully was blowing in the opposite direction that the door was facing, Shashu readied his weapons. He had taken the additional arquebus along in case he needed faster additional shots, after all, it was better to be safe than sorry. After a brief two minutes of drying and loading, all of his weapons were ready to go and now all that was left was to wait for the signal.

A few seconds later, the sounds of a large explosion echoed up to him, moments later an additional two followed. Signal having been given, he moved down the stairs into the tunnel below.

It was a short stairwell, only about twenty steps so very quickly he stepped out into the three-way intersection at the base of it. The water was at his knees but much to his appreciation seemed to not be rising further. Glancing around the multiple paths, he could see the normal lighting had apparently blown and all that was left was the interspersed emergency lights, coating everything in a gloomy partial illumination. He set the spare guns on the stairs against the wall so that they could remain mostly dry and were within reach to be used at a moments notice.

Opening both eyes, he looked between the three paths again and stopped on the right one, grinning slightly, "Well time to get to work I suppose." He pulled out his larger weapon, aiming it down the dark hallway and pulled the trigger. There was a loud crack like that of a hammer being struck against a stone wall accompanied by a slight puff of smoke and somewhere a ways into the darkness, the splash of something falling into the water could be heard.

"Next."

Sasuke hated this mission more and more from the moment he entered the facility. His entrance had been a trap door inside a run down shack. Thanks to the building being overhead, the ladder leading down had been mostly dry. After setting up a fairly large amount of explosive tags at the top of the ladder, he climbed down a bit to get a better look at what he was moving into. The room below was fairly small and there were a few partly submerged metal crates in the corner, while a single path lead to the west down a dimly lit hallway. Initially the water didn't look so deep, unfortunately after reaching the bottom he realised that there were in fact two crates in each of the piles in the corner and that the water level was roughly up to his shoulders.

Grimacing at the combination of the freezing water and poor lighting, he waited for the expected signal near the path further into the facility. It was only a little while before he felt a large explosion rock the facility, at which point he quickly threw a kunai with an explosive tag at his previously placed tags and quickly waded down the dark hallway before they had a chance to explode. A few seconds later he felt the shaking from his own tags exploding, closely followed by another explosion somewhere far off. A rain of rock could be heard behind him, splashing into the deep water, but he paid no mind only intent on moving forward to get this mission over with.

The dim lighting from the interspersed emergency lights only offered shadowy illumination so other than seeing outlines and shapes, he really couldn't pick apart details about his surroundings. As he moved, the path gradually ascended until the water was only up to his waist, and while still uncomfortable, at least this offered promise of him being able to manoeuvre and fight back when he inevitably encountered others.

The tunnel continued straight with only a few stairways appearing on either side, all of them descending into the watery darkness below. He consoled himself that he didn't really need to check them out since likely anyone in them was either already out, or already dead.

Soon the not so distant sound of voices echoed to him from up ahead. Uncertain as to how far ahead the threat was, he slid down into the chilling water so that only his nose and up were exposed. Now well concealed, he half swam, half crawled his way up the tunnel until he could make out what the voices were saying.

"I don't care!" A young man's voice shouted.

"If you don't care so much then leave, I'm getting tired of your bitching. A little danger and you wanna wet yourself, pathetic." The cool, condescending voice of a second person scolded the first. The voice was a little deep, but didn't sound masculine so he couldn't identify the gender.

"Are you calling me a coward?" The first man spoke defensively.

"Yes." The second person said bluntly.

"You bitch! One of those explosions felt like it was nearby, so you should be scared too. Any normal person would be."

"It was a ways off. You're just a coward, just like I said."

Sasuke decided it was the optimal time to move forward since the voices were getting louder and more distracted, so he hustled until he was beside the doorway where the voices were coming from. The room was on the left side of the hallway, allowing the shadows of two people to flicker onto the opposite wall of the hall giving Sasuke a rough estimate of their builds. Neither appeared larger than himself, but he figured he could risk a glance into the room since the two's argument appeared to be getting more heated by the second.

The room was little larger than a big closet, maybe 10 feet long and at most 8 feet wide. A gas lantern hung from a hook on the ceiling giving solid illumination to the room while two people sat on crates above the waterline talking animatedly. The man on the left had scraggly brown hair with a pale complexion, he was short and fairly well built, but unless he could do something Sasuke didn't know of, he could be easily overpowered. The other person apparently who was apparently a woman, sat across from him while still bickering in an androgynous voice. She had short black hair framing the tanned skin on her face and sat with a katana beside her on the crate. From the low angle he was at, he couldn't see the color of either of their eyes, but it seemed incredibly unlikely that either of them had blood limits, or they wouldn't be in the ass end of the facility. Both of them wore the same kind of armour set up, a thick vest with linked ceramic plates covering the upper arms and thighs.

Like a crocodile stalking his prey, he submerged completely and silently moved forward between the boxes that the other two sat on, neither seeming to notice him. Beneath the still waters he thought over what would be the best course of action to take. It was a few seconds before an idea slipped into his head that caused him to grin maliciously.

The argument between the two had simmered down to an angry glaring match, and since they were both distracted, neither suspected what was about to occur. The two above water reeled back as a large splash of water from between their crates erupted to the ceiling, almost dousing the lantern. The two ninja only had a moment to be confused and surprised by the splash before Sasuke had jolted out of the water and grabbed the hilt of the woman's sword. Instantly measuring the weight and balance of the sword, he spun around in a quick rotation, slicing the blade just below the man's ear level and returning to face the woman in front of him.

The woman's vision cleared as the water cascaded down around her, revealing Sasuke standing in front of her with her own blade held by him in a defensive stance. She didn't even have time to notice the upper half of her friend's gurgling head flop backwards while attached by only a thin flap of skin, before Sasuke abandoned his precautionary defence and struck out at her.

In an instant he rotated the blade down so it was parallel with his body and pointing straight at the ground, and struck upwards catching the woman beneath the armpit. The blade sliced cleanly through the chains for the armoured plates, as well as her flesh, bone, and tendons, sending the her arm spiralling out the door accompanied only by the ring of steel and a gout of arterial blood.

Sasuke stood and watched as she fell backwards off the crate and into the freezing water, her blood spraying out and staining the walls and ceiling as she tried to staunch the bleeding. He found it sickeningly amusing that the woman had not screamed and still wasn't, though her reasons he figured were more because of shock of having her arm cut off than not feeling the pain. Deciding play time was over, he reached into the water where she writhed through a combination of pain and struggling to breathe, and lifted her out by the front of her shirt. He watched her a few seconds as she hung there soaking wet and tearing, before he slammed her into the wall, "I have a few questions for you little girl, and if you want to stay upright, then you'll answer them fast."

Her head rolled to the side a bit, causing her to see the very fresh body of the man she had been arguing with. Her eyes hardened as she bit her lip to hold back the pain and looked Sasuke in the eye, "Why the hell would I help you, you bastard?" She shouted at him with a tear and blood streaked face. She vainly tried to kick at him, but barely had the strength to move her limbs.

"That would be the wrong answer." With a quick flick of his wrist, the sword twirled around in a downwards arc and severed the front three inches of her right foot. This time she attempted to scream but he simply forced his elbow up into her chin, closing her mouth and keeping her scream to more of a loud gurgle. "Would you like a second attempt at that question?"

She nodded vigorously against his arm until he pulled it away enough to let her speak, "You bastard." She cried, glancing over to the body of her friend again, driving home the very real idea that he could kill her before she even realised it.

"That's MR. bastard to you. Regardless though, are you going to answer those questions now?" He waited for a moment, wherein she nodded begrudgingly, "Good, now tell me where the pumping stations are?" He spoke with a commanding voice.

"Pumping what?" She looked confused, though between the blood and contorted expressions it was a little hard to tell.

"Pumping stations, drainage facilities, whatever the hell you call them? Places that use pumps to get water out of the facility."

She thought about what he was asking for a moment before it finally clicked into place. Looking at him disbelievingly she spoke softly, "You're trying to flood this place?"

He slammed her against the wall again, this time the audible crack of a rib accompanied her partial scream, "Answer the damn question. If you tell me what I need to know then I guarantee you'll be staying vertical."

"Okay, okay, there are two. One's in the southern section of the facility. I'm not sure where. The other is nearby. Turn left outside the door, then take the second left and follow it to the end of the hall." Having finally broken, she began crying heavily, "Now please don't hurt me anymore." She sputtered between gasps, allowing her head to droop low and tears to flow freely to the water below.

He waited, letting her cry for a few second before choosing to speak again, "That wasn't part of the deal girl, and I just said you'd stay vertical." Between sobs she looked up in a mixture of confusion and fear, only to see a glint of malice in his eye. In a single swift motion, he thrust the blade up into her abdomen just below her ribcage, and hammered it into the wall behind her. He stepped back and watched a moment as she stared down in mute horror at the blade through her torso. "I don't care if you are the lowest on the totem pole little girl, you all took something that mattered to me, so now you get to suffer the consequences." He reached into one of the waterproof containers on his weapon belt and withdrew an exploding tag. "Thanks for the help." He said casually as he slapped the tag on the woman's throat. "Goodbye."

A brief string of very loud and vulgar curses followed Sasuke as he stepped out of the room, shortly followed by a small explosion, then silence. As calm as though nothing had happened, he bent down and scooped up some water from around his legs and splashed it against his face causing bloody rivulets to drip down into the dark fabric of his shirt.

"Well that was refreshing. Two down and only a hundred or so left to go." He said coolly as he walked off in the direction she had told him.

Neji did not relish his job, but even he had to admit he was off to a good start. Using his Byakugan from a safe distance, he found that the west entrance was inside what appeared to be a small barn, where inside there was a downwards ramp leading to what appeared to be the main entrance of the facility. From the barn door to the first open area below it was about twenty meters of tunnel that was probably wide enough for four men to comfortably walk abreast. In the room at the end of the tunnel, there were six guards waiting around in front of a large iron door. Four of the men were arrayed around a small table with chairs where, while the remaining two were each armed with an arquebus and stood on obvious guard duty at the door.

Looking at the situation he pondered the best course of action, focusing on how it would be best to get close without alerting them. If they knew who he was before he could get to them then that tunnel was bound to be a deathtrap. It only took a minute before an interesting idea popped into his head; he only hoped that he could make for a passable actor.

Removing his forehead protector, he placed it in his weapons pouch and pulled his light cloak around himself tighter so that he was mostly covered. The thin material was thoroughly saturated and clung to his skin and clothing uncomfortably as he formed the seal for a henge. After a moment of channelling chakra and a brief puff of smoke, a slightly different Neji peered on. The henge did not change any of his physical features, but it covered the cursed seal to look like normal skin, changed his eye color to brown and concealed his weapon pouch. Now that his costume was in place, it was time to get the show on the road and to get out of the rain.

Taking off at a sprint, he ran towards the barn. He hadn't noticed if there had been any kind of electronic surveillance, but assuming there was, approaching cautiously would have him immediately found out.

The barn stood before him, maybe fifteen feet tall, with large, sliding double doors in front. He quickly grabbed the handle and slid it open, then ran into the semi dry confines of the barn. The insides were decrepit and unlit, but in the gloom he could make out the outline of a set of cellar stairs in the corner. Half acting, half serious, he pulled off his cloak and twisted it to wring it out while talking loudly to himself, knowing his voice would echo into the darkness below. "Damn rain, I can't even make it home with this."

He stood with the barn door open and stared out at the rain, letting some light filter into the small building while waiting for events to unfold. It took a few seconds before he could hear mumbled speech from the stairs, but continuing with the disguise of being a normal person, he did not react to the voices, or look around at the stairs that he already knew were there. About thirty seconds later the sound of lightly concealed footsteps coming up the stairs stirred his ears. He continued watching out the door to maintain his act, but mentally readied himself for the potential combat should they decide to just attack without asking questions. The footsteps echoed behind him as he could tell the distinctive low ring of a kunai being drawn, but still he chose not to react.

"What are you doing here?" A gruff man's voice pierced the silence, emphasized by the light pressure of the kunai blade pressing against Neji's back.

Intent on maintaining his disguise at least for the moment, he jumped slightly, and responded in his best stuttering, uncertain voice. Thankfully he had abundant observation material through the years of knowing Hinata that his voice was quite convincing. "I-I didn't d-do anything. P-p-please don't hurt me."

"If you answer properly and we determine you're not a threat we may. Now what are you doing here?"

"I-I've been t-traveling for hours in the rain a-and this place looked good to wait out the storm in." Even though it was an act, Neji felt utterly disgusted with himself for even mocking such obvious weakness. He could feel the man's eyes running over his back in search of something, probably weapons and unusual body language.

"Turn around kid." Neji could hear the man take a step back in anticipation of him turning around, but he delayed a second, fighting his rising urge to kill the man for calling him a kid. After a brief mental battle to maintain the act a little longer, he turned around at what he deemed was an appropriately slow pace for someone who should be afraid for their life. The man before him was incredibly non-threatening and on any normal day he would have laughed at him holding out a blade, he was thin almost to the point of anorexia, had dull black hair, and a very simple face. Again the man looked Neji over, and seeing nothing, he placed the kunai back in his pouch. "Follow me kid, we're gonna have to see what'll happen to you."

"Umm, okay." Neji said quietly, thankful that he only needed to keep it up until he was in the room below. Some wouldn't call being surrounded by enemies 'safety', but Neji always preferred it when his opponents were in easy reach. Seeming to accept the answer he was given, the man turned away and headed down the stairs that he had come up. Following close behind, Neji hoped that the obviously subpar ninja in front of him took him directly to the others at the gate.

There were only a few stone stairs before they let out into a wide and descending concrete tunnel heading straight. There was some mud inside but things were mostly dry and there were dispersed ceiling fixtures that shed enough light to see decently while they walked. It only took about thirty seconds before he stepped out of the tunnel into the largish room he had seen before with his Byakugan, the men had moved around a bit but everything else was still in the same location.

Neji gave the room a quick scan before the other men noticed their arrival. All the men were within about eight feet of the center of the room and though they all looked much healthier than the man who took him down here, none of them looked to be even a remote challenge. More than likely the guy who had 'acquired' him had simply drawn a short straw since none of them even seemed to carry themselves with the grace of a chunnin.

After several seconds of standing around, one of the men in front of the large metal door looked up and saw them. He walked over to them with his arquebus in hand and a curious look on his face, "So this would be our visitor I take it?" His voice was quiet and lightly slurred in the manner that only someone who grew up in the countryside could.

"Yeah," the man beside Neji responded, "just some kid that wanted to get out of the rain. Unlucky sort I suppose."

"Yeah, sorry kid. You stepped into something you shouldn't have." The man with the weapon looked over at him, looking authentically unhappy with what he was thinking.

"Oh, don't be." Neji responded calmly, secretly ecstatic that things were about to begin.

Both men looked at him oddly for a moment before the man who brought him down managed a rather dumbfounded, "Huh?"

"It's pretty simple actually, I didn't know what kind of surveillance you had and I didn't want to risk having to come down a straight tunnel with no cover, so plain as day with a stupid and rather simple ruse I made you to appear as no more than the monkeys you are. How unfortunate for you that you brought me here, oh well. Goodbye!"

The two men looked puzzled and surprised by a combination of Neji's large words and drastic change in demeanour. It only took a second for them to attempt to ready their weapons, while the other men in the room did nothing and barely even acknowledged the new man's presence. How unfortunate for them that none of them managed to reach their weapons before he began to turn.

"Nobasu Yari Kaiten!" Neji spun tightly on the spot, forming a sphere of chakra around himself and a thin hoop of energy around it at about his chest level that was no more than a quarter of an inch thick. After a fraction of a second, the hoop flared out, expanding to many times its original size and struck the far walls, scoring them two inches deep.

Silence followed as Neji skidded to a halt, looking over the room with his usual serene expression. The two men in front of him looked at him with silent screams and surprised expression, almost as though they were frozen in time.

Reaching forward, he tapped the gaunt man's forehead lightly, causing it to loll backwards. As the head rolled around, a seam appeared in the man's chest, peeling away just below the top two inches of shoulder and falling to the ground with a splatter of gore. His body followed shortly after, tumbling to the side and knocking over the second man who also split apart at the chest. Within seconds it became like a grotesque game of dominos as the other men fell to the ground in masses of blood and body parts.

Neji paced the room to make a quick survey of his work while letting his henge dissipate. No one was left alive and there was certainly no chance of revival should there happen to be a very good medical ninja in the facility.

With a nod of satisfaction at his work, Neji turned to the metal door that sported a thin yet deep scar from his attack. The door itself was two sliding iron slabs in indentations on the ground and ceiling that met in the middle and were locked together with a heavy bar. Deciding to be careful, he reactivated his Byakugan and examined the bar for any kind of additional lock or trap, apparently though, they had deemed the entrance was well guarded enough to leave the door without any extra defences on it. He chuckled to himself lightly in amusement as he lifted the large metal bar and dropped it to the ground with a heavy clang.

Neji didn't have time to so much as touch the door after dropping the bar, as both doors collapsed in on themselves at the point where he had cut into them. The thundering sound of hundreds of pounds of metal slamming down onto a stone floor echoed painfully in his ears and down the hall behind where the metal had previously stood. He grimaced staring into the now open hallway, seeing a straight path with dozens of doors and halls leading off in different directions. With an irritated sigh, he gave a final look around the room he was inside; peeking a few feet into the walls with his Byakugan to ensure there weren't any secret doors around. Once he was certain the room was secure, he reached into his weapons pouch and withdrew a handful of explosive tags and tossed them casually into the air behind him, allowing them to flutter to the ground randomly strewn about the area. Once all the tags had fluttered casually to the ground he again reached into his weapon pouch, but this time he withdrew only one tag as well as his forehead protector and tied the cloth comfortably back into place over his seal.

He glanced around at the many explosive notes now littering the floor and sighed. How he wished to be strategic about his use of them, but Hinata had expressly told him to be as loud as possible. Steeling himself and ignoring his better judgement of being more strategic with his tag placement, he waited with the spare tag at the ready. Glancing out into the hall, he tapped his foot impatiently. The noise from the collapsing door would attract attention very soon, so he hoped her signal would come soon, he really couldn't wait too long.

Ten seconds, he could hear some voices a ways down the hallway.

Twenty seconds, the voices were getting closer.

Thirty seconds, the ground shook as the sound of an explosion echoed back towards him.

"Finally!" He said to himself as he slapped the tag to the wall, channelling a touch of chakra into it and bolted off down the hallway. It was a few seconds before he felt another explosion rock the facility, shortly followed by the massive blast and vibrations from his own set of explosives.

After the facility finished shaking from the explosions, he regained his footing and turned back to make sure that his tags had properly blocked off the exit. A few seconds later he was pleased to see that the entire section had collapsed and so had most of the smaller side rooms in the area.

Turning back down the hallway, Neji closed his eyes and breathed deeply, taking in the foul air of the rooms and halls surrounding him. After a moment, he released the breath and looked down the hall in front of him with a morose expression, not commonly worn by the young Hyuga.

"Let the hunt begin."

She stared down the foreboding hole in the ground in front of her and shuddered. The cement lined pit leading down to her entrance was only two by two and a half feet wide with roughly a dozen rusted iron bars that she could see embedded into the side. She just hoped that all the bars that were out of sight were there and that when she got to the bottom she wouldn't have to freefall down to the hatch, and due to the poor light and depth of the offending pit, she couldn't even see how far down the trap door at the bottom was. Stepping back for a moment, she looked around at the location and concluded that the designers of this place must have been drunk when they made the plans for it. The tube leading to the entrance was at the top of a high hill, which was great to conceal it from people below, but it was adding several meters of unneeded vertical distance to get into the facility.

Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she stepped back over to the pit and looked down again, resolving to move despite not wanting to. Biting her lip to distract herself she slid one foot down, then the other. She stepped to the second wrung, then the third, the fourth, the fifth. By this point she was now far enough into the hole that it came up to just above her hips, and with the addition of thickness of Naruto's coat, she found that the confines of the tube began to feel uncomfortably small.

With a sigh she stepped down to the next wrung, feeling around until her foot made contact with the hard metal. As she shifted her weight to step down with the other one, the unpleasant sound of snapping metal chimed through the air as her support evaporated from beneath her, easily pulling her hands away from the wet metal wrung that she held.

The edge of the hole rushed past her head as darkness swallowed her for the duration of her surprisingly brief fall. After plummeting no more than 6 feet, she plunged straight into a bone chilling mass of water that rapidly climbed above her head. In panic she tried to flail her limbs in search of the wrungs to climb back out, but the confines of the tube mixed with her jacket tangling over her head caused her to do little more than expel precious air.

"Shit, this is not happening!" she mentally swore to herself, trying desperately to ascend to air amidst the tangled mass of her coat and the overly close walls. In her flailing, her foot smashed into something below her very hard, causing a swell of pain to rush into her. She grit her teeth, biting back the swearing that threatened to escape her lips in hopes to preserve what little oxygen she had left.

It was then that she experienced a truly odd sensation, suction, though this was a hundred times as powerful as what could be felt in a bathtub as it almost instantly drew her into the depths unknown. She vaguely saw the wall rush past her eyes before she was jettisoned out into open air, allowing the floor to welcome her some 10 feet below.

SPLASH!

Once again the water's cold embrace surrounded her as she lay floating on her back around a foot above the stone floor. Her coat lay pulled along with her arms above her head, a tangled mess, while her body screamed in response to the less than glorious, reverse belly flop that she had just performed. The ceiling spun menacingly in front of her eyes, laughing down at her misery and pain. Water continued to splatter down on her face from the spinning ceiling, but she chose to ignore it in favour of regaining her dignity and composure… and ability to see straight.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, silently swearing to herself to never tell a soul about what just happened. She knew that even though she had been proving herself to her family for the last few weeks, there was no way any Hyuga would let her live down this humiliating entrance.

Loosing an exasperated sigh she stood up, adjusting her coat and opening her eyes, allowing them to adjust to the gloomy lighting now that the world around her had stopped spinning around her. With a quick scan of the area, she could see that she had fallen smack in the middle of a T-junction, but had evidently not drawn any attention since the halls were still and silent.

She moved beneath the hole again, allowing rain to drop down on her as it ran down the walls of the tube. The extra water falling on her went unnoticed since she was so thoroughly saturated and miserable already. At the base of the hole in the ceiling she could see the hatch bent straight down away from the opening, its hinge creaking ominously regarding its ability to close again. It was just above there that she saw poking out from the wall, some three feet above where the hatch had opened, the cause of her humiliating entrance and sore foot. A thick metal rod poked out from the wall that apparently acted as a release valve for the hatch when descending the ladder. It seemed that the rain had continued to build up inside the tube, so when she accidentally hit the rod, the weight of the water had forced open the hatch, dropping it all into the hallway below and throwing her around like a rag doll… a very wet rag doll.

With a heavy sigh, she reached into her sealed weapon pouch and retrieved 5 explosive notes. Channelling a small amount of chakra into her feet she walked up the walls to the ceiling and placed the tags in a pentagon around the hatch, leaving a good distance between them in hopes that when they went off, they'd take the hill down into the hallways. Once they were all placed and she had rechecked them, she charged one of them with her a little of her chakra and quickly dropped down to the ground.

The water splashed around her as she landed and took off at a sprint down the dim hallway away from the T-junction and in the direction of the center of the facility. Several seconds later, the rumbling sound of an explosion and several tons of rock and dirt shifting screamed from behind her, noisily informing her of a job well done. After a few more seconds, two other sequences of explosions echoed their way to her ears, causing a bitter smile to filter across her lips.

Stopping a moment, she took the time to look around the straight, dull hallway that she was currently in. Nothing about this place was welcoming, and since the second she had so less than eloquently arrived, she had hated it more and more and wanted nothing more than to leave. That however would have to wait until she was done.

Turning back down the hallway, she took off in the general direction of where she knew the holding area to be, she only hoped that she wasn't too late.

"I'm coming Naruto, please be alright."

Nobasu yari kaiten – Reaching spear rotation

Thanks for reading everyone, I hope you enjoyed the latest instalment. Sorry it took longer than I said to post, but it was a surprisingly difficult chapter to write. Hopefully the next couple will come out easier but unfortunately I can't make any guarantees. I will tell you this I will post the next chapter as soon as I can. Also, thanks for all your great reviews, and I look forward to reading more of them in the future.