The genin passed out at nightfall, exhausted from the day's training. Naruto smiled, as his training with them reminded himself of his own training regime when he was younger than them. Hanabi was clearly skilled with Taijutsu, able to hold her own against both other genin. Kira and Luna were great at teamwork, skilled in the basic and advanced sets of Taijutsu of her own clan. Lexianna's Taijutsu was superb, ranking lower than Hanabi, but still more advanced than Kira. Her Ninjutsu was also already more advanced than that of the others, as she had some skill pre-existing from her clan's fire techniques. All in all, they were ready for the Chunin exams but against the enemy they were facing, nowhere even close to being helpful.

Naruto set a perimeter around the clearing he was going to train in with shadow clones and started meditating. He went to his clearing with Kurama and started learning an ancient Taijutsu style, one of the styles the Sage of Six Paths created. He trained this until midnight, at which time he bid Kurama goodnight and went to bed.

Much of the trip went unbothered. The days were spent travelling, the Genin read from their scrolls while they walked. At dusk, they made camp. Naruto ran them through practical applications of what they were reading, the chakra manipulations and how to form the chakra, until dinner. After which they would train Taijutsu, as all of them were Taijutsu based fighters. Then Naruto would train by himself.

When they crossed into the Land of Snow, Naruto stayed even more on guard. He sent clones to travel the area 50 meters out on each side so he could widen surveillance and he made the girls start paying attention to the surroundings as well. The first few days went smoothly and unbothered. No traps, ambushes, or otherwise unneeded stress.

The day found Naruto in front of the caravan, Lexianna and Kira on the sides, Hanabi in the rear keeping watch with her Byakugan, and the samurai spread out in between them. Naruto had woken up that morning with the itch that someone was watching, but his clones couldn't find anything and he didn't sense anyone's chakra. He had everyone on guard, because he couldn't shake the feeling. They were moving quietly, no one was talking and the horses were being quiet. So when the sound of a flying kunai came, everyone heard it. But the samurai that got hit, couldn't move in time, and went down blood, pooling around his neck.

Naruto reacted the quickest and was already in pursuit of the person who threw the kunai, tracking based on the trajectory. He found the spot it came from and immediately fell to the forest floor, as an explosive tag was planted there. The explosion was bright, almost blinding Naruto as he glanced up, and loud, scaring the animals and making them run. Naruto dodged another kunai and took off in that direction, deactivating some of his gravity seals to move a little quicker. He caught up with the man who threw the kunai as he was getting ready to launch a volley at the caravan, which was stopped with a perimeter guard up.

Naruto quickly knocked him out with a swift blow to the back of his neck and created a large group of shadow clones who immediately spread out to blanket the forest immediately around them, looking for any other enemies. He left one to tie up and transport the unconscious Genin, based on his low ability and his hitai-ate, and returned to the caravan.

"All right, I got the one who threw the kunai, but there may be more. I have shadow clones searching the forest in a radius of 100 kilometers. What's going on here?" he said looking at the formation and repositioning the samurai in a few locations.

"We have the caravan and VIP secure, sensei," Hanabi replied, instantly.

"We have the sides covered," Lexianna and Kira replied moments later, Luna yapping an affirmative.

Naruto looked up as the memories of several of his clones popped in his head, a blur of red clouds on black. "Damn, girls protect that caravan. Stay here, no matter what. Protect the VIP, and I'll be back in a few minutes," he said fixing his hitai-ate, "If you listen, I'll take you all to the food section of the shopping district and treat you to whatever you want, okay?"

"Hai, sensei," came the chorus. Naruto nodded and took off to where his clones were pooling to try and occupy the Akatsuki, until he arrived.

When Naruto showed up, the Akatsuki were just finishing off the clones that could get there before he did, the rest vanished when he arrived as he didn't need them anymore. As the memories pooled in he took quick grasp of the lay of the land in the immediate area so he could tell where everything was at.

"I was wondering if I'd have to kill an army of clones to get to you, but then you come to me," Kisame said, hefting his sword onto his shoulder.

"Heh, they were just to hold you here until I arrived. I didn't want innocent bystanders getting caught in the crossfire. So, are you tag-teaming or who's first?" Naruto replied grabbing one of his father's kunai.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," Itachi replied, emotionlessly.

"You want the Kyuubi, right?"

"So, you knew? You knew we were after you and lured you here to capture you and you still came? You are as much of an idiot as the rumors," Kisame laughed slightly, keeping an eye on him.

"I don't like people being hurt, I aim to create peace in this world and the way to do that is to stop senseless agony. If I must beat that lesson into you I will," Naruto said hefting the kunai into a ready stance. "Whose first?"

Itachi smirked and walked forward. Naruto immediately looked down at his shadow, not at his body due to his amazing ability at casting Genjutsu. He would have to be very careful not to get caught in one of those, and still have to fight Kisame after Itachi. But, he charged right at Itachi, trying to end him quickly so he could kill Kisame and return to the caravan. He threw the kunai at Itachi's face, who dodged by tilting his head. Itachi started a short series of hand signs as the kunai was in front of him, inhaled while dodging and blew a large fireball at Naruto. Naruto waited until the fireball hid him from sight and teleported to the kunai throwing it back at Itachi and starting his own series of hand signs.

Itachi jumped, dodging the kunai and threw his own. Naruto finished his hand signs and teleported as the kunai reached him, and reappeared under Itachi at whom he shot his own fireball at. Itachi turned into crows and dissipated to dodge, becoming whole again on the ground. Naruto grabbed several of the kunai with the markings on them and spread them out around the forest, giving him several destinations to teleport to. As he is throwing the kunai, Itachi starts gathering chakra in his eyes, and activates Mangekyou Sharingan. He activates Susanoo as Naruto starts warping all over and throwing shuriken. Naruto was forcing him on the defensive, pushing him just a little. He grinned, he hadn't had this good of a fight in a long time.

Naruto made two clones, who continued warping around throwing kunai, and warped behind Itachi smashing a Rasengan into the back of his Susanoo. Itachi was jerked forward as the Susanoo was thrown from the force of the impact, small cracks appearing on the surface of the chakra shield. Naruto warped just in front of where it was going and went to slam another Rasengan into him, but was blocked by an armored hand when stage 3 Susanoo was activated. A small flurry of blows occurred between Naruto and Susanoo, before Naruto jumped away sensing he was getting nowhere. He pulled Kurama's chakra and went into full Kyuubi form. Kurama shaped a Bijuudama, a large collection of tailed beast chakra brought together super dense and shot it at Itachi. Itachi stared it down, as his Susanoo hefted a shield in front of him.

The shield slanted the Bijuudama off and a sword appeared in its other hand as stage 4 was established. Naruto, still in Kyuubi form, shrunk himself to the same size as the Susanoo. He then charged it down, dodging the stab to his left, and kicked its side. It brought it's shield up and blocked the hit, turning toward him. Kyuubi-Naruto ducked under the horizontal swing and tried to attack but that shield blocked him every time. He saw a mark on a kunai as he jumped over a kick and wondered if he could warp while in Kyuubi form.

Naruto focused for a second and warped right as a slash came through, appearing behind Susanoo. He could, but it wouldn't be as fast as the usual instantaneous warp. He thought quickly as it turned around. He came up with a plan and moved as Susanoo started moving toward him. He ran in a semi-circle around it and then teleported back to the other side, charging its back. It wasn't fast enough turning around and fell on its own sword, all of which disappeared before everything connected. Itachi hit the ground panting, blood running down his chin. A bout of coughing made him cover his mouth with his hand, which got covered in a warm wet film. He assumed it was blood, and wiped it away on his robe looking at Naruto.

"Back off, Naruto, he's mine!" Sasuke's voice yelled out as he jumped into the middle of the fight.

"Sasuke, what are you doing here?" Naruto asked, surprised.

"I am the only one that gets to kill Itachi," Sasuke said activating his own Mangekyou Sharingan. "Back off or I'll kill you too."

"I have no business with you, Younger Brother," Itachi said blandly.

"I have business with you, Older Brother," Sasuke said, just as blandly.

"Let me finish my business with Naruto, I'll get around to you."

"That's your problem, you always push me away until later. I say no, I will take my turn now. I'm going to kill you, if it kills me Itachi," Sasuke said already flowing into motion. "Kisame already took off for the caravan, he left when I showed up. You should stop him; those samurai are sharpening stones for him."

Naruto immediately jumped away, how could he let that happen? How could he let one slip past him. He removed all of his gravity seals to move as fast as he could to catch Kisame before he got to the caravan. He prepared a scroll for summoning, and pricked his finger wiping the blood on the seal. A small poof of white smoke and an old toad was sitting on his shoulder.

"How many are there now?" Naruto asked.

"About 10," the old toad said to Naruto.

"That's what, 5 hours?" Naruto queried.

"Give or take," The old toad said.

"You'd better believe it!" Naruto said, grinning.