Note: Hi, Everyone! Contrary to what you all must think, I'm not actually dead. I did, however, contract a serious case of writer's block with the added complication of zero motivation. I don't know if I'm completely cured or not. Here's hoping.

Speaking of hoping: I hope you don't mind that I let my inner poet come out a little for the first half of this chapter. Suspense and tension are hard for me to write, so I end up falling back on poetic language to help me out.

December 2000

In the predawn hours of a winter night, when the shadows were darker than black, and the stars in the sky felt colder than the layers of ice and snow on the ground, when even the wind was silent and every heartbeat was too loud; that is when six fleeting wisps traveled towards the far off sunrise. Six shinobi, who left nary a disturbance in the too-barren landscape, moved as a single unit as if on the hunt, avoiding detection from those who would become their hunters. Finally the oldest stopped, raising a hand, and the others closed ranks around him.

"Is this the place?" Haru asked, looking with unease on the towering cliffs on either side, while a bit of brush dotted the valley between.

"Sort of," Atsushi said. "You see that ledge about halfway up? The one that can hold about four people? That's the dropzone. We'll set our ambush down here where people have to pass through in order to get to it."

"Could anyone get around us by climbing down from the top?" Isamu asked.

Atsushi shook his head. "The cliff above is the winter nesting ground of Mountain Blood Vipers – you'd have to be an idiot to cross a Blood Viper in the first place, and the Mountain variety is worse because they're active all year round and winter makes them grumpy; now get a whole nest of them and… yeah, no one is coming from that direction. Anyone who goes up isn't coming down again."

"Good to know," Yokazeha said with a shudder.

Under Haru's guidance the trap was set. Wires carefully hidden, mesh nets and senbon launchers primed, and the field cleared of any obstacles that could be used by the opposing team.

Though not as comfortable in the rocks as in the trees, he and his team hid among the crags and boulders with a few pointers from Atsushi's team; they were the back up for when the right team came along. Atsushi, meanwhile, crouched on the drop-zone ledge; he would be their leader and signal every action for the rest of them. Katashio and Nobutoshi used Doton to seemingly melt into the surrounding landscape; they would use their sudden reappearance to unnerve their targets and make said targets believe they were more skilled and coordinated than they actually were.

The edge of the sun had just touched horizon when the valley appeared to breathe once and settle into the dormant state they had found it in. Nothing moved, nothing made a noise, and six pairs of watchful eyes remained perfectly concealed. As dawn heralded a new day, mice and rats scurried under the brush, looking for a sparse meal. A circling hawk screamed a warning to any who would take its prey, but that didn't stop a coyote from nabbing a lone rat and scampering away with its prize. The hawk snatched a field mouse and flew off, and the beat of wings eventually faded – the air was still once more.

"-is is the place, trust me," a voice sounded, steadily getting closer.

"You said that at the last two areas we checked. Sorry if I don't put much faith in your 'near perfect directionabilities',1" replied someone else.

"Hey! My directionabilities weren't wrong. I just misinterpreted the clues. But this place! This is it, there's no doubt," the first said. A teenager, roughly 16, came into view; he wore standard shinobi-issue clothes with lengths of thin, but sturdy, chain wrapped around his arms and torso.

"We will be the judge of that," a third voice said, belonging to a boy of about the same age decked out in a sleeveless fur coat – seals were tattooed on both his forearms.

"Let's just get this over with so we can finally go hunting," the lone girl of the group said. She was casually flipping a kunai in one hand while the other tugged at a few errant strands of hair that strayed from her high ponytail.

All three wore hitaiate from Stone.

They steadily made their way into the valley, closing in on the ledge. Then Tattoos called, "Hold it!" He knelt and studied a barely visible glimmer in the air, six inches off the ground. "Tripwire," he spat. "Someone was here before us."

"And still are!" Atsushi called out, manually setting off their trap. Mesh netting sprang from the ground, cutting off both ends of the valley. The only noticeable way out was by scaling the cliffs – or burrowing under, but there was risk in not knowing if any mines had been planted.

The fifteen year old stood from his crouched position, one hand flashing through a variety of signs. As he jumped down the two forms of Katashio and Nobutoshi rose from the ground; the hodgepodge team now surrounded the three older teens.

"You really want to fight us, kid?" the kunoichi asked. She held two kunai in ice-pick formation, ready to guard or attack.

"We're all from Stone," Atsushi said. "I'd rather not fight if we don't have to. Show us the scroll you have, and we'll show the one we have. If they don't match, we all go about our merry ways."

Tattoos huffed a shallow chuckle. "You got guts, kid. Fine, no harm in playing your game; but you show your scroll first."

Atsushi very slowly reached into his satchel and pulled out the red-silver scroll, holding it securely so that the color was clearly seen. "Now show me yours, I can't trust just your words."

Tattoos grinned and bit his thumb, running the blood along one of the seals on his left arm. In a small puff of smoke a scroll appeared – a scroll colored yellow and blue!

"There, you see? Now you can stop acting like a kitten with its tail puffed up," the first boy said.

"You're right," Atsushi said, his hand returning to his satchel a little too casually. "Attack!" Six shadows blurred into action.

Atsushi flung a kunai at Tattoos and instantly started hand signs. The older teenager ducked the throw easily, but had to hastily jump away from the hail of senbon that followed the kunai hitting their trigger.

Tattoos growled. He raised his bloody thumb to his arm. What he was going to activate wasn't to be found out as he leaped away from the stream of fire Atsushi breathed at him. He landed among the littering of senbon from only seconds earlier. His consciousness lasted only a moment longer – long enough to privately admit he had underestimated his opponent – before it was stolen away by a massive surge of lightening from the senbon, courtesy of Haru.

The two team leaders checked over the body – making sure he was alive, unconscious, relieved of his scroll, and securely bound – before turning to each other with matching grins.

"That," Haru said, "was awesome!"

Nobutoshi launched himself forwards, aiming for the kunoichi. She spun to meet him head on, and he bent backwards to avoid a strike that would have cut his head off. Following his downward momentum he landed on his hands and lashed out with his feet. She jumped cleanly over the first leg-sweep, but couldn't dodge the second spin that caught her ankles on her way down.

She landed on her hands, springing into a nearby rock and using it to propel herself back towards him like a missile. He couldn't dodge so he crossed his arms to block, the hit sending him skidding backwards a dozen feet.

Dust that had been kicked up in the brief scuffle slowly settled again as the combatants prepared to face off a second time.

Swift as lightening, the kunoichi sprang at the figure that had finally become visible. Slash, he ducked. Jab, he dodged. Kick, he jumped back. She followed up, pressing her advantage. She would not let him get a chance to counter attack.

Jab. She dropped like a rock, unconscious.

"Ouch, she's going to feel that in the morning," said Nobutoshi, popping his head out from the ground. He pulled the girl under up to her neck before crawling onto the surface. "Gotta love the Shinjuu Zanshu no Jutsu.2 By the way, what did you do to her?"

Isamu shrugged. "I jabbed her nerve cluster-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know that," Nobutoshi said. "I mean what was she fighting when I went underground?"

"You. Or rather, she thought she was fighting you," Isamu said.

"Huh… did you make me a totally kick-butt Jonin?"

"I made you a total wimp who wouldn't throw a punch."

"Hey!"

Katashio didn't hesitate to rush the teenager coiled with chains, trusting his companions to follow Atsushi's signals on who was assigned to whom. He knew exactly why this boy was assigned to him, and he vowed not to fail.

Two kunai were flung on either side of his opponent, who was still standing in a moment of shock – rookie mistake – and Katashio willed the metal to bend. He felt the familiar pull on his chakra coils, felt the simultaneous strain and release of commanding an element that was not an Element. It was easier to control metal that was already attuned to his chakra, and the pair of kunai easily shifted in both form and trajectory.

"Aw, what! Ew!" Chains yelled a liquid, but not molten, metal splashed onto his body from both sides. His disgust turned to panic as what used to be kunai started to blend with the metal on his body.

"Tetsu-"

"Yeah, Right!"

Katashio's concentration broke as a barb-tipped chain shot out towards him at blinding speed. He rolled away just in time, but when he looked back up at his opponent, Chains was already sprinting up the cliff to get some distance. Had he been fighting alone, that might have been the end of it – his range was limited, and made worse with a moving object.

But he wasn't alone.

Hidden in the crags of the cliff face, with orders to prevent runners and aid Katashio, Yokazeha sprang into action. She appeared above Chains, her imposing kodachi already pulled back high over her right shoulder.

Her clan was small but highly respected due to one particular ability. It was not their formidable kenjutsu, nor their repertoire of Fuuton Jutsu that brought them fame. Rather it was their creation and knowledge of adapted hand signs, which allowed them to use ninjutsu in tandem with whatever weapon they were wielding – oftentimes the weapons themselves being mediums between two hands that were not touching, an in the case of her twin sai.

Having mentally and physically prepared for this beforehand, Yokazeha grinned as her fingers danced along the grip of her blade without slacking. They formed easily into patterns she had been drilled on since her childhood with a bokken;3 her chakra molded without protest into one of the first and simplest of ninjutsu she had learned.

"Fuuton: Tamaranai Obi,4" she said, swinging her kodachi in a wide arc across her body. This particular jutsu could be adjusted to be a thin cutting line or a massive wall of moving air. In this instance Yokazeha made it a moderate wave, too large to dodge, too small to effect the other battles.

The kunoichi smirked and Chains' eyes widened in horror as the overwhelming air pressure bared down on him, driving him back into the earth. To his credit, he managed to stick the landing; however, he could do nothing but stay on his knees under the weight of the wind for about ten seconds.

It was ten seconds too long.

"Testuton: Sokubaku.5" Solid metal flowed into action. Slowly chains melted and fused into a solid casing. By the time the wind abated Chains was securely bound in a wide iron band stretching from shoulders to hips.

"Oi, oi! We don't even have your scroll! What happened to not wanting to fight? Get this off me!"

"Shut up," Yokazeha said as she landed nearby. One kick later, and Chains was out like a light. "Your kekkei genkai is impressive," she said to Katashio.

He nodded. "Thanks."

"But… you seemed to struggle with it." The kunoichi paused, watching his reaction. When he stayed motionless with his face turned away she continued, "I only noticed because I struggle with my clan techniques as well. They are designed for Fuuton, but my naturally affinity is Earth. It is… difficult to live up to their expectations while trying to find out my own strengths."

Katashio was silent for a few moments, when he finally spoke it was barely above a whisper. "We were never a large clan. Our kekkei genkai only developed about five generations ago, so we were still small when the Fourth Great War happened. My mother – who I inherited it from – fell in battle along with my grandparents and several cousins, aunts, and uncles; I was two at the time. The only ones left who are able to teach me are my maternal uncle – who is always away from the village on missions – and my maternal great-grandmother – whose mind is not what it once was. My father tries, but he was married into the clan. All he can really contribute is an outside perspective as I try to learn the techniques in the Clan Secret Scrolls."

"You were able to do… that… without proper training?" Yokazeha asked, waving a hand over the boy's handiwork.

Katashio flushed a little. "It isn't all that impressive compared to what my grandfather could do: he once incapacitated a squad of shinobi with their own weapons from a hundred yards away."

"You will too, someday," Yokazeha said. "If you continue to work as hard as you have been, then it is only a matter or time."

The Stone shinobi finally turned to her, and he smiled. "Thank you, Yokazeha-san."

She returned the smile. "You are welcome, Katashio-san."

"I can't believe we lucked into catching the right team on the first try," Haru said as he handed the pilfered prize over to Isamu. The genjutsu user carefully stashed it with its twin, hiding both under an illusion.

Nobutoshi laughed. "At this rate we'll be able to get your scroll tomorrow and skedaddle three days early."

Katashio shook his head. "You cannot expect a mission to be perfect from start to finish."

"Don't be such a pessimist," Isamu said. "Especially since you guys are set with your scrolls."

"It's called being a 'realist'," Yokazeha said. "It is not realistic to believe things will go as smoothly next time as it did this time."

"Anyway, let's head back to base and begin the second half of our mission," Atsushi said. Everyone nodded, and in another moment the valley was empty save for a lone mouse that bravely skittered out of its hiding place.

Ending Notes:

1. Not a real word, but it sounds like something that someone would make up and use as a verbal tic. My family has a ton of similarly made up words that we use on a semi-regular basis.

2. Literally translates to "Double Suicide Decapitation Technique"; the English dub changed it to the more kid-friendly "Headhunter Jutsu". This is the jutsu that Kakashi used on Sasuke during the Bell Test.

3. A bokken is a wooden sword typically used for training.

4. Tamaranai means "intolerable, unbearable, unendurable, irresistible, tremendous, out of this world", and would probably be translated as "overwhelming" or "oppressing" in an English dub. Obi, meanwhile, refers to a cloth belt or sash that is worn around the waist, usually to keep a kimono closed (that is, when it isn't referring to best-boy Obi from Akagami no Shirayuki-hime).

5. Tetsuton means "Iron Release" and Sokubaku means "restraint, restriction, fetters, yoke, shackles"; though it is usually in reference to rope, I thought it was fitting here.

Yes the fights were short. I stand by that. Not only is that more realistic - with the point of an ambush being to incapacitate all the targets as quickly as possible - but they are all ninja. Ninja strike hard, fast, and get away; of course, cinematic production requires drawn out sequences, but this isn't cinema so there ;p