"Uchiha Itachi," Neji stated. Said weasel inclined his head in a small bow.

"Hyuuga Neji," he countered. "Now, if there are no further objections, I will be taking Uzumaki back to our headquarters-" he began, but was cut off in mid-sentence by a small beam of green energy striking him in the middle of the back. Everyone turned around to see Jazz Fenton holding the smoking ecto-gun. Behind her stood Jack, wielding his custom Jack-o'-nine-tails, and Maddie twirling her double-ended ecto-saber.

"If you think an ectoplasmic barrier like that could stop a Fenton, you've got another think coming. Now eat this!" Jack shouted, and pressed the button on the silver, cylindrical base of the Jack-o'-nine-tails. With a flick of his wrist, nine tentacles, all crackling with electrical energy, emerged from the device and shot towards Itachi. However, without batting an eyelash, Itachi blew a fireball the size of a small child at the tentacles, destroying them.

"Or...maybe not..." Jack muttered as he threw away the useless weapon. An instant later, Maddie had leaped into action with a fierce battle cry. She rushed at Itachi and tried to land a hit on him with the staff, but the young man's Sharingan broke down all of her attacks and enabled Itachi to dodge each of them with ease. After about thirty seconds of this, Itachi calmly gave Maddie a backhand to the face that sent her flying into one of the stalagmites.

"HEY! Nobody does that to my wife!" Jack all but screamed, as he withdrew a pair of ecto-guns from one of the pockets of his HAZMAT suit. He fired the two guns as Jazz fired hers, but Itachi leaped out of the way and reappeared a few feet to the left of his original position.

"Amaterasu," he muttered, and the three ecto-guns immediately erupted into black flames. Jack and Jazz quickly cast the guns away to avoid being burned.

Meanwhile, after Danny had tricked Valerie into trapping Naruto, the two continued to streak across the roof of the cave in a game of cat-and-mouse. Danny had the obvious advantage, given that he could phase through any nearby stalactites that Valerie had to go around, but the huntress was putting up an exceptionally good chase. Danny looked down and noticed his mother breaking out of her ecto-binds, then saw as she broke Jack and Jazz out.

"Oh no..." he muttered, as the three of them took on Itachi.

"They can't beat an S-ranked missing-nin," he groaned. "I need to help them..." a second later, he dodged to the right as one of Valerie's ecto-cannons seared the rock less than a foot away from his head.

"Valerie," he shouted to her, "I know you're not gonna like this, but we need to work together to beat that guy in the black cloak."

"And why would I want to do that, ghost?" Valerie spat.

"Uh, how about because he's going to kill Naruto, and he'll probably kill the Fenton's and everyone else just for fun." Valerie froze.

"Wait...you're saying this guy's a murderer? Like, a legit homicidal killer?" Danny sighed.

"I've heard that he killed his entire family when he was thirteen years old." Valerie brought a hand to her mouth.

"That's..." her eyes narrowed. "How do I know you're not lying, just to get me to help you?" Danny shrugged.

"If you let him go, he'll just make more ghosts that you'll have to fight. And I get the feeling that you've got enough on your plate as it is." Valerie seemed to consider this for a moment. Danny took the opportunity to look down, and watched as his family began to engage the Sharingan master. He felt his palms begin to sweat as Itachi used Amaterasu on Jack's and Jazz's ecto-guns.

'C'mon...hurry up, Val!' He thought worriedly. Finally, Valerie grumbled her assent, and the two streaked down into the fray.

Danny quickly fired twin ecto-blasts at Itachi, then flashed invisible just as the older teen turned around to see who was shooting at him. The halfa then phased through an adjacent stalactite and repeated this motion, being careful not to make eye contact with the Akatsuki. Meanwhile, Valerie shot straight at Itachi, the ecto-guns attached to her jet-sled bathing the cave in pink light as they launched beam after beam of pure energy. Itachi twisted and flipped gracefully to avoid each blast, his Sharingan easily enabling him to see each blast coming so that he could get out of the way in time.

"Dodge this!" Valerie shouted as she set the thrusters on her jet-sled to full power and rammed into Itachi, trapping him in-between the sled's prongs. Immediately, Itachi's body began to disintegrate, as chunks of him shot away. The chunks of Itachi coalesced into a flock of birds, which began to circle around the sled.

"Crows?" Valerie wondered aloud.

"Ravens, actually," stated an emotionless voice directly behind her. Valerie spun around, shocked at the fact that Itachi was now standing on her jet-sled, not two feet behind her. She glared at him, unintentionally making direct eye contact.

"Tsukiyomi,"

Danny watched from above as Valerie turned to look at Itachi, then fell to her knees, screaming. He grimaced, then shot underneath the jet-sled and turned his arms intangible. Danny reached up through the bottom of the sled and plucked Valerie from it's surface.

"Betcha you don't know how to turn off those thrusters," he taunted. Itachi's eyes widened fractionally as the jet-sled he was standing on, still going at full tilt, slammed into a stalactite and exploded.

Shikamaru watched Danny and Valerie's aerial stunts carefully, taking note of when they launched bright beams of ghostly energy at each other, then at Uchiha Itachi. He brought his hands into the seal for his family's technique, and nodded to Neji. When Danny fired a green blast that lit up the cave, the Nara chuuninmuttered "kagemane no jutsu" and his shadow leaped into the shadow of a stalagmite that was cast by the blast. When Valerie launched an accompanying pink beam, the shadow jumped to another stalagmite. A few blasts later, Shikamaru signaled to Neji and the Hyuuga, who leaped further into the cave.

"Itachi's really giving your friends the what-for, eh, kunoichi?" Kisame told the captured Hinata with a slight chuckle. A second later, a kunai whisked above his head and embedded itself in the stalagmite directly in front of them.

"You," Neji stated, "Let my cousin go."

"I'd love to see you try and make me," Kisame cackled, "especially when I could snap her neck the instant you take a step forward." Hinata's eyes widened. Neji smirked and fell into a perfect jyuuken stance. Kisame shrugged.

"Fine, you asked for it." Hinata tried to scream, but it was muffled by one of Kisame's hand. The former 'Monster of the Mist' attempted to bring the other hand up and snap her neck with it, but found the appendage frozen.

"What...what is this?" He shouted.

"Kagemane no jutsu," Neji replied with a small smirk. Indeed, Shikamaru's shadow had quietly leaped from shadow to shadow until it engulfed Kisame's. The fish-man hadn't noticed that he'd been immobilized because he hadn't moved at all for the past few minutes anyway.

"You're inside my trigrams," Neji informed the missing-nin. "Hakke: Rokujuuyon sho!" Tucker shot forward and brought Hinata out of Kisame's grasp less than a second before Neji had taken her place in front of him and began sealing off his tenketsu.

"Can you do us a favor and cut through Naruto's net?" Tucker asked, "Tenten said that it's too sturdy for her weapons, so we think maybe you could use chakra to do it."

"S-sure," The heiress replied, and Tucker dropped him off next to Naruto. Hinata gathered chakra in her palm and swiped it across the surface of then net, easily cutting through it.

"Thanks, Hinata!" Naruto exclaimed, and immediately enveloped her in a friendly hug.

'N-n--n-narut-t-to...' was all the shy girl had time to think, before the blood rushed to her face and she passed out, her eyes resembling swirlies.

"Hey, Hinata, you alright?" Naruto deadpanned as he poked the prone girl. A quick karate chop to the neck caused him to lose consciousness as well, and fall on top of her. Uchiha Itachi stood above Naruto's prone form.

"You? How did you survive that explosion?" Jazz demanded.

"I jumped off the device before it slammed into the stalactite," Itachi stated, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.

"Now, if there are no further interruptions-"

"Sorry to interrupt, brother," spat a previously unheard voice.

"Sasuke." Itachi intoned, as he turned to face his younger brother. Said brother was leaning heavily on a stalagmite a hundred feet away from the assemblage of leaf-nins.

"You're still weakened from our last encounter. How do you expect to even pose a challenge to me?" Itachi questioned.

"I never said that I would be the one posing a challenge," Sasuke replied. He pushed himself off the wall and bit his thumb, drawing blood. He quickly made a series of hand seals, then pressed his hand against the stalagmite he'd been leaning on.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu" he muttered, as a web of kanji seals spread out from where his hand had touched the rock. There was a poof of smoke and a massive cobra, easily large enough to coil around the stalagmite and reach the top of the cave, appeared.

"It's too bad our parents never named you 'Mongoose', Sasuke taunted, "because then, Sharingan or no Sharingan, you might've been fast enough to dodge Mitsurugi." He shrugged, and the giant cobra struck at Itachi. The Akatsuki member dodged the strike by a hair.

"Kisame. It's time to go." His Sharingan swirled as a glowing green portal appeared in front of him. Neji's smirk, which had grown slightly once all of Kisame's chakra points had been sealed off, fizzled and died once Kisame melted into water.

"A water clone," Neji hissed, as the real Kisame appeared next to Itach. The two of them passed through the portal, and it closed behind them. A second later, the giant snake, Mitsurugi, disappeared in a massive puff of smoke. Before the smoke had time to clear, Neji appeared in front of Sasuke.

"Uchiha. As ninja of Konoha, it is our duty to apprehend you and return you to our village. If you refuse to come with us peacefully, we have the license to use force." Sasuke smirked,

"Nice try, Hyuuga. Unfortunately for you, I saw my brother create that portal with my Sharingan." A green portal, identical to Itachi's opened up between the two. "So unless you plan to follow me, we'll have to have this discussion another time." He stepped into the portal, and it disappeared behind him. Neji sighed and turned around.

"Wake up my cousin and Naruto," he said. "Let's go."

"What about Valerie?" Tucker asked him.

"I saw Itachi use Tsukiyomi on her," Danny replied.

"Oh," Tucker said, knowing that there was nothing they could do for her at the moment. He put the Red Huntress on her shoulders as Sam and Jazz attempted to wake Naruto and Hinata. Once the two had risen, the ninjas and the Fenton's trudged out of the cave.

The sun was setting, bathing Amity Park in intense reds and oranges. The group was oddly silent as the weary warriors made their way back to FentonWorks. Naruto, his hands deep in his pockets, moved next to Danny.

"Sorry I overreacted..." he mumbled.

"Dude, it's okay." Danny said. "I think I understand why you felt the way you did...but even so, don't assume I've never had to fight a ghost while the lives of my precious people were on the line...even if they don't remember it." Before Naruto could reply, the person walking in front of him stopped, and he walked face-first into them.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" He demanded. Tucker turned around and pointed skyward. Danny and Naruto looked up and saw Zabuza, floating a dozen feet above them.

"You might've gotten rid of the others, but don't assume that you can dispatch me so easily," he said.