"Hey, Professor Mc-gone-a-go or whatever your name is, you'll have to take us to a jungle or a forest that you know where tigers are!" Naruto yelled at poor Professor McGonagall.

"My name is Mc-gone-a-gall. NOT gone-a-go!" McGonagall yelled back, her face flushed. Neji fought an urge to snicker at her. "Yeah, whatever. Your name doesn't matter to us. Just take us to whatever jungle or forest you know of." Naruto waved a hand at her.

McGonagall muttered something like "Dumbledore…must….listen…them…important…thing." and glared at Naruto before extending her hand reluctantly.

Neji smirked at her, which infuriating her even more, and motioned for the others to come.

They all joined hands and with a loud crack, disappeared on the spot.

Sakura felt her lungs being squeezed to death during the apparation, and just when she was about to suffocate, the feeling lifted.

Naruto looked around the wet, misty jungle/forest. Trees covered in moss surrounded them, making them feel watched, even though no one was really watching them.

Neji scanned the area with his byakugan, which McGonagall eyed curiously. "There's one big one over there, Haruno-san." He said calmly, pointing at some random spot that, to McGonagall, seemed to be right next to her.

McGonagall followed Neji's gaze to the tree next to her before jumping and almost shouting, "Where? Where?"

Sakura looked at him, confused. She didn't sense anything there. "No, no, no. Haruno-san, I meant it was 1.2 miles away to your left, near a tree that looks like Hokage-sama's table." Neji said in a how-could-you-not-know-that-and-I-thought-you-were-smart tone. Sakura half glared at him before taking off in front of an astonished and embarrassed McGonagall.

Sakura finally stopped before a table like tree, and heard a slight growl. She looked up to see a huge, beautiful and lean tiger snarling silently with it's mouth wide open, showing rows and rows of pure white, gleaming fangs.

Sakura was about to speak when suddenly 700 pounds of roaring muscle and fury hit her straight on; there was no time for her to dodge.

It took almost all of her might just to keep the snapping jaws away from her neck. Sakura struggled and struggled under the might of the striped cat, which looked as if it was determined to kill her as long as it lived. Sakura yearned to use a jutsu on it, but she knew that would probably strengthen its resolve to kill and maybe even kill it in the process.

"Come on! You can't be beat by this stupid kitty-cat! You're the Godaime's apprentice! You can't lose here!" Her inner screamed at her.

"I know I can't lose! If I lose, I'll DIE!" Sakura thought, putting a bit of chakra into her hands just to lift the huge paws off of her. The tiger roared and pressed harder, its fangs inches away from taking it's chosen victim's life.

"SHANNARO!" Sakura yelled, her eyes popping. Summoning half of her chakra into her palms she shoved the cat away from her. The cat snarled as it tumbled off her and hit the ground. Sakura panted as though she had run ten miles, and watched the huge animal.

"Come on, Sakura! Think, think, think!" Sakura thought as the huge, bigger-then-life tiger circled her, its eyes also watching her every move, waiting for a time to strike.

Just then, as the cat circled her, Sakura noticed a gaping wound in its side. It was so deep Sakura could nearly see its ribs. It must've been in a fight. But even with this much blood loss it can still nearly overpower me, it means that this isn't its full strength! Sakura thought with wide eyes. So the right time to attack…is…NOW!

Sakura summoned chakra to her legs and tackled the huge cat with breakneck speed. The cat yelped in surprise as the kunoichi attached herself to its side.

Sakura immediately lashed out with special shinobi wire and spun it around the tiger's limbs with a flick of her wrist. Once wrapped around three times Sakura gave a hard tug and tightened the knot. The cat roared with fury as it struggled to free itself.

Sakura flipped the cat over with great difficulty, and placed her hands several inches away from the wound. Warm and soothing chakra poured from her hands into the wound. Sakura concentrated, imagining the flesh growing back, the veins connecting again.

Sakura felt the tiger relax and heard it purr a quiet comforted purr. Sakura smiled. Once she was done, she cut the wire, and released the tiger.

"Hey, I healed you, just so you know." Sakura told the tiger, who cocked its head at her. "I was looking for a partner…and you seemed ideal…will you accept?"

Sakura reached out to pet the tiger. The tiger looked at the hand, hesitated, but after a few moments later walked forward and allowed her to rub its ears.

Sakura smiled happily; mission accomplished. "Follow me, er….tiger." She said, removing her hand from its head. She began walking back to her teammates. The tiger followed.

Neji leaned against a tree while Naruto played with a kunai. Professor McGonagall nervously watched her surroundings, twitching or jumping every now and then when she heard a noise like a monkey calling.

"Listen, woman. You aren't going to be attacked by some wild animal. Even if you were, you have us protecting you." Neji finally said, irritated by McGonagall's fidgeting. McGonagall looked incredulously at him.

"You're our helper, so it's sort of like payment, protecting you." Neji said, answering McGonagall's inner question.

Naruto flipped a kunai, failed to catch its handle and cut his hand. "Ow, my hand!" He yelled, wiping away the blood.

McGonagall looked at Neji as though to say "That's my protector?" and hurried forward with her wand, ready to heal Naruto.

"No need, it's already healed." Naruto shook her off, showing her his supposedly cut hand. McGonagall looked with amazement when she saw his hand, which bore no trace of a cut, not even a scar.

Suddenly, Naruto's fox growled at some unseen thing. Neji's hawk shifted nervously, its talons gripped his shoulder a little harder.

Neji got the message and activated his Byakugan. He scanned the area, and noted several strong chakras were heading towards them.

"Naruto, several people are approaching." He announced a bit later. Naruto nodded and put two fingers together. "Kage Bunshin no jutsu!" 5 clones appeared next to Naruto, scaring the spit out of McGonagall.

"Ok, you two go spy and see who they are." Naruto said, pointing at two Narutos on his right. "You three go surround them. Got it?"

Naruto's clones nodded and disappeared in a flash.

Neji turned to a shocked McGonagall. "Sorry, Professor, but it seems like we have company." He told her.

"20 of them, actually. They carry those carved and polished chakra sticks you call wands."

Neji looked to see who spoke, and was surprised to see his hawk looking at him and McGonagall.

"Y-you can…speak?" Neji asked, blinking. The hawk nodded. "H-how can you speak? Only a few summoned animals can…s-speak." Neji stuttered, not yet recovered from the scare.

"I was a summoned creature, but I got tired of my abusive master and escaped to another world. I've been living here for 5 years." The hawk said coolly. Neji let out a breath of relief.

"The fox is one too. I can tell." The hawk said, pointing at Naruto's fox with one wing. Neji smirked and said, "That'll give Naruto a scare, so I'll keep this a secret until he speaks."

After five minutes a clone that was given the job to spy crashed through some branches and landed on the ground.

"What's the matter?" Naruto asked, helping him up. "The guys have masks on, and they wear black cloaks. One of them spotted us, and sent some red light at us, and it hit my partner. So I came back as soon as possible." The clone said.

"I know who they are." McGonagall said, her voice firm. Neji gave her a questioning look. "They are death eaters. They must know we are here. We have to run; we can't stand up to twenty death eaters!"

Neji smirked. "We are three of the strongest in our village. Those sticks can't beat us!" Naruto yelled, with a hint of pride in his voice.

Naruto did a sign and made at least 10 clones that surrounded them. Several more filled the trees nearby. Two clones nearest to McGonagall grabbed her. "Take her somewhere safe!" Neji ordered. "W-what are you doing? I can apparate you three away from here!" She cried out, struggling to get free.

"You're not the only person that can apparate here, Professor. And even though you want to apparate, it's impossible. They placed an apparation barrier around us, which can only be broken by destroying the wand that cast it, or removing the spell." Neji said, casting his eyes around.

"But I can reverse the spell!" McGonagall argued. Neji sighed. "Yes, but we want to test the strengths of our enemies. It is essential for future battles, so we won't under or overestimate them."

McGonagall stopped struggling and sighed. "Are you sure you two will be alright? And where is that pink headed girl? The polite one?"

"Right here, Professor. And you two will be alright? What's that about?" Sakura repeated as she and her tiger came out of the brush.

All three of her companions stared at the huge, beautiful tiger that stalked towards them. "Sa-Sakura-chan, how DID YOU GET THAT?" Naruto said, putting his hands on either side of his head and yelling at the end of the sentence.

Sakura smiled proudly and petted her tiger. "That's the tiger Neji-san spotted for me. It must've looked small from the distance he was looking." She explained.

Neji stared for a little longer before tearing his eyes away from the godlike animal. "Oh, and what was that part about, the "And you two will be alright?" part?" Sakura asked again.

"20 Death eaters are coming, apparently they know of our presence here." Neji informed her, reaching into his back pouch.

Sakura's eyes widened a little bit, and asked "How the heck could they know? It's impossible! Unless someone overheard Dumbledore-sama talking to McGonagall-san, and also overheard us talking about our location!"

Neji nodded grimly. "But we'll deal about this later. They have arrived. Go hide McGonagall, hurry!" Neji shouted.

Neji pulled out two kunai, and held them with one hand. Naruto sunk into a fighting stance, and Sakura concentrated chakra into both her fists.

"Stupefy."

Neji gasped slightly and jumped out of the way when a stream of red light shot towards him. The red light hit a clone, making it disappear into smoke. Neji landed on a tree, which other death eaters attacked too.

"AAAAAARRRGGHHH!" The hundreds of Naruto clones roared a battle cry, and charged into the forests. Naruto's fox followed them closely.

"Reducto!"

"Stupefy!"

"Crucio!"

Three death eaters roared, hurling verbal and non-verbal spells from their wands with as much force as launching a cannon ball.

But the death eaters were soon overpowered by the clones, each one of them launching themselves at a random death eater. One death eater fell with two kunais to the head, three kunais to the neck and five shuriken to the stomach thrown by Naruto clones. Another died to Sakura's super inhuman punch, which practically reduced his skull to bits of crushed bone.

The third fell to Neji's divine punishment, and the fourth was killed by a Naruto combo. Several others were brought down by the hawk, the fox and the tiger.

Naruto jumped down triumphantly, and deactivated almost all of the clones, leaving three. "HA!" Naruto half roared at the remaining death eaters. "You stupid death whatevers thought you could beat me, the great about-to-be Hokage, THE Uzumaki Naruto?!"

Sakura slapped her forehead, while Neji just sighed. "You four win this round, but next time, scum, you won't get lucky!" A death eater yelled back. His companions nodded in agreement and grabbed their dead comrades.

"Finite Incantatem!" The same death eater shouted, and disapparated along with the remaining death eaters.

"Now…that was completely weird." Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head. Neji scowled at him. "Idiot, it wasn't weird! It was…it was…" Sakura stopped, lost for words to describe the situation.

"Never mind all that, we have to figure out how those death eaters found us and our location." Neji reasoned, and held up a hand to signal that it was ok for Professor McGonagall to come out.

"What on earth happened?" Was the first thing the startled professor asked as soon as she was brought into view again.

"The death eaters attacked, but we managed to get off without any injuries. We killed half of them, and the rest decided to stop and escape, but not without throwing a warning at us." Sakura told her.

McGonagall looked a little bit less worried at the news. "That's...well, I'm glad you three and your assistants are safe." Sakura nodded in appreciation. "But never mind that now; they're gone, obviously back to report their losses and our location to that dark lord of theirs."

Neji's hand shot out and gripped Sakura hard on the shoulder, making her yelp with surprise. "N…Neji?"

"Haruno-san, I think I know who gave away our positions." He shut his eyes. Sakura gasped. "Who was it?"

"Try remembering a fellow who was always around us besides Dumbledore."

Sakura thought for a minute, and realization dawned on her. "You…you mean…?" She stuttered, not wanting to believe him. Neji nodded grimly. "It is."

McGonagall looked from Neji to Sakura, and then asked "Who is it you two are talking about?"

"It was Tom, the bartender from the Leaky Cauldron." Neji broke the ice. McGonagall stumbled back. "Tom would never…unless it was the imperius curse…"

Neji scanned McGonagall with his blank eyes before replying "Professor, was Tom around when Dumbledore informed you of our needs?" McGonagall nodded. "And was he around when you apparated to our room door?" She nodded again.

"So that's how he did it! And I trusted him too…" Sakura shook her head, making her bangs sway. Naruto, who hadn't spoken a word throughout the whole conversation, shook his head sadly as well.

"Now's not the time to pity our foe. We have to return immediately and release him of the spell." Neji broke the tension. McGonagall extended her hand wearily and Neji took it.

A loud crack, and they were gone.