Disclaimer: If you recognize it someone else is probably being paid for it. sadly I'll never see a cent, get used to it. I did.

Authors Note: My deep appologies to those who actually enjoy my writing, this one took so dreadfully long to get out because it's only eight and a half thousand words. I feel unfinnished if it's not practically 10k. Hope you continue to enjoy, please review if you feel I'm going over the top or fallin short. I need to know what you think of my fight sceen particularly.

Two and a half years later.

October 10th, 11 years after the Kyuubi attack.

Ranko lay back against the roof of Sasuke's house, nibbling at a stick of dango and enjoying the solitude as she watched the night sky. Classes had been canceled today as they had been on this day for the last ten years in celebration of the Kyuubi's defeat. She giggled as the massive flaming constructs appeared to wrestle each other and speared another dango. The naivety or arrogance of the 'fireworks' display aside it was fascinating to watch. The mountainous, writhing, flaming puppets displayed each year tonight required the cooperation of thirteen different fire, or better yet fire and wind, elemental specialists to generate and control. It was impressive no matter how you looked at it. Still, it'd be impossible for the scene to have occurred as such; honestly, how did they think the fourth had performed the sealing ritual through a rough and tumble like that?

As the show began to wind down, the performers chakras waning, Ranko began to clean up, sealing her improvised picnic with a light touch on each item. She was going to take the genin exams this time around she decided. There was really no sense in waiting for the proper timeline, she had already killed that, and it would be a chance to get away from Sasuke as well.

It was funny really that the boys own house would be the safest place to hide from the stalker wannabe. Her warning two years ago had not only been ignored by the younger shinobi it had gotten him laughed out of his first clan meeting after the fall. Ever since then it had been completely impossible to deal with him. Ranko sighed, at least he hadn't managed to awaken his sharingan yet. That would be something nobody needed to deal with.

Events had really begun to spiral out of control over the last few years. While the loss of his memories' regarding Itachi's actions had prevented him from becoming terminally traumatized and the survival of six more Uchiha had averted Sasuke's chance to become withdrawn and brooding, things hadn't improved in any noticeable direction yet. What had happened instead was the boy had become desperate to be accepted by his remaining family as his first clear memory after the fall had been his interrogators telling him that his brother had killed everybody. When he had gathered his cousins together and given them her message he had been straight up laughed out of the house. The event had effectively ended her relationship with Han which, as loath as she was to admit it, had actually hurt. That had confused her no end considering she had been looking for a way to cut ties with the boy in the first place. Ever since that meeting Sasuke had been dogging her like a drug addict, ignoring her ultimatum in a desperate attempt to gather proof against her and be reaccepted by his remaining family.

Things had gotten worse a few months later when the three eldest had graduated together and been placed on the same team under Hatake Kakashi. That had been a real shock for the first few minutes after she had witnessed it. In retrospect it hade made quite a bit of sense, the seven survivors had been in a rather fragile state of mind since the massacre and a trio of them not only made for a comfortable family unit in which teamwork would be easy to encourage but made a good combat team under an instructor who knew not only the physical perils of using a sharingan but the mental repercussions as well.

Things still could have been recoverable but the exam six months ago had put the nail in the coffin as far as dealing with the runt went. Han and Chiba had opted to take the exam at the earliest possible time and had been placed on the second all family team with Megumi, effectively cutting the clan leaders son out of the group.

Exploding away from the house Ranko shook her head and wondered briefly if there was any way around this predicament. She couldn't kill the boy because that would bring Itachi down on her head; beating him up had done no good and only served to make him even more desperate to expose her to the others. Ignoring him didn't work either because he would become loud and obnoxious when she did which would not only gave her a headache but got her in trouble with the brats fan girls as well. She'd tried sealing the boy away once but that had quickly become an utter disaster with the old man himself coming to demand the duckbutts release. No, this was the only way she affirmed to herself as she ricocheted her way across the villages rooftops, she'd apply for the exam at the last minute. Doing so at the last moment would give Sasuke no time to retaliate and see her graduated a full six months ahead of him.

Reaching the building closest to the Hokage monument Ranko released an extra large burst of chakra from her feet and switched tactics. Landing on the lower wall of the cliff face Ranko briefly affixed her hands and feet to the soft stone before it began to slide down in front of her. Or rather she began sliding up it. Her momentum restored Ranko shoved herself off the rock so she stood horizontal and skated on her chakra the rest of the way up the mountain.

She would deliver her request to take the genin exam with her report tomorrow evening she decided, skidding to a halt in front of her door. The old man was always quite pleasant when things were going 'as planned' so there shouldn't be much trouble convincing him. Sarutobi-jiji had actually been actually been trying to push the decision on her for the past two years. That and ANBU, she reminded herself, taking out a some cooking utensils and opening her refrigerator. Smirking briefly at the script for containment, cold and preservation she removed several items and began to cook.

Sitting down to eat her midnight snack Ranko summoned a shadow clone to clean up and processed the input from another recently dispelled avatar. Nodding to herself Ranko finished up and headed off to bed. Things were finally about to get interesting.

.o0OXO0o.

One week later.

Ranko knelt in front of the Hokage waiting for him to speak. The gennin exam had passed without incident. Her performance had been much like she'd expected; all of her scores has been pleasantly above average but nothing exceptional. With the only things she had to show off being fairly low key to those who weren't experts and her hard won anonymity her test hadn't been sabotaged and she was viewed as little more than 'exceptional for a kunoichi'. After all, five seal-less shadow clones looked little different from five seal less illusionary clones as Ranko had come to calling them. Even illusions could have shadows if you remembered to make them.

Honestly the best part of the whole event was the determination that her first stage chakra armor really was operational against other ninja, all of Mizuki's strikes sliding off her like water and causing him to overextend himself. Not that this had helped her significantly in the grading, while they had all been suitably impressed that anyone, let alone a kunoichi, had lasted the entire graded period, it had still been marked on her record that her power and form were merely average, suggesting she did not have the necessary precision to make it far up the ranks despite her speed and skill in evasion. She had growled at that and made a mental note to work said deficiencies'. Whoever got Maito Gai in this timeline was going to get numerous shadows.

The old man sighed, interrupting the man turned young girls thoughts. "While I appreciate your insistence on showing the proper respect, Naruto, I put a chair there for a reason." the old warrior said pointedly. "After all, when you start taking missions as a normal Kunoichi you won't have nearly enough time to keep this up as you do. I very much doubt you'll end up doing more than the eight required D rank missions before moving on after all."

Ranko snickered softly. While it was true that the particular variation on kneeling was proper protocol for an ANBU meeting her leader for a report it was also the one shown in classic ninja movies and thus held much more for her than simple courtesy. I was funny, and a decent sense of humor had been a must in her previous life's profession. "So? What do you think?"

"I think you should take it again." The old man deadpanned.

"Aww… but sir, I liked that one!"

Sarutobi glared at her. "You insisted the photographer take a profile shot and then stole the only blank, blacking yourself out and turning the background and eyes red."

"Exactly!" she chirped. "It's so much better for Shinobi work now!" Ranko declared, a broad smile plastered across her face.

Hiruzen rubbed his face and drew in a deep calming breath. "Naruto, let me explain something to you. And I'll speak in small words, because I'm not sure you'll understand otherwise." He put one hand down on the table firmly and with the other held up a pair of shinobi registration forms, hers and one by another gennin named Hitsugiya Shimura. "Shinobi Villages run on money. Money come to us by way of contracts. The people who make these contracts with our Daimyo like to know what it is they're buying. They like to feel sure that their money is not going to be wasted and that they are not being overcharged. As such personally altering your registration form to show as little as you can get away with is not only counter productive, it can actually hurt your village and your career."

Ranko turned serious for a moment. "Sir, despite the evolution of ninja society in the last century the bulk of our A and B class missions continue to deal with shadow opps. I've seen the scrolls; the one that come in, the ones you keep for the fire lords tax reviews, as many of them as my clones could read without falling asleep. They're always the same thing. I need this person killed, I need this thing stolen or destroyed, I want this information to never see the light of day and above all in every contract, let no one know you were there and don't let this be tied back to me. My experience in this village has punished me with the skills necessary to do these jobs. Stealth, evasion, advanced breaking and entering, only killing has so far eluded me and that has been a close thing often as not. The fewer people know about me and what I can do the safer I'll be when I start taking missions outside of the village. You don't need a fancy unstoppable Jutsu to make things work if no one ever knows you're there."

"True as that may indeed be," Sarutobi replied, leaning back in his chair. "those are hardly missions we can just assign to some random shinobi like C and D rank missions. As repugnant as the idea is to many of the more security minded individuals, clients with the pocket to pay for such things have long insisted on a sort of catalogue system to show them what we have to offer them with each contract." The old mans gaze locked on the young redhead, "You're taking the photo again and you're going to fill out this registration again without funny business or I'll have you escorted through the process, do I make myself clear?"

As Ranko drew in a deep breath to offer a long suffering sigh, the entire effect of the old Hokage's speech was shattered by the loud and messy appearance of Sarutobi Konohamaru. Yelling something about getting his name changed and taking 'Oiji-san's' hat the boy leapt threw a dozen wooden kunai at his grandfather… only to flub his landing and tumble across the room in a tangle of limbs, his face planted firmly in the wall.

Ranko lost it, falling off her chair in the middle of the room and laughing up a storm.

.o0OXO0o.

The next day

Ranko sat there happily examining the class having left Konohamaru too stew in his delusions. It was slightly mean and unnecessary, she was willing to admit, but it wouldn't really do for her to have the boy following her around like some lost puppy. After all, Naruto's patience for children was something she defiantly lacked.

Leaning back Ranko reviewed the information she had gathered on the over the course of her clone minions spying activities when another student walked into the room, a fresh new Hita-ite wrapped around his forehead. Ranko cocked her head to the side and studied the boy who's head was covered by the bandana part of his forehead protector. She was sure she had known everybody who was in each class and certain this boy hadn't been in the testing group yesterday. She abruptly stopped wondering at his identity as the child turned to look directly at her.

Ranko stared at the sight in front of her in utter disbelief. This could not be happening… There was no fucking way, she had planned it all out perfectly! There was no way he could have done this! The little heathen hadn't even taken the exam, how could he be here? There wasn't enough time for him to have taken it!

Flustered and shaking violently, Ranko glared at they smirking Uchiha as he calmly climbed the steps to the back tier of the class and took the seat next to her, drawing the heated glares of several of the classes girls. The dark haired boy was saved from her wrath by the timely appearance of Umino Iruka who called for silence. As the talking settled down Ranko settled for starring frostily at the blackboard and trying to look unconcerned.

Mizuki was late she noticed as Iruka went through the customary congratulatory remarks and started on team assignments. Add to that Sasuke's sudden appearance in a fashion similar to the blond idiots and it would make sense that something similar had happened. That in itself was potentially troublesome but she couldn't bring herself to believe that something like that had happened under the noses of her clone army without her being informed. The old man had had her attempt to break into every secure facility in Konoha so he could fix any other security oversights and something like Mizuki's ploy was bound to make a lot of noise.

How? The question spun round and round her brain in ever tighter an more frustrated loops up to the point where she almost missed her name being called.

"Team thirteen; Saotome Ranko, Tsukino Shingo and Kashiwagi Makoto under the guidance of Jonin Hyuuga Taiki."

Sasuke, the poor boy, immediately shot to his feet and protested. He didn't last long though as Iruka gave him a very similar dressing down to the one the blond idiot had received in the original timeline. It was almost comical really and went quite a ways to soothing her anger over the boys presence. At least there would be no favoritism for one of seven survivors like there had been for the last Uchiha.

Assignments finished Iruka dismissed the graduates for lunch. Standing up abruptly Ranko grabbed the front of Sasuke's shirt and replaced with a tile on the school roof. "What in the burning hells are you doing here?"

"Well," he replied, still mildly smug "I'd assume I was graduating, what with my shiny new Hita-ite and assignment to team 15."

Growling she replaced with a mass of air behind his head and slammed an elbow down on his spine. Checking him briefly to make sure there was no serious damage she flipped him over with her foot. "I saw that you idiot, I want to know how you followed me to graduation when you weren't there for the test!"

Groaning the younger boy reached up to grab his head and, chuckling weakly, ground out an answer. "Mizuki came to me. Noticed I was furious you'd done the exam and passed. Offered me a chance to take a secondary skills test instead. Fool wanted me to steal a scroll from Hokage-sama's archives. I went to Sandaime-samma's office and turned Mizuki in with a report of the situation instead so the old man passed me. Gave me a low B rank mission for it to boot."

Ranko's legs fell out from under her and she started banging her head against the roof tiles. The story was largely different, but her suspicions had been right. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" she spat, each word punctuated with another strike against the tile roof. "Gah, I hope you fail!"

"What? I've already passed, stupid. I'm a genin with a mission under my belt. It's stupid I'm not on your team, but our next chance to fail is the chunin exams."

Ranko stopped punishing herself for her lack of foresight and turned her head to grin evilly at the boy. "Not quite yet little Uchiha, not quite yet. Remember how teams occasionally come back to the academy for a year of remediation even after graduating? Each instructor is given the opportunity to personally test their students competency and decide whether or not they're willing to teach the brats they've been assigned. Pity your cousins already passed Hatake Kakashi's test, there's no way you would have made it with him."

Giggling like a maniac Ranko bounced off down the tiered roof to find her team mates for lunch.

.o0OXO0o.

As it turned out Ranko didn't get to eat with her team the first day, by the time she found them they were each already half way through their meal with separate groups of friends. Slightly miffed but not altogether bothered by the situation she promptly strung together a series of replacements and ate her lunch at Ichiraku's Ramen. After returning to the academy they were quickly divided into teams as the sensei each came to the door to collect them.

"Team thirteen, under Hyuuga Taiki." Ranko got up and headed towards the door, taking in their potential sensei's appearance as she went. Hyuuga Taiki was tall with long black hair pulled back in a French braid and a metal plate covering his forehead and cheeks, reminiscent of the Nidaime Hokage. Likely a branch member then, Ranko thought. He wore a loose black robe that reminded her of a shinigami from bleach. There was no sword unfortunately but that didn't necessarily mean anything, He could have one in storage space or have simply left it at home, not expecting to need such on his first day meeting a team. As the new team 13 assembled by the door and filed out Taiki blinked and a series of off color, semitransparent images reminiscent of a wire frame world s/he'd built in previous lives crashed into Ranko's mind.

Someone watching from a taller perspective was moving very quickly out of the academy, along the streets of Konoha and through the wilderness of the training grounds to a specific one. Once it arrived there the vision focused on a clock, set for five minutes and counting down. The vision ended with a voice, deep, loud and reverberating in her mind. Meet me there at your best speed.

When Ranko came to their sensei was gone and both of her team mates were leaning against the wall clutching their heads. "Did you see that?" Makoto asked shakily.

"Yeah. It hurt," Shingo returned. "how about you Ranko-chan?" the blond boy said, turning to her.

"He's a mind walker." she answered with a feral grin. "That wasn't in his dossier, I thought that was only a Yamanaka thing."

Both of the boys looked at her strangely. "We should get going, it's bad luck to keep a psychic shinobi waiting." Ranko grinned at Shingo's warning and grabbed both boys by the front of their shirts. There was a look of shock before space warped around them and everything seemed to slide and twist, first into a rush of color before finally solidifying into the training ground they had been ordered to attend.

"Attention passengers, the Kawarmi express has reached it's station, please be careful when exiting the vehicle and hold onto your lunch at all times."

"You are an utter bastard." Makoto replied shakily as he stumbled a little, clutching his head while Shingo fell to his hands and knees, sacrificing his onigiri to the forest.

"Hehe, sorry about that, stringing replacements like that made me queasy the first couple dozen as well." she passed over her shoulder. "You get used to it though. Dead useful in a fight." Picking up the clock she tried to stop it only to have Hyuuga Taiki appear in a small cyclone of flame and smack her hands away. The man picked up the clock and smiled. Less than three minutes and It looked as if they had been waiting for him a good fifteen seconds. He had taken a lazy combination of shunshin and roof hopping true, but it was still pleasantly surprising to see his prospective students there first. At full sprint under academy standards it should have taken them 10 minutes and would have given him an excuse to dismiss them.

"Nice speed." He said, putting the clock back down on the post. "Please, sit." He said gently as a mount of earth swelled up to form a chair behind him. Ranko watched greedily as the other two gaped at the sight. Not only had a Hyuuga used two separate elemental techniques he had performed them without apparent effort or hand seals. There were two ways to do something like that, phenomenal power or perfect control. Either was unilaterally impressive to the trio of genin hopefuls but the significance of it was even more apparent to Ranko. First off, he was a branch member and while there were a number of obvious exceptions there was a reason for the main houses personal propaganda that they were, unquestionably, the strength of the Hyuuga. Second, Hyuuga simply didn't use elemental techniques. It wasn't that they couldn't, but doing so was regarded by the clan elders as akin to heresy. Either this guy was a political wizard, or he was really sneaky. Considering he'd just casually displayed three essentially illegal techniques she wanted to put money on him having some sort of political stranglehold on his family but that didn't quite fit, if it was political they why wouldn't it be in his file?

Step two, intimidate the students; success. Taiki thought smirking. "Please tell me about yourselves."

Glancing at her two companions Ranko stepped past the frozen boys and bowed. "I am Saotome Ranko, Hyuuga-sensei. I like fighting, chaos and magic. I dislike preconceptions and before you start calling me flower girl like these two dunces my name is spelled like this." She said, writing the Kanji for wild child. She'd forgotten how the female version of the name had also meant orchid daughter when she'd chosen the name and it had caused her no end of grief ever since. Nothing major but it was definitely something a child would bring up and the fewer aggravations she faced from her new teacher the better. "My dreams… are private."

Their sensei's eyes widened for a moment but made no other indication that he'd heard. Nodding to Shingo the boy wiped the residue from his face and came to attention. "Tsukino Shingo, Hyuuga samma." The rest of the intro was fairly basic. The boy was talkative in the extreme but most of it was summed up in his dossier. Tsukino Shingo was a second generation shinobi and very dedicated to his family. He had an elder sister who was a miko at the fire temple and his father specialized in light based ninpou he had created himself. She had an extensive file on the family built up over the last few year because she'd found the parallels' hilarious. No other senshi had show up yet and sailor moon was both seventeen and inactive, but she'd keep here eyes open all the same.

Ranko swore she saw their sensei almost smile as Shingo babbled about his sister before cutting him short and gesturing to Makoto. Bouncing to his feet Kashiwagi Makoto bowed deeply "I am Makoto," the boy said, straightening up. "My family and friends are very important to me. My mothers insisted I become a shinobi to uphold the family honor but it is my dream to be the best smith in the elemental nations. I must admit though, I'm curious how the team is going to work. Ranko-chan works for my family, after all."

"You are hardly your aunt Makoto-kun." Ranko replied with a raised eyebrow. "And I worked many jobs to sustain myself."

Makoto snorted. "You spent all day in the forge, every day for the last three years. You and your pets never left, I'm honestly surprised you had time for the academy, let alone come in second to the top kunoichi from the class ahead of yours."

"Pets?" Hyuuga Taiki prompted. He was going to fight each of them and challenge the three to show him everything they could do, but it would work better for them if they knew each others abilities before they started. Especially if they made the cut.

Ranko rolled her eyes and summoned a series of pretransformed shadow clones. As the dozen or so randomly chose avian and vermin avatars formed up around her Taiki's Byakugan eyes narrowed dangerously. The old man had a lot of explaining to do he decided. "Ok, introductions aside, it's about time for your test. Your real gennin exam." He paused as Kashiwagi and Tsukino started whining loudly while Saotome merely went through the motions. "The official gennin exam is designed to test for the basic skills every gennin will need to survive in our world but the truth of the matter is not everyone is either prepared or even capable of surviving the rigors inherent in our way of life. Therefore each sensei is not simply permitted, but actively encouraged to test their gennin candidates personally to determine whether or not they are fit to continue or if they should simply take their skill out to the civilian sector."

This speech was absorbed quietly by a pair of sullen gennin and one madly grinning plant. "You should be aware that this test has a failure rate of over 66% and the few of you unfortunate enough to pass, the pain only starts here. You will go on missions that risk not only life and limb, but also your sanity. You will be expected to kill, without hesitation or remorse; because the alternative is often far worse than your loss of innocence. Peoples lives will depend on you, your every move, action and decision will tip the scales and decide who will live and who dies. And it will be my job to see that you are ready to do so."

Taiki frowned slightly as he looked over his two shell-shocked gennin. Neither of them had balked or volunteered to be the one to go back to the academy yet so there was possible potential there. The girl however irritated him. Either his suspicions were correct and Sandaime-sama was showing him a disgusting lack of confidence or the girl was an utter psychopath. He'd place his money on her being a plant however as a simply psychotic child would still have shown surprise like the others had at a number of points before now. His eyebrow twitched for a moment before he continued. "For now the three of you will fight me. Manage to land a solid strike on me and you will pass, If not you will be sent back to the academy for review. You are to use all the tools available to you and come at me with the intent to kill, nothing less will allow you to pass."

Ranko for her part was desperately fighting the urge not to giggle. This speech was so utterly stereotypical of the hero books she used to read where the up and coming sensei tries to dissuade the hero from plaguing him with their attempts to learn his art. Most of the points were true of course and she knew better than to take this lightly, but it was just so hard when the universe openly insisted on parading these things before her.

She vaguely heard their teacher tell them to begin and traded places with a clone near edge of the clearing. Pausing momentarily to receive a rush of memories from two of her clones Ranko nodded. Both of her team mates were well away and hidden like proper little ninja students so it was time to start things. Activating a series of seals the self named Saotome initiated the hive mind technique with her nearby clones and went into a controllers trance.

Ranko floated in darkness facing a highlighted three dimensional area detailing physical viewpoints of each of her nearby copies along with their thoughts and emotions . It wasn't anywhere near what the scroll had described when she'd started practicing and she was still having a great deal of difficulty holding the technique for any period of time but the benefits of being able to correlate all of her clones into a cohesive team had more than made up for those facts. The remaining problems were still killing her though, she thought as she watched her replacement banter with their sensei before exploding when Taiki decided to take the fight to his obviously lacking pupil. As was, the technique, which was supposed to grant her control and simultaneous viewpoints between multiple bodies was acted as little more than a communications hub, effectively grounding her as a fighter for it's duration. Worse, she couldn't substitute one of her clones as the hub and go out to fight herself. She wasn't entirely sure why, but for some reason the matrix of a shadow clone couldn't handle the mental strain of sharing information across multiple minds; probably something to do with the existing mental techniques already incorporated into said multiplying ninjutsu.

Still, being a semi-omnipotent god general like from earths standard RTS games had it's perks. Such as never getting hurt. Ranko cringed inside her mental playing field as Taiki tore through her clones, chakra armor be damned. Directing one of her avian copies to get a higher point of view, coincidentally enhancing the RTS like feel of the situation, Ranko prompted another to break off a dozen more clones and send two of them to gather their team mates. As fun as this was, testing out her current repertoire against a real shinobi in an, admittedly non-lethal, combat situation, it was time to get to the dual point of the exercise. Showcase the students abilities and present an understanding of teamwork.

.o0OXO0o.

Shingo looked on as Ranko face off against their sensei, his mouth agape. The whole thing had started out simply enough, they had been told the fight was starting and they had all gone to hide like they had been taught in the academy. ….except for Ranko. Her form distorted for a second, but it stabilized so quickly he was certain he'd imagined it. Cloaking himself in darkness by bending the light away from his skin Shingo watched as the redheaded girl tried to talk to the Hyuuga. Whatever she said must have pissed him off though because he charged her shortly after.

That's when things started getting strange.

The young Tsukino watched as his sensei-to-be reared back an arm to strike his teammate when Ranko flashed briefly and exploded in a roiling mass of flames. Slightly fearful, both for his teammate and teacher Shingo went through the motions of another ninpou from his rather limited repertoire. Immediately the glare of the flames became muted and a figure appeared spinning like a top in the center of the rapidly dissipating firestorm.

The conflagration over with Shingo canceled his sight jutsu and watched in confusion as a dozen Ranko's wreathed in a muted blue glow came rushing out of various parts of the surrounding forest to engage the older man. Whatever the glow meant it had little effect on the flow of the battle, Hyuuga sensei tore through the copies all the same. Randomly one or more of them would explode, showering the area with various elements and materials, all of them deadly. Acid, mud that hardened on contact, fire, scything winds, sharp chunks of stone and Kunai among other various sundries.

After seeing all this for nearly three minutes it came as little surprise to him when a clone appeared in his immediate area and began calling his name. Wary for a trap by their teacher Shingo left his place in the bushes and crept up behind the redhead. Placing a kunai at her throat he let his concealment jutsu fade and spoke. "How's things, Ranko?"

"Just peachy really." Came the reply. "I'm here to help you know."

"Probably, but you could also be sensei trying to fool me and this would be my ticket to advancement." chirped the blond, smiling brightly "Thanks for that by the way."

"Regardless whether I'm me or our teacher, you do understand that getting close to me is the absolute stupidest thing you could do, right?" his prisoner asked mildly.

"Hmm, possibly. Solid clones, explosions at a moments notice, apparent disregard for suicide, not the most healthy combination, I can only imagine how your meeting with Makoto-chan is going.." Shingo giggl…er chuckled, as he noticed Ranko stiffen and shift in confusion before going on. "On the other hand, if you're sensei in disguise, as much as this could hurt, you're a lot less likely to kill me in this position. For one, you're not allowed to, for another this is merely a test and you're both a Jonin and a Hyuuga, instant and painless takedowns at close range is what you're famous for."

Shingo stopped chuckling happily and stiffened as another blade appeared poking up into his kidney. "I'm not sensei." Ranko said behind him. The girl he was holding imploded in a rush of air and chakra smoke as his captor stepped back and sheathed her blade. "Get it?"

"Yup!"

Ranko twitched for a moment at her team mates jovial attitude. Shaking it off she pushed on, apparently eager to get to the point of the confrontation. "I need your help." She needed his help? The idea struck the young Tsukino as odd. The girl was easily going toe to toe with their teacher, and she was asking for his help? What could she possibly need? She was already a shoe in for the squad.

"How so? You seem to be doing fine as it is…" he replied turning to look at the slowly forming valley beyond the trees.

Ranko looked at him blankly for several moments and he began to sweat. What was this chicks problem? He'd only stated what they both knew. "Sensei's holding back."

"Huh?"

"Taiki is limiting himself to mid level Chunin abilities to allow us a chance of success, but even with my power I can't do it alone. Your family uses light as it's tool, think you could blind him for me? Hyuuga are all about their eyes, a quick flash at the right time could put him off balance and get us our hits."

Shingo thought for a moment. It made sense, after all three gennin could not really be expected to be able to do anything to a jonin level ninja unless they allowed it and their goal even then seemed a little far fetched. However, with the right synergies a trio of gennin could potentially beat a Chunin so striking one would be a reasonable test for a group of entrants. "Shall we?" he asked, nodding.

.o0OXO0o.

Meanwhile something similar had been happening on the other side of the cratered clearing. "So… this; this actually explains quite a lot." Makoto mumbled, getting a smile in return for his easy acquiescence. "And your pets?"

"Clones as well, yes."

"So that's why you never left. You always had replacements ready to take over when you were done and spent." The young smith muttered. Suddenly frowning the Kashiwagi heir focused his gaze on the redhead before him. "How are you not a jonin already? Or a chunin at minimum? Solid clones, exploding clones, some sort of full body chakra enhancement, tokabetsu jonin would be modest."

Ranko giggled. "So what, my use of transformations isn't anything of note then?"

"Nah, Anyone can use a henge. It just isn't that useful. Anything hits one instead of the other way around and poof you reverse transformation in potentially dangerous places. Can't use it to mod your body in real combat because it would dispel after a single bad block; well, unless you're an Inuzuka or Akamichi that is... The flying thing's pretty cool though. Mind if I borrow it?"

"I don't see why not…" Ranko replied, shrugging. "So you'll help?"

"You have my wires, just make sure sensei's good and distracted. No way we're touching him otherwise."

"Perfect." Ranko's voice sounded from behind him. "So we're all agreed then?"

"Yup," Shingo said brightly, stepping out from behind the same tree as the second Ranko. "On the signal I blind him with my flood lamp jutsu."

Kashiwagi Makoto nodded and continued the thought. "And I wrap him up in ninja wire." He said glancing between the two Rankos "And then we all go in and hit him for our passing grade."

The redhead nodded "Exactly. We gotta do it fast though, even a second between steps might be enough to allow him to recover. Less if he stops holding back so much."

"So what's the signal?" the brunette asked.

"I'm gonna send in a pair of clones. Wind and fire bombs. I've noticed it takes him a few seconds to find me again after recovering from the fire ones and the wind will enhance the effect. When he stops doing his ballerina thing and opens his eyes I want you to flash him, Shingo. Then when he's still disoriented from that spinning shield he does and blind from Tsukino's lights you wrap him up. Then we rush in to finish the test."

"Cool, works for me." replied the blond.

"Agreed."

.o0OXO0o.

Several minutes earlier.

Hyuuga Taiki looked down at his charge and possible watcher and raised an eyebrow. "It is at this point customary to hide from your foe and attempt to strike from concealment, is it not?" He told the redhead pointedly. Her response to this was a nod and a smile. "And you would like to explain why you are not?" It was not a question, despite the phrasing and both of them knew it.

The girl before him shrugged, blurring slightly before returning to focus. Obviously a jutsu, though what type he wasn't entirely certain due to the lack of hand signs and not having activated his sight. He flared his chakra slightly to dislodge any genjutsu and found nothing different. Possible enhancement or a replacement jutsu which would imply clones. Interesting. "It's fairly simple really. My research says that for this test you limit yourself to chunin level abilities and set us some impossible task to test a certain quality each instructor looks for. Even at such limitations, you're still a Hyuuga and therefore hiding from you is impossible."

"That would be an impressive deduction , if you were really a genin. I must say, I'm less than impressed to have Hokage-sama's pet spy on my team. I expected better."

He watched as the girls eyes widened slightly in apparent surprise. Interesting, she hadn't expected to be called out on such. But for which reason? Did she not expect him to know or was she innocent of such? He would find out for certain soon enough. The little redhead grinned suddenly and replied. "Don't take it too hard, Hyuuga-san, you're not being investigated; I really am a genin in most regards."

Taiki's eyes narrowed. "We shall see." he said and blurred forward. Molding his chakra slightly for the corrosive power of flame Taiki stabbed forward with a Jyuuken combination. Or rather tried to. Instead of taking her punishment like the green kunoichi she pretended to be his target exploded in a mass of flames. Another instant sealless jutsu, elemental no less. Blastwave attack or suicide technique though? One supported the theory of clones and both of them placed her far beyond the lowly genin she claimed to be.

Dispersing the attack with a casual Kaiten, Taiki activated his Byakugan vision and began searching for his quarry.

It didn't take long as a literal army of irritating redheads appeared, pouring down on him from all sides. Clones then, they were also moving far too slow to be any kind of experienced ninja. Though perhaps she was holding back like he was? He supposed possible, but given the sheer number of copies he saw it didn't seem likely. Shrugging he fell back into evaluation mode and launched himself at the nearest clone.

This one was glowing slightly, a nimbus aura of chakra hugging it's skin tightly. Some kind of full body chakra enhancement, but nothing he had ever seen before. It looked familiar though, he thought as he slid straight through the doubles guard and drove a knife hand strike into it's stomach. As his chakra coated fingers passed through glow and released a spike of elemental chakra into his opponent he recognized what he was seeing.

Taiki paused for nearly a second, almost laughing aloud in his surprise. The girl had made a technique worthy of the Hyuuga! If the old man had known about this then it was no wonder he had placed her on the team of the only available Hyuuga sensei. The girl had created a form of chakra armor! One that didn't depend entirely on a rare bloodline or impossibly complex fuinjutsu tattoo. Against nearly any other ninja the girls adaptation of the academy exercise would have caused the strike to slide right off of her. Most ninja relied primarily on physical force which the control exercise had been designed to repel.

"Amazing" he breathed as he plowed through another group of doubles. These ones broke into a viscose hissing fluid that burned the sleeve of his shirt and smoked before he blew it off with a localized kaiten, incidentally dusting three more charging avatars.

Side stepping the sticky death of a mud clone and shielding against another fire bomb Taiki immediately went into the 64 palms stance to redirect a dual burst from two clone exploding in stone shrapnel and a hail of kunai and gunpowder.

He had to admit her strategy was interesting. She was constantly herding him into the center of the field whenever he strayed to far and he allowed it. Her goal appeared to be controlling his movements so she could hit him from all angles and wear him down. Add to that her forcing him to pull out the clans signature techniques in quick repetition she was doing a pretty good job of it. It wouldn't work though, not only were the Hyuuga renowned for their chakra control and minimalist practices he had learned shortly before his Jonin exam how to recollect his wasted chakra from the air around him. It wasn't perfect, and there was still a loss of nearly 30%, but it made kaiten into something he could easily spam as opposed to a weapon of necessity.

Nearing the edges of his current vision Taiki broke off his musings as he noticed movement in the vicinity of his other students. Four chakra silhouettes' had gathered and appeared to be talking amongst themselves. So, it seems as if they figured it out. he mused. I wonder what their plan is? he thought absently as he watched them split up, lazily dispatching another trio of clones, this time two armored clones trying to protect another, likely explosive doppelganger, and smiled.

Seconds later he found what he was waiting for. It began as a curious tugging around his naval, but quickly grew in strength with each repetition. Then there was an almighty tug and the Jonin disappeared in a puff of smoke.

.o0OXO0o.

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the third Hokage of Konoha stat in silence as he listened to his Jonins report. Extraordinary. Seven of the fifteen teams had passed. This had not happened for quite a while. Teams 1, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 15 had passed, nearly half. Only Hyuuga Taiki had yet to give his report beyond nodding a satisfactory, though his body language spoke of mental strain so there was probably a reason for that. …Or it could have something to do with, Maito Gai, beaming in his usual audacious way and loudly boasting about his teams apparent youth, Hiruzen wasn't entirely sure.

As the meeting ended and the gathered jonin left, either through the door or with a flair of personal transportation jutsu, Hyuuga Taiki caught his eyes. Smiling, the old fire shadow nodded, he had been expecting it after all. When the last of the Jonin had left Sarutobi closed and sealed the door with a hand sign and waited.

"With all due respect, Hokage-sama, I'm less than pleased with the presence of your pet spy on my team."

"Oh?" Hiruzen replied, raising an eyebrow slightly. "Did she do poorly then? It was her first field test after all… Perhaps It was too early after all." He cut off as he saw the soldier in front of his desk shake his head in an angry fashion.

"That's not the problem, she did well. Too well in fact. She should be a Tokubetsu Jonin. I'm angry because you put your pet spy on my gennin team. She's arrogant, clever, far too powerful for her or the villages own good and she's clearly developing the mental instability of the more experienced operatives, something that will only become more poignant as she is allowed to progress. With all due respect, Hokage-Sama, I want her removed from my team and dropped from the course. All her problem aside it's insulting to have your personal spy placed on my team. Are you really that suspicious of me?"

"Tokubetsu hmm?" The elderly warrior murrured, seemingly ignoring the rest of his lueitenants, already memorized, outburst. "You really think she's ready for that?"

There was a pause as Taiki gave his superior a heated glare. "Not entirely."

"Explain?"

"Her skills show a rather alarming disparity in their development across the board." he stated coolly. "Her ability and power of her ninjutsu are both impressive, but limit her to close range clone warfare, requiring her to lure her opponents into traps where she can get close to them before detonating. The chakra expenditure of her methods is enormous and would likely kill even you to attempt them. Whatever you did to her it's made the girl a monster. That being said her array of ninjutsu is small, consisting almost entirely of exotics and re engineered academy techniques. Her genjutsu is either nonexistent or completely unused and her taijutsu makes me cringe. It's like she took the time to observe and monkey a dozen different styles and uses whatever come to mind as she's attacks. Her speed is terrible, her strength is what you'd expect from an athletic civilian and she needs serious work on coordinating her attacks with her clones. The only thing that was impressive about her martial skill was her stamina. The only time she even broke a sweat was when I used the Hell viewing genjutsu on her. Aside from that she only carries the standard academy 3 kunai and her aim is reprehensible, she didn't even attempt traps and kept in plain sight the entire battle."

As Taiki paused in his tirade the other man spoke up. "And what of your other students? Surely they didn't just sit in awe at the spectacle."

Taiki grumped for a moment and shook his head. "They hid like they were supposed to and watched for a while before she organized them. Both were very obviously gennin in all regards, ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, traps, and so forth. They also had a few interesting family techniques I found impressive. The blond one, Tsukino-kun, used a family ninpou to warp light around his body, leaving only his eyes exposed and later tried to blind me with a full spetrum flare. Quite impressive for a gennin. The other, Makoto of that Kashiwagi clan, showed some minor extrasensory abilities and was quite skilled with ninja wire. He managed to tie me to the ground long enough for them to achieve their strikes."

"Interesting… Should be a fine batch of gennin this year then. Wires you say?"

Taiki frowned. While not entirely odd that Sarutobi sama would be interested in his subordinates techniques he would have expected him to be more curious about the Tsukino's invisibility jutsu. "Yes, is it important?"

"Not particularly, it just seems young Makoto-chan may be following in the footsteps of her great grandmother, The aptly named angel of death. When we first recruited the family to join the village they were a small dozen women led by one Kashiwagi Noriko. Her signature jutsu were based around use of chakra-metal ninja-wires which she used almost like a suna puppet master to conduct either earth or wind elemental chakra depending on whether she wanted to throw you around or tear you to ribbons. It was quite impressive."

"And you think he might revive his grandmothers style…" The Hyuuga instructor to be asked. "I'll keep that in mind."

"All Kashiwagi create unique weapons as part of their adulthood ceremony. She may not stick simply with her wires, or even use them at all as she grows. On to Ranko though, I want you to train her with the others. She's been a bit of a pet project of mine since I brought her into the village and it is to continue undeterred. Her rather constant attempts to infiltrate the entirety of the village was more an attempt of mine to control her mischief than an actual assignment, we caught her going about the spy thing on her own somewhere she really should have left alone. Idle hands are the shinigami's workshop, best to have her working for us if we can."

"Very well, Hokage-sama. As you command."