New story time! This idea has been running through my head for a couple of weeks now so I hope you enjoy!

On the forest floor, there was no room to move, let alone walk or run. Almost every inch was taken up by larger than normal tree roots, hidden fissures, mud holes, and thorns. Up in the treetops, it wasn't much better. The normal tree branches usually used by shinobi were covered by a sickly-colored moss that was slippery enough that even chakra to the feet wouldn't stick and allow for support. The next best choices of branches were layered with spikes that even the most untrained civilian could tell were poisonous. That only left the smaller, thinner branches in the very tops of the trees as stepping points. Even then, half of the branches were brittle enough that even the slightest pressure caused them to snap in half.

The Untraveable Forest was aptly named. Yet, still people tried to cross it. No one had succeeded in many years. Even the best shinobi went missing in this forest.

A teenage boy growled angrily as yet another branch snapped under his foot as he tried to land on it. He lost balance and felt himself falling but with a small burst of energy and chakra and he was back on track.

"Where are we going, Pervy-sage?" He called to the man up ahead, the one who was leading the way.

Both of the travelers looked and dressed very strangely for the area. The man in the lead was older, with long spiky white hair that looked more like a headdress than hair. He was bulkier and was wearing a grey shirt and pants. Underneath the shirt and pants was a set of mesh armor and over the entire outfit was a sleeveless red coat. It was the facial markings that stood out the most though. Two red lines streaked down his cheeks, starting right below his eyes and ending at his jaw.

The second was the boy. He stood out like an eyesore in the forest, wearing nothing but a bright orange jumpsuit. The color orange clashed horribly with the greens and browns of the forest. He stood out even more with his spiky orange-blonde hair, whisker-like scars on his cheeks, and bright blue eyes. He was easily spotted.

"You'll see." The white-haired man replied, calling back over his shoulder. "And don't call me that!"

The blonde rolled his eyes.

"Never tells me anything." The boy grumbled under his breath.

His comment was overheard but the older man decided not to comment back to his charge. It was best if the boy was left unaware. If he knew where they were going and what they were doing he would only be loud with his complaints. He would still be loud no matter what, as the boy had no understanding of the word 'subtle', but he wouldn't have anything specific to complain about.

If they hadn't been running late in the first place, Jiraiya would have never considered taking Uzumaki Naruto through the Untraveable Forest. However, it was very important that he complete this mission and to do so meant crossing the Untraveable Forest to do that on time.

The forest was finally beginning to thin out and Naruto sighed in relief as he noticed that it was getting easier to travel. Jiraiya, on the other hand, had a very bad feeling. They were nowhere near the edge of the forest, and from what he had heard the entire forest was dense and thick, from the start to finish. Why would it thin out in the middle, which was normally the thickest part of any forest?

"Naruto, stop!" Jiraiya called, just barely spotting the wires up ahead. They were so thin that even the most trained shinobi would have a hard time seeing them. The two travelers skidded to a stop and Jiraiya shivered as he spotted wire just centimeters away from his foot. They had nearly run straight into a trap.

"What's wrong?" Naruto questioned, not daring to move. He didn't see the traps but that was unsurprising.

"Traps." Jiraiya said shortly. "All over the place." Jiraiya examined the scene further. In front of him, for as far as he could see, there were traps all over the place, covering both the forest floor and the treetops. It was a very intricate layout. As far as Jiraiya could tell, there was no going forward.

Or to the sides, he concluded, spotting similar setups on either side. They would have to go back, losing valuable time.

"We have to head back." The sannin stated, looking grim. He turned and stopped in his tracks.

A woman was blocking their way. Her face was thin, with sharp angles, her eyes far apart, narrow and a cold black. A cruel smile was placed upon unusually thin lips. Her skin was pale with a sickly green tint to it and she looked to be about Naruto's age. Jiraiya's eyes narrowed. Were those scales tattooed onto her skin? Her hair was a deep brown, almost black and fell to her middle back. It was tied back in a way that Naruto recognized as similar to how Hyuuga Neji tied his hair. She was wearing a tight green jacket that closed with fang like buttons. She was also wearing a black skirt that had a slit in it that went all the way up to the belt portion, causing the skirt to fall to one side. The hems on both the jacket and the skirt had white borders. Gold bracelets decorated her wrists.

There was one word that could describe her overall appearance. Snake-like.

"Finally someone that looks like they'd be able to play." She said in a soft drawl.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Naruto demanded, coming to stand next to Jiraiya. He had kunai in his hands, ready to be used at a second's notice. The girl's smile turned into a smirk.

"What does it matter?" She asked in a coy manner. "It always ends the same way—me devouring your bodies."

Jiraiya was disgusted. This girl reminded him of a younger, female version of Orochimaru. The world only needed one.

"Naruto…"Jiraiya murmured softly. Naruto straightened up and nodded.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu." The blonde made the appropriate hand signs and every spot possible was soon taken over by a shadow clone. The snake girl didn't even blink, causing Naruto to growl. She raised her hands in the air, as if she was preparing to summon something. Jiraiya tensed.

"Come!" She called. "Come and kill!"

What Jiraiya and Naruto originally passed off as vines on the tree trunks began to move, to writhe and twist. They revealed themselves to be something other than vines—they were snakes. Shadow clones were rapidly dispelled as the slithering creatures lunged and snapped their jaws, biting through smoke in an attempt to find the real Naruto. The girl tossed her head back and laughed.

"Yes, you do know how to play," she commented. "But no one has ever lasted longer than five minutes against my babies."

"This girl is unhinged." Naruto grumbled as he started slashing at the beasts that were able to get close enough. He was only able to land thin, non-fatal cuts. The snakes were fast, almost as fast as two trained shinobi. Naruto hissed as a snake managed to graze his skin. It didn't break skin but the venom lacing the fangs began to burn away his skin. Naruto gritted his teeth but kept on slashing away with his kunai. He threw out a couple shuriken, hoping that at least some of them would hit but none did. The snakes were too fast.

Jiraiya was faring much better than Naruto but not by much. He pooled chakra into his hand as he saw a hoard of snakes coming straight for him.

"Rasengan!" He cried and drove the ball of spinning chakra directly into the center of the hoard. The snakes in the middle disintegrated into ash and the rest blew to pieces, creating a gruesome scene.

At the sight of her snakes being blown to pieces, the girl stopped her laughing and let out an unearthly, animalistic scream.

"You dare!" She screeched. "You dare break the most sacred rule!"

"Sacred rule?" A Naruto yelled. "What sacred rule?"

The girl's eyes narrowed until they were mere slits.

"A fox like you should know." She said in a low, dangerous voice. "Only an animal can kill an animal and only a shinobi can kill a shinobi."

The Narutos kept slicing away, along with the Toad Sannin, trying to take out as many snakes as possible. The girl continued to screech as they killed snake after snake, dispelling most by cutting them in half. Naruto's skin burned where the venom had landed and the burning seemed to be spreading.

The two Konoha shinobi pushed their way closer and closer to the girl as they cut through the masses, having realized very soon in the battle that the only way to stop the snakes was probably to take out the young woman.

She wasn't going to make it easy though.

As if sensing their tactic, the teenage girl backed up further and further. One of the Narutos gaped in amazement before he was poofed out of existence by a snake closing its jaws around his torso. The real Naruto's eyes widened as the observations of his clone entered his mind.

"Those tattoos on her body are moving!" He called to Jiraiya, who had burned a snake to a crisp using a fire jutsu, only to be bitten by another one. He hissed and hoped that the snake wasn't venomous.

"They are tattoos." The girl commented. Both Jiraiya and Naruto could only stare as her eyes glowed, her jaw unhinged and fangs emerged. Her body lengthened and her arms and legs melted into her body.

"She's turning into a snake." Jiraiya whispered, horrified at the monster that was forming, before having to dodge as the girl-turned-snake lunged at him. He pushed Naruto out of the way and was forced back as he dodged repeated strikes. Jiraiya felt himself stepping on a wire trap. Surprisingly it didn't go off.

A mine, he decided and pivoted, not wanting to step off the wire, lest the trap and the others around it go off.

"Stop dancing!" Naruto called, running full out towards the largest snake in the group, the snake that once was a girl. A rasengan was in his hand, ready to be delivered.

The girl was distracted away from Jiraiya and, with a casual flick of her tail, sent Naruto flying. She slithered her way towards Naruto, a new target in mind.

Jiraiya remained where he was, blocking the occasional attack from a snake. There were nowhere near as many attacks as there were before though. Most of the smaller snakes had disappeared deeper into the forest. Only a third remained of the original amount, and out of those, three-fourths were attacking the Naruto clones. It seemed that they judged Naruto more of a threat than the Toad Sannin. Interesting.

Naruto gulped as he saw the large female snake heading towards him, fangs bared. He attempted to roll out of the way but unknown to him, his foot was stuck in a fissure that had been hidden before.

There was a sickening crack and pain shot up Naruto's leg. He let out a loud curse but that was soon cut off by fangs sinking into his other leg. The snake girl didn't stop there. She withdrew her fangs and sank them into Naruto's abdomen, causing the boy to cry out in pain. Naruto's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he promptly passed out, unable to take any more.

A large thud and the sounds of traps being set off drew the snake's attention away from Naruto and back to Jiraiya, who was standing proudly on a very large toad. Gamabunta.

The toad and the snake attacked each other promptly, not using any time for verbal attacks. Gamabunta saw Naruto's body convulsing and quickly determined that venom had been injected into his blood system. The strength of it was currently unknown, which meant neither Gamabunta nor Jiraiya was sure if Kyuubi would be strong enough to heal Naruto this time.

Jiraiya couldn't tell what ended the battle. One minute there was the typical battle scene and then the snakes were just gone. The larger ones could be seen slithering away and the smaller ones, he assumed, did the same under the cover of the forest floor and its many plants. There was no sign of where the snake girl could have gone.

Not even giving her another thought, Jiraiya rushed over to Naruto. The boy was still convulsing as the venom sped through his body but he was still alive which was always a good thing. The only thing Jiraiya could was set the broken bones before he saw the distinct red aura of Kyuubi's chakra. When he saw it, he knew that the healing process had started.

Only a couple doses of antidotes were needed to flush the venom out of Jiraiya's system. He had been fortunate. The snakes weren't very poisonous, which was odd in itself. Why use nonvenomous snakes in battle?

When twilight came about, Naruto still hadn't healed completely enough to be moved safely. His mentor resigned himself to spending the night in the forest. He would have to get firewood though. It might attract the snake-girl back to them but it was a risk that he needed to take. A fire would most likely scare off the other creatures that were lurking in this forest, so it was needed.

The white-haired man got to his feet with a small sigh. He summoned a smaller toad to keep an eye on Naruto and alert him if things took a turn for the worse. With that done, and his mind partially eased, the older man set out in the southern direction on a search to find some usable firewood.

Not long after he had left, three figures emerged from the north. All three figures were dressed in black for night travel and all three were wearing masks that had snarling cats painted on them in different colors. A black hood covered their heads and hair. One of them, the one with red paint on her mask, bent down to examine the traps that had been set off.

"This trap layout could only come from our village." She murmured. "There was no reason for our shinobi to be out here though." Her companions shifted nervously.

"Has one of our shinobi gone rogue?" The tallest one, a male with blue paint on his mask, asked. "Our village wouldn't necessarily know seeing as a majority of the clans live outside the village. The leaders wouldn't tell the Soshikage either. There's not a lot of trust in our system." He pointed out.

His comment drew harsh laughs from the original speaker, the one who had inspected the traps.

"Not a lot of trust indeed." She agreed.

"A snake, a fox, and someone who has obtained a stolen scroll." The third person, a woman with green paint on her mask, supplied, examining the entire scene, not just the traps like her teammate was doing. Her comment drew a hiss from both her teammates. The stolen scrolls were a sore subject for all the shinobi in their village, her teammates among them.

"Which scroll?" The man asked in a tight voice, just barely managing to suppress his anger.

"Toad scroll. We should take the boy and interrogate him to see what he knows."

In unison, the three turned to stare at Naruto, who was still unconscious.

"He's an outsider!" The girl in the painted red mask was horrified and shocked. "We can't bring an outsider into the village. The clans would be up in arms."

"He's also a fox." Her teammate with the green mask pointed out. "If the fox clan finds out that we came across one of their own, one that was injured, and did nothing, that may just be what drives them to accept the protection of the wolf clan. That's the last thing our clan needs, Akahana."

Akahana snarled under her breath. She turned away from her teammates.

"Fine. Grab him and let's go. I want to get back. You can deal with the questions then, Yuri."

Akahana leapt up high, landing on a tree branch almost directly above her. She landed softly, only the faintest whisper telling where she had landed. Yuri looked at her other teammate, seeing what he would do.

"Izo?" She asked quietly. He sighed.

"Grab him Yuri. I'll let the Soshikage know of the situation."

Yuri approached the blonde haired boy slowly, not sure just how much he had healed already. She could hear Izo using his headset to communicate with their village that was only a few miles off. They wouldn't have far to travel.

"Shoo." She said, shooing off a tiny frog and baby snake that were both watching the boy closing. The toad croaked unhappily at the sight of the snake and bounded off. The baby snake hissed at Yuri before slithering off in the opposite direction as the young toad.

Gamakichi, once out of sight of the three strangers disappeared in a poof of smoke, wanting to find his boss as soon as possible.

"Jiraiya! Come quick. It's bad!" He cried, once finding the summoner. "Some people came and took Naruto away."

Jiraiya felt his stomach sink at the news.

Remember to read and review please! Reviews totally make my day.