Hello, my wonderful readers! I'm glad a handful of you made it this far, haha. In this chapter we finally get a taste of Koishii's abilities! Now while I did make her strong, I promise that I also gave her her fair share of weaknesses, as well! I'm also thinking that I may go ahead and post 2 chapters up tonight, so be looking forward to the next one! Now onto the chapter!

Koishii remained silent; it didn't really matter to her why he had decided to join her-- even it was out of lack of trust, if that was, indeed, the reason, but somehow she didn't really mind his presence. It was nice, calming, even. Wait. No. Koishii couldn't think about that. She pushed the thoughts away, focusing on her guard duty. Close to an hour had passed by in silence. "Do you feel that?" Asked Koishii. Kakashi nodded, "yeah." "I'll go check it out," she said, standing up, wanting to prove her worth, taking the chance for herself. Kakashi started to protest, but she had already turned into smoke and left, leaving him partially stunned.

Koishii flew quite a ways out before finally seeing the intruders. Taking advantage of the dark, she flew down closer to take a look, the skies camouflaging her smokey form. There were three men, all ninja. She could tell they were about Chuunin level.

Takao was the tallest of the ninja and had short brown hair and dark eyes; he wore no shirt and dark gray pants with blue ninja sandals. He had 2 belts crossed over his torso, lined with kunai. Mijikai was the shortest of the group. He had no hair and blue eyes, wearing a black long sleeved shirt and black pants, also wearing blue sandals. Burondo had short blonde hair; the bottom half of his face was covered by a blue bandana. He wore a black shirt, cut off at the sleeves, and dark brown pants with blue ninja sandals. His wrists and ankles were wrapped in bandages, and he wore gloves with blades at the end of each of his fingers.

Koishii observed that two of them seemed to be taijutsu users. Staying in her smoke form, she swiftly headed back to the camp site to report what she had seen. Kakashi was still standing where she had left him. Waiting. Even somewhat anxious. If that had been Obito... His thoughts were cut off when he saw her coming back. A bit of relief came to him as he watched her materialize into her human form once more. She looked up to him; he was a few inches taller than she was. "There are three of them heading this way. Two of them appear to be taijutsu users." "Good work," he complimented.

"We must prepare for combat, and keep everyone safe at all costs," Kakashi stated, uncovering his eye. The Sharingan. Koishii noticed it right away. Only one? How peculiar. "They probably know we're here, trying to ambush us, so any sort of sneak attack won't work. I think it'd be best to battle them each one on one; keep them separated, and find out if they're working for anyone. Sensei, the three of us will handle this." Minato nodded, proud that Kakashi seemed to be handling his position as team leader so well. "Does everyone understand?" Rin and Koishii nodded.

"Today you die, little girl, you and all your friends!" Exclaimed Burondo, swinging for a swipe at Rin. "We'll see about that," she replied, ducking beneath his hand and pulling out her senbon needles. "Dodge while you can, little girl, but one mistake and you die; all I need is one little scratch to poison you," he sneered. "Well then we'll just have to see who hits who first," she challenged, bobbing and weaving between his blows. She jumped back, throwing her needles at him, but he dodged easily before lunging for her once more.

"Rising Spears Jutsu!" hollered Mijikai, causing many sharp shards of earth to rise from the ground at quick speed all around Kakashi; he managed to easily dodge them all, predicting when they would pop up. He landed on top of the last one, collecting electrical chakra into his hand. "It's gonna take more than a little lightening to bring me down, boy!" said his foe, throwing many kunai at him. Kakashi jumped up, dodging the blades, "Chidori!" he shouted, lunging at his foe from the air. "Earth Land Flip Jutsu," he responded, bringing up a wall of earth to protect him, but Kakakshi's chidori broke through it as if it were nothing, like a rock through a window, landing a critical hit to his foe, bringing him to the ground.

After defeating his opponent, Kakashi bit his thumb and pulled out a scroll, wiping his blood onto it. "Summoning jutsu!" Eight ninja hounds appeared, running towards Rin's attacker and biting down onto him and keeping him in place. Rin let out a grunt while dealing her last slash with more paralysis-tipped senbon needles at her pinned opponent. The dogs vanished afterwards, their job done, and Burondo fell to the ground, paralyzed. Seeing that Rin was now safe, Kakashi turned to where Koishii was battling, but what he saw almost sent chills down his spine; he watched as she once again turned into smoke right as her opponent was about to slash at her with his kunai. It slipped right through her smokey form, doing no damage. The smoke that was Koishii then entered the man through his mouth and nose, and he immediately dropped to his knees, clawing at his chest, screaming in agony as she invaded his body, tearing him up from the inside out. Rin and Kakashi watched in slight horror, and Minato watched with a curious eye, staying close to the wagon; he had heard of her clan, but didn't know the extent of their power. It was, indeed, great. The blood curdling screams ended with a final, bloody cough before he fell to the ground, lifeless. The smoke came out of his body, and she rematerialized, hunched over her victim, resting her hands on her bent knees; her eyes were slightly wide in awe of herself. It was the first time she had ever killed anyone. She trembled slightly, feeling a bit anxious; so this is what real combat was like. This is what it was like to kill.

"Wait... it's not over," Kakashi stated, looking to his left. Everyone else looked as well, and he was right; there were five more shinobi heading straight their way. Koishii, her composure regained, ran up a couple steps and preformed the hand seals for her fire style jutsu, simultaneously preparing to hide shuriken within it, "Phoenix Immortal Flame Jutsu!" she breathed in a deep breath, and spit out several small flames, concealing a shuriken in each. "Violent Wind Palm!" she then clapped her hands together, causing a gale of wind to rush forward into the flames as they headed for their targets, tripling them in size and pushing them forward at a violent speed thanks to the enhancement. Koishii watched as the enemy ninja stared, frozen in place; they had not signed up for this. They were struck multiple times with the shuriken, the flames engulfing them. Everyone watched as they all dropped, rolling around on the ground, until they eventually all laid still. Death. It was just too easy. "Wh- what the? I... I have to warn the others." Koishii snapped her head towards the sound; the ninja that Rin had struck down was slowly getting up, and then ran away. Kakashi was about to lunge after him, but Minato was suddenly in front of him. When had he even moved? Koishii looked to the wagon and back at him. He had covered at least 30 feet in the blink of an eye. "Let him go, Kakashi. It may save us some trouble later." Koishii watched as he walked back to the wagon, "you all fought well! I'm very proud of you." "I'll say!" The old man poked his head out of the wagon before stepping down. "Looks like I made the right choice in hiring you youngsters after all!" He started to laugh, going over to hook his mules back up, "now then, what's say we get going?"