Naruto bounded across the massive branches, his Rinnegan eyes blazing behind his sunglasses as he scanned the area for any traces of his teammates chakra, with the gray haired genin trailing behind him. So far, they'd found no trace of Naruto's two genin teammates.

Naruto was growing more and more frustrated as time went on. It had been an hour since he met up with his fellow Konoha genin, and there still hadn't been a trace of his teammates. Once more fears entered his mind of what Orochimaru may have done with them, but he shook his head to ward off those dark thoughts, his face hardening in determination.

Turning his gaze back to Kabuto, who was currently looking off in search of any sign of other individuals, he wondered if he should tell him exactly who it was that was responsible for his separation from his teammates.

He shook his head, deciding to cross that bridge when they came to it. If Orochimaru had his team, then he'd send Kabuto away if he didn't want to face him. Until then, he'd keep quiet about it.

"So, Naruto..." Kabuto began, getting the blonde's attention. He craned his neck to look at him, the uncanny senses all shinobi possessed allowing him to continue moving at top speed without loosing his footing. "Where exactly were you guys when you were separated?"

Naruto expression turned sheepish as he replied, "Well to be honest... I don't know for sure."

"Huh?" Kabuto was obviously perplexed by that answer. "How can you not be sure? Don't you even know which way you came?"

"Well, kinda. I mean, know we're headed in the right direction!" Naruto replied, looking ahead of him again. "This is my first time in this place and the guy we were fighting could summon snakes and one of them kind of... swallowed me." His face twisted in slight disgust as Kabuto's eyes widened. "The snake got what was coming to it, but by the time I forced it to cough me up, stupid thing had dragged me halfway across the forest."

"Ah..." Kabuto replied, nodding. "That makes things more difficult."

Turning and looking ahead, Naruto said, "I've been using the tower as a guide. I'm pretty sure I know about where we were."

Kabuto gave a grunt of acknowledgement in response before commenting, "You're pretty lucky, you know? Not many could have survived that."

"Yeah, well I don't feel like it right now." Naruto replied, his brow furrowing. This wasn't the first time that had occurred to him. With a sigh, his gaze turned upward, looking at the clear sky through the forest canopy. 'Sakura... Sasuke... Where are you guys?'

Sakura stared worriedly down at her prone teammate, worry clear on her features. While Sasuke had calmed down and now lied still, his brow was furrowed and his mouth twisted into a slight grimace, showing he was still in pain. He seemed to be getting better, but he was still suffering.

She wished she'd trained alongside Naruto in sealing jutsu. Maybe then she might have some idea what was happening to her crush, even if she knew she wouldn't be able to do anything about it, not knowing was killing her. And not knowing where Naruto was almost as bad. Was he ok? Was Sasuke going to be ok?

She sat back, placing a hand on her chest and taking a deep breath, doing her best to keep herself calm. Getting stressed out wasn't going to help anyone, and it might distract her if someone should happen upon them. She needed to stay attentive, not just of Sasuke's condition but of their surroundings. And so she sat and waited, her hands on her knees as she stared down at her teammate.

Suddenly, the stillness of the forest was disrupted by a rustling in the bushes, causing Sakura's eyes to widen. Immediately, her green orbs narrowed, discretely pulling out senbon needles with her left hand and shuriken in her right, preparing to face down whatever enemy might leap into the open.

Hearing the rustling come to a pitch, signifying whatever it was had left its cover, she half turned, keeping her weapons hidden, to see... a squirrel, chewing on a nut as it stared at her.

'A squirrel?' She asked herself, all tension leaving her form as she placed her hand on her forehead. "Geez, I'm almost as bad as Naruto was on our first real mission. I almost attacked some defenseless-" Her gaze hardened as the squirrel began to run towards her. Without any warning, she spun, rising to her feet in one motion and let her shuriken fly at the small woodland creature.

The star shaped weapon twisted on a curving path through the air as it flew towards the terrified animal. Before it could react, the tool struck true and sliced its back slightly, causing it to cry out in pain as a small amount of blood leaked from the wound before turning tail and fleeing into the bushes.

Sakura winced slightly at the sound it made, but it was for the best. She counted herself lucky that she hadn't just dismissed it and looked away.

She'd have missed the now torn and useless explosive note on its back.

She quickly reached into her pouch and pulled out a kunai, moving into a defensive stance as her eyes scanned the surrounding area.

"All right! I know you're out there!" Sakura declared fiercely, mentally preparing herself. She hoped that it was only one opponent she was facing, she highly doubted it though, but still she wouldn't give up. Naruto and Sasuke would never give up, and she certainly wasn't going to let them down.

This was why she'd been training so hard. This was where she'd make up for how useless she'd been at Wave. "Come out!"

"Well well, she noticed the explosive note. She's pretty sharp." A voice she recognized spoke out from the foliage. She tensed slightly.

'That's...' The three genin of the sound burst from their hiding place, the mummy like boy standing at the front of the group. Their posture was relaxed, the spiky haired one even sitting down on the root of a tree as he sent a confident grin her way. Clearly they didn't consider her a threat. 'Those three Oto genin.'

"You look like you've been up all night. You've done a pretty good job of being your friend's watchdog." The leading Oto genin said, causing Sakura to bristle. "But you don't need to bother any more. Wake up Sasuke, we want to fight him."

'These guys are Orochimaru's goons...' The pink haired kunoichi thought to herself as she recalled the Sannin's words. 'How much do they know?' She asked herself, her mind racing a mile a minute as she tried to figure out exactly what Orochimaru's game was, vaguely recalling what he'd said about his subordinates. He wanted the Sharingan, that much she was sure of... if he wanted the eyes he could have just killed them all and taken them, or taken Sasuke back when they fought him? Not like they could have done much to stop him. As much as they'd improved since their adventure in Wave, they were no match for a Kage level ninja.

So he wanted Sasuke to come to him willingly then? And were these guys supposed to test him or something? Didn't he already have enough of that when they fought? Did it have something to do with the seal?

"What do you clowns want with Sasuke?"

"Oh? The little girl has quite the mouth on her." The apparent leader commented, looking at her in his odd, hunched over posture, his head tilted to the side.

"Just answer the question!" Sakura snarled at the trio.

"Heh, she thinks she's in a position to make demands." The spiky haired one said with a cruel grin, giving her a look you might find on someone about to tear the wings off a fly for their own amusement. "Why should you care, anyway? After all, it's not like you're going to walk away from this alive."

Sakura refused to be intimidated by that statement, months of being exposed to Zabuza's killing intent having hardened her to threats. Quickly, she decided that if they planned to kill her either way, there was no point in holding back information. "Just what the hell is Orochimaru planning?" She yelled, startling the three genin. "I know he's the one who sent you, he told us you'd be here. Why'd he send you to attack us after he already thrashed us? And what's that mark he put on Sasuke!?"

The bandaged genin's eyes narrowed in consideration as he regarded her warily. "Hmm... what's that man thinking?" He wondered aloud.

Sakura was slightly taken aback by that. So, they didn't know anything? While she couldn't begin to figure out Orochimaru's intentions, she knew enough to know that, if he hadn't told them anything, it was likely because they weren't important enough. She doubted he cared at all if they lived or died. After all, she couldn't see him softening them up for them, and if you were going to send someone on a mission, you'd tell them everything you knew about it, unless you didn't care if they succeeded or failed. She doubted they were anything more than pawns. Whatever it was, it probably all went back to that seal.

That seemed right up his alley, using people as pawns with no concern for their lives. He'd probably throw them away once they weren't useful to him anymore. She almost felt sorry for them. Almost. If only they weren't complete jerks that were planning to kill her.

"Enough talk." The spiky haired boy stated, rising to his feet. "If you know who our boss is, we definitely can't let you get away. Let's finish this."

"I agree, there's no sense putting it off any longer." The mummy like genin said.

Sakura took a deep breath, remembering what she'd been told about fighting superior numbers. Hit fast and hard without holding back. Take your enemies out quickly and decisively. Then, her mouth widened into a smirk. With a swipe of her kunai, she cut a wire behind her, alerting the three enemy shinobi to a new threat.

A moment later, kunai burst from the canopies on both sides of the clearing, flying through the air to skewer the sound genin.

The trio of sound shinobi jumped forward away from the advancing hail of kunai, moving toward where Sakura and Sasuke hid, just as a groaning sound was heard from above.

Looking up, the trio saw a massive tree trunk, held up by a wire and speeding through the air towards them, the hail of kunai still going on behind them, cutting off their escape.

"Damn, she got us!" The bandaged genin cried out in panic... before his façade of terror dropped and he returned to his normal state of calm. "Not."

He placed his right palm on the trunk and made a single one handed seal. In an instant, the hunk of wood shattered, sending splinters through the air as its two halves continued along their paths and the kunai came to a stop.

They would have made some remark about how poorly constructed that plan was... were it not for the fact that, among the splinters of wood they spied several paper bombs, causing their eyes to widen as Sakura's smirk grew.

"Shit!" Their leader yelled as the tags began to burn. He only had time to brace himself before they detonated, erupting into a balls of light and heat that sent the trio flying backwards, slight singed and covered in slight cuts as the roar of the blasts echoed through the area before they hit the ground in heaps, all three kicking up smaller clouds of dirt as they skidded to a stop.

With a slight groan, the bandaged genin placed one hand on the ground and rose up. He was lucky he'd destroyed that the way he had, or else the tags might have been closer. He was a little surprised, he hadn't thought that the tree huggers capable of such a tactic.

He was broken from his thoughts as he hearing, the most acute of all the sound genin of his generation, alerted him to an extremely faint sound, heavily muffled, but not enough so for his honed sense to miss. He recognized it without even needing to try to locate its source, having encountered jutsu similar to the one the girl was no doubt using before.

"It was a distraction, she's underground!" He yelled before planting his feet on the ground, channeling as much chakra into his legs as he could before kicking off.

As his teammates began to do the same, they found it was too late. A dainty hand burst from the ground and grabbed the Oto kunoichi by the ankle, even as her teammate escaped. What happened next was a blur for the brunette. One moment, she was being pulled down and the next, she was buried up to her neck in the ground, Sakura looking down at her in triumph. All she could do was glare before struggling in vain to get free.

Sakura turned her eyes to her remaining enemies. Reaching into her pouch and pulling out another group of senbon as she ran towards her adversaries, crossing her arms over her chest before throwing the poisoned needles at the two remaining Oto genin.

"Tch, don't get cocky, you stupid bitch!" The spiky haired boy snarled before raising his hands, revealing holes in the core of his palms. "Slicing Sound Waves!"

Twin supersonic blasts of air burst from his hands, flying towards Sakura and blowing away her senbon. The girl quickly ran through a series of hand signs before the attack struck her, only for her to vanish a moment later, a log appearing in her place.

Sensing danger behind him, the Oto genin turned to see Sakura on the branch of a tree above him, letting loose another volley of senbon. He immediately turned and pointed his left hand at her, releasing another wave of cutting wind at her.

Sakura immediately bolted from her perch, launching herself away towards a vacant portion of the battlefield a mere moment before the cutting air current tore through the branch.

Landing in a crouch, Sakura's eyes widened as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the bandaged genin speeding towards her, his gauntlet clad fist cocked back and ready to punch at her.

Knowing the danger that odd gauntlet presented, she quickly dove back into the ground, vanishing from sight, allowing the attack to pass harmlessly through the space she'd just occupied.

The bandaged genin jumped away as Sakura burst from the ground behind him, reaching to grab the straw on the back of his coat. He spun in midair, turning to face her.

"Well, you're certainly good at running away. Is this all you can do, sneak around and take potshots at us?" He mocked her as he landed.

"You're one to talk when all you can do is hide behind that gauntlet of yours!" Sakura shot back. "Every time you swing your arm that thing vibrates, producing sound waves you manipulate with your chakra, attacking your targets inner ear and throwing off their equilibrium. From there, it's child's play to take them out. That's how you attacked Kabuto and got out of Sasuke's grip back when Naruto used your face to mop up the floor." She smirked again as his sole visible eye widened in shock. "Lucky for me, since your sound waves can't pierce the ground and I doubt they'd remain effective at a range, as long as I keep my distance or dive back underground, I'm safe."

'She figured it out after only seeing two attacks!?' He quickly schooled his features, a dismissive look in his visible eye. "So you figured out the secret of my melody arm. Good eye. Give the girl a medal." 'She's actually pretty clever... this should be fun.'

"A medal? No thanks, but I think that after I wipe the floor with your asses I'll take your scroll and drag your asses to the tower for a nice stay in the I/T department. I'm sure they'd just love to get their hands on some of Orochimaru's lackeys." Sakura said. Their group training and her improved confidence had the side effect of causing her 'inner' personality to bleed over a lot more often than it used to. "Shouldn't be too hard, since all you can do is hide behind that gauntlet of yours and your friend had to mutilate himself with those little wind holes just to become an average ninja, CHA!"

"Shut the hell up!" The spiky haired genin roared, pointing both his hands at her. "You've got no idea what you're talking about! We're the shinobi of the future, you're just an out of date piece of trash!" He unleashed another wave of wind at her, which she ducked under ground to dodge, mindful of the bandaged genin.

The now named Zaku grunted in response before slamming his right hand to the ground, sending a ripple through the earth to Kin, the ground popping up into a dome around her, seeming to rattle her a bit before she pulled her arms out of the loosened soil.

"It's obvious now we've been underestimating her. Let's just take her out so we can deal with Sasuke like our master ordered. No more games. Kin, you know what to do." The sound kunoichi nodded and drew out her own senbon.

Zaku scoffed. "I can't believe we've wasted this much effort on such a small fry."

Sakura burst from the ground, rising halfway out of the earth before making a hand sign and slamming her palms into the ground. "Earth Style: Rock Shuriken!"

A wave of small stones, despite the name, shaped more like daggers than the metal stars, erupted from the earth and flew towards the three sound genin, who leapt above it. Sakura pulled out a kunai with an explosive tag and threw it at them, causing them to scatter to avoid the resulting explosion.

Quickly noting the easiest target, she rose from the ground and ran towards Kin as she landed. She immediately made to throw her senbon at her, before the brunette's eyes widened, her sense of balance thrown off as her sight grew distorted. Where a moment ago everything was clear, she could suddenly swear that there were two of the pink haired girl rushing towards her, zigzagging back and forth. Her hands and forearms were suddenly feeling numb and her body was slow to respond, refusing to do what her brain commanded it to, and she was beginning to feel oddly lightheaded. 'What the hell!? My body... why am I...?' Her eyes widened, her expression showing mild panic as she realized what must have happened. 'Don't tell me...!'

Sakura threw an uppercut and Kin who ducked to evade the blow... only to find she didn't go low enough when the attack collided with her chin, sending her reeling back. She stumbled back as Sakura charged as much chakra as she could into her arm as she pulled her fist back.

With a battle cry, Sakura threw her fist at Kin, the brunette barely able to offer any defense before the attack plowed into her solar plexus, knocking the wind out of her and causing her to cough up blood, before driving her into the ground, the force of the blow driving her into the soil slightly and sending cracks a few feet around her. She quickly lost consciousness.

"What the hell?" Zaku questioned while Dosu's eye narrowed, having seen Kin's sluggish actions and the sudden shift in the way she held herself. The way her eyes couldn't seem to fix on her opponent. And a blow like that shouldn't have taken her out... unless her constitution had already been weakened. It only took him a moment to deduce what must have happened.

"She must have poisoned her when she dragged her underground. Zaku, don't let her hit you. A single blow and you'll be easy prey." The bandaged genin advised. With a growl of annoyance, Zaku nodded as Sakura reached into her pouch, pulling out a kunai as she closed the distance between them.

Meanwhile, unnoticed by Sakura and the two remaining Oto genin, three pairs of eyes gazed into the clearing, watching the battle unfold. Team 10 watched as the Konoha kunoichi did her best to take on an entire team, but she was quickly loosing momentum. Now that the enemy knew she was a threat and were taking her more seriously, they regrouped and pressed the attack, leaving her on the defensive.

"Damn." Shikamaru growled out under his