You wouldn't get this from any other guy

"They're getting closer." Hinata whispered to the others. They were in the foliage of the forest of ****, peering into the passage below. Hinata had used her eyes to discover the gate that Gaara's team started at, then brought her team to meet Naruto's on the way. Sasuke, Kiba, and Shino had split off into another group nearby to search for scrolls. Kiba had objected, saying that the teams should stick together. Shino, far better at reading subtext, had seen the way the throuple was looking at each other, agreed, and pulled Kiba along behind him. Sasuke, apathetic as usual, had followed along without complaint.

"Alright." Sakura looked over at Naruto. "Remember the plan?"

Naruto nodded. "Punch and improvise, right?" He asked. Sakura flashed him a thumbs up, and the two shared a grin.

Team Gaara came into view for the two Byakugan-less members of the group. Gaara himself was far out ahead of the group, with Temari and Kankuro trailing behind, quietly bickering. Their conversation was a mix between the kind of annoyance that permeates most sibling relationships and genuine fear at what getting loud enough to annoy Gaara could mean.

"The puppet's sneaking up behind us. I'll deal with it." Hinata whispered, slipping back along the branch. The other two shot her a thumbs up, then leapt off together, Naruto yelling out as he formed a rasengan. Gaara's baleful glare was as impassive as ever, accompanied by a rush of sand surging out towards the ninja duo. Sakura, the faster of the pair, connected first. The sand snaked around her body, constricting tighter and tighter. It was smoke, not blood, that expelled from her sand coffin, the shadow clone dispelling before Gaara could inflict any real pain.

The sand reached Naruto, and he thrust his hand forward to meet it. The rasengan tore into the sand, carving a tunnel through it. When it detonated it blew the whole wall apart, clearing a direct line to Gaara. Naruto landed on the balls of his feet, springboarding himself forward while forming a new rasengan. The sand began to collect around Gaara, shifting into a shell as it had so many times before. When the rasengan connected, it tore through the shield as easily as it had the attacking wave, leaving a wide eyed Gaara unwillingly exposed to the world for the first time in living memory.

Which was the perfect opportunity for Sakura's swarm of scalpels to pour in through the open gap, lacerating Gaara and tearing an enraged scream from his lips. Naruto brought his other hand round to land a punch squarely in Gaara's chest, but was blown back by a powerful gust from Temari before he could continue the ****.

"Naruto!" Sakura stood up from the bushes she'd been hiding in. "I'll take care of Gaara. You make sure Temari doesn't interfere."

"Big talk for a soon-to-be bloodstain, bitch!" Temari called out.

Gaara's eyes flicked over to his sister, and he let out an annoyed grunt. "Temari. Silence. Keep this one busy until I'm finished with her."

Temari flinched, opened her mouth to answer, then thought better of it and nodded. Gaara began to stride slowly forward, sand trickling behind, slowly recovering from the two rasengans. Sakura shot him a coy wave, jumped up onto the side of a tree, and began leaping back through the forest. Naruto turned to face Temari.

As the others jumped towards Gaara, Hinata flipped back towards the puppet Kankuro had sent to intercept the attack. The chakra strings were lit up like beacons in her vision, easier to see than actual pathways had been before her remedial training. Letting her chakra permeate her hands, she landed with cat-like grace and tapped the points that each string connected to the puppet. The effect of the gentle fist was even more crippling to the puppet, severing each string that controlled it and forcing it to crumple to the ground, lifeless. Kankuro, hidden to all but Hinata in the nearby foliage, bit back a curse and began to re-extend the strings.

Hinata jumped off towards him, preparing to shut off his chakra points. Kankuro didn't manage to silence himself this time, sure he could make eye contact through the leaves. By instinct, he prepared to substitute himself with his puppet. When Hinata's palms connected, it was with wood instead of flesh. The puppet barely moved, courtesy of the light **** applied by the gentle fist. She whirled to face the sand ninja.

"I might not be the best at close combat, but I've got my own ways of dealing with it." Kankuro smirked. "This isn't going to be as easy a fight as you thought, leaf girl."

Hinata stared at him. She'd spent so much time improving her fighting abilities. She knew she could beat him. She knew that in the realm of pure combat, she had the edge against him. She was the worst possible matchup for a puppet master, able to disable their long range weapons and destroy the fine control that was so necessary for the art. She could do this.

She had forgotten something though. Banter. She needed to actually speak to the enemy in most combat. What was the perfect response? He'd called her leaf girl, what should she call him? Sand boy? Gravel bitch? No, that was too aggressive. Though they were beating each other up, that's a pretty aggressive environment. But it was in an exam. But they were allowed to kill each other in the exam. What should she say before that though? And she'd actually need to say it. What if she stuttered? It'd ruin the whole thing!

The runaway train of thought was interrupted by the puppet beginning to creak to life again, Kankuro having taken advantage of the gap in fighting to reconnect his strings. The wooden hands reached out to ensnare the Hyuga heiress, but were stopped short as Hinata quickly severed the strings again.

"What kind of technique is that?" Kankuro yelled, annoyed and a little terrified.

Hinata clamped down on her thoughts before she got carried away with formulating a response, and instead heaved the puppet up and threw it at Kankuro. She launched herself behind the puppet, keeping her figure behind it. She flipped midair, bringing her leg down on the puppet to catapult it into the branch in front of the sand nin. Her hands jabbed forward as well, but connected with wood once again.

Kankuro didn't come out of the situation well though. He'd substituted himself midair, so had the wind knocked out of him the moment he hit the branch. Hinata had one foot firmly planted on his chest, and even the small push back from the gentle fist was enough to push the puppet off the branch and tumble down to the forest floor below.

Hinata took the opportunity and blasted his chakra points, paralysing him. Checking through his pockets for the scroll, she found nothing of any worth. Hinata sighed, picked him up, jumped down to the forest floor, and hid him in the underbrush, careful to ensure he wouldn't end up the lunch of a passing group of leeches or psychopathic ninja.

Naruto was finding it very difficult to get close to Temari. The gusts of wind she could use with her fan came the moment Naruto tried anything. She'd positioned herself in the most open part of the forest that she could, so using tree cover to get closer was almost impossible. Walls of clones were blown back as easily as individual attacks, and Temari had seemed to have faced tunneling opponents before, so Naruto was blown into the air the moment he tried to use the 'hiding like a mole' technique. All in all, it was an infuriating battle to face.

Temari smirked as she readied her fan. She hadn't bothered to try and close the distance, worried that actually damaging Naruto might draw Gaara's ire. Naruto thought back to the last month he'd spent with Jiraiya. Once they'd determined his wind affinity, the entire month had been spent doing shaping exercises with wind energy. While in theory, that sounds useful, in practice it amounted to little more than small gusts of wind.

Naruto blinked. Gusts of wind. That was exactly what he needed right now. He readied his wind chakra, and prepared to throw as much chakra as he could manage behind it. Leaping forward, he pushed it all out in a massive gust to meet Temari's. The move had more effect on Temari than it did on Naruto, the former bursting out laughing while the latter was only pushed back a meter less than he was before.

"What was that?" Temari asked, tears of mirth streaming down her cheeks. "Your technique is awful!"

Naruto's cheeks reddened. "Hey! Lay off, I've only been learning for a month!"

Her laughing abated, and she straightened up. "Yeah, that's what it looks like. Using power to make up for technique may work with some bullshit like earth release, but this is wind release." She shook her head slowly. "I'm not sure why someone as thick headed as you is even trying to learn it. You might have power, but you'll need way more to break through this technique."

Naruto scowled at her. He'd been learning how to improve technique for the entire time he'd been in the loop. He knew that it wasn't some deus ex machina that came to you in the middle of a battle. He'd also won a lot of battles on power alone, and knew that it could make up for an awful lot. She thought power wouldn't break through? He'd show her just how wrong she was. He relaxed, feeling for the fox's chakra within himself and letting it permeate his whole body. The crimson aura flared to life around him, and Temari's eyes went wide.

"What the hell is that?" She took a step back, the first of the fight. "How are you?" Her second step was more of a stumble. "This feeling. You- you're like him." The last word came out as a whimper.

"Please." Naruto's voice was smooth and commanding, and had a rumble to it as if it came from a far larger frame. "Even I have better control than Gaara. Don't worry, you'll be fine." He grinned. "Mostly."

Temari screamed, channeling as much power into her attack as she could. Instead of bothering to block, Naruto shifted sideways and brought his feet up behind him, crouching against the tree he'd moved in front of. He launched himself towards Temari as soon as the gust passed, readying wind chakra as he did so. She lashed out with another **** gust, but weakened by her last attack and without preparation it was weak enough for the powered up Naruto to negate with his own attack.

Naruto crashed into her, pushing the both of them to the ground. When the dust settled, the red-cloaked Naruto was straddling Temari's belly, trapping her arms at her side. Her fan was knocked out of reach, and as she locked eyes with Naruto, she gulped.

"So what now?" She asked, a tramble still evident in her voice.

Naruto cocked his head to the side. "No idea. Normally this is the point I start fucking, but I don't feel like we're quite there yet."

"Was that a threat?" She tried to steel her voice, but a small tremble still made it through.

"Look at us right now, Temari. I don't need threats." Naruto chuckled. "Gaara has your scroll, right?"

Temari rolled her eyes. "No, we thought it wouldn't be a good idea to give the thing we need to defend to the guy with impenetrable defence. Of course we gave it to him." Slipping into snark seemed to calm her down a little.

"You're pretty calm for someone who's been captured by an enemy ninja." Perhaps the fact that this one didn't seem homicidal was slowly getting through to her.

Temari sighed, letting her head fall back to the ground. "I'm forbidden to leave the brother who is constantly one wrong move away from killing me in the most painful way I can imagine. I only have so many shits to give for other people, man."

Naruto chuckled. "Fair enough."

There were a couple reasons Sakura had chosen to lure Gaara away. For one, they were doing this for her, so she could learn the heavenly gates technique. She'd also spent a month being taught how to run faster, so she had the best chance of actually dodging Gaara's attacks. Speaking of which...

Another tree was felled by a tide of sand the moment Sakura leapt from its trunk. It had barely begun to fall before the next one followed. Gaara ran underneath them, yelling out to her in his incandescent rage.

"You can't keep running forever!" His scream was guttural, lacking in any of the calculated poise that normally oozed from the red-headed man.

Sakura ignored him, instead focusing on trying to locate Sasuke. Luckily, Gaara was so unused to pain that he didn't consider the idea that he might be being led into a trap. It wasn't that Sakura thought that Sasuke could beat Gaara, but he was excellent bait for someone who could.

Her plan was cut short, however, as her leg met a trail of sand. It immediately constricted, snapping and splintering the bones up to her knee. Sakura screamed, pain lancing up her body as Gaara cackled in glee. She kicked off, hard as she could, with her intact leg in a **** attempt to free herself. Though she pulled free of the sand, she further mangled herself. Her back crashed into a tree trunk, and Sakura looked down in despair.

Her leg was a tattered mess of meat and shattered bone from the knee down. She looked up at Gaara balefully, the red-headed boy giddy with glee as he saw his prone prey.

"You will be a wonderful meal for mother." He said through demented giggles.

Sakura groaned, delirious with pain. "I did not want that to be the last thing I heard in this loop."

Gaara's sand surged forward, crushing the tree, but Sakura desperately managed to substitute herself to safety. Gaara turned to face her, sand roiling around him for another attack, but was interrupted by a massive snake impacting the ground between the two ninja with a thunderous sound. Following it down were three leaf ninja, Sasuke among them.

Seeing the state Sakura was in, he cursed. "Kiba, grab Sakura and run, we can't afford to defend her."

Kiba growled. "Why me? If you care so much, do it yourself!"

"Because I might survive fighting Gaara, and you're faster than Shino. Now run!"

Kiba looked like he was about to argue, but was interrupted by the arrival of one final ninja. Orochimaru landed lightly on the corpse of his gigantic summon, every inch of him etched with a poisonous grace. He chuckled.

"Well well well. Looks like we have another interesting piece here. I suppose I'll have to abscond with you, Sasuke dear. Can't have someone as precious as you fall prey to this little jinchuriki, can we?"

Sakura began chuckling, but soon devolved into a fit of uncontrolled laughter.

Orochimaru turned to her, arching a single eyebrow. "The pain may have made you delirious, but I would appreciate either silence or screams as I go to work. I find laughter so very off putting. I'm not even sure what you're finding so hilarious."

Sakura calmed herself down to small fits of giggling. "Oh," she said, "just this."

The clone of herself that had henged into a piece of sticky paper burst out in front of Gaara, Naruto having stuck it to his chest when striking him earlier. The clone, still inside the area where Gaara formed his shield, flared her chakra and performed a genjutsu that Sakura had spent almost the entire last loop practicing.

Originally a medical technique, it was a general anaesthetic, one that was meant to knock someone out for as long as required. Gaara, both taken by surprise and unused to actually defending himself, was caught in it totally. He slumped to the ground, ****, while the clone dispelled, having drained her chakra reserves.

Orochimaru snarled. "Do you know what you've done? You've just released a tailed beast on the entire forest!"

Sakura giggled. "Better seal it quick then haven't you, **** Sage?"

"**** Sage?" He seemed even angrier at the nickname.

"You've kidnapped and brainwashed a lot of children. It seemed appropriate." And Naruto had begged her to if she came across the snakey bastard. The things she said for love. And from blood loss. "Now hurry up before the raccoon kills Sasuke."

The three uninjured leaf nin shared a look of confusion. Orochimaru sighed.

"Very well." In one unsettlingly smooth movement, he pulled the sword of Kusanagi from his gullet and lunged at Gaara, slicing through the sand's attempt at shielding and plunging his hand into the man's chest. Gaara stiffened, then relaxed, the sand around him following suit. Finally, the one-tailed container was still, in sand and mind alike.

Orochimaru had left her alive, commenting that he had to respect the strategy she'd used, and how with her leg she was unlikely to be much of a danger. He'd kicked her in the bone stump for the nickname though. Having no need of it, he'd thrown his scroll to the forest floor, then bounded off into the treetops. Naruto hugged her fiercely when he caught up, looking ready to swear bloody **** as he did so, but Hinata and Sakura's words managed to calm him down enough that he didn't start throwing rasengans.

They grabbed Gaara's scroll, picked up Sakura and the, of course, comatose Sasuke, and had trekked into the middle of the forest. The examiners had assumed Sakura would pull out, but she asked to be allowed to participate in the preliminaries. The swarm of scalpels was just as effective while she was standing still, and the amazed crowd witnessed the crippled Sakura advance to the final stages of the exam.

The looping squad were far more concerned with the unexpected competitor that showed up. On the last day, Gaara's team showed up to the exam centre, two scrolls in hand. The bags were gone from Gaara's eyes, and his siblings were standing incredibly awkwardly.

The true surprise came when Lee fought Gaara. When Lee became trapped, the sand consumed him, leaving only his face exposed. Instead of screams, however, a cold command to surrender was the only sound that echoed through the arena. Lee refused, trying to struggle free, but after his efforts proved futile, the jounin called the fight.

Once everything had finished, Sakura was dropped off in the hospital to try to salvage the leg. Naruto and Hinata had stayed with her a while, but she'd shooed them away, saying that it'd only last a month. The most annoying thing was that they'd need to do it all again the next month, as she wouldn't be able to do much to learn any taijutsu with half her leg gone.

She sighed, staring at the ceiling. Maybe she'd learn some medical ninjutsu while she was in the hospital, that could be useful. More useful than anything else she'd be able to do here. Her thinking was interrupted by a light knock on the door, however. It opened to reveal the black-marked face of the hidden sand village's puppet master.

Kankuro stepped into the room, puppet on his back, lightly closing the door behind him.