The sealed kunai

Chapter 28: Showdown in the Sand Dunes

Naruto's eye twitched as he grabbed his head and lost his balance, forcing himself to catch himself on Tsunade's chair, "Ow." He said while rubbing his temple.

Tsunade looked at Naruto with a little anger in her eyes, "Stop training brat. I'm not going to tell you again, that's an order."

Naruto sighed in a downtrodden fashion, "Okay fine... It was for a good reason though." He said as he simply stood in place before cringing and falling against Tsunade's chair again, "Ow damn it!"

Tsunade got a tick mark on her head, "I told you to stop!"

Naruto pulled himself back together, "I did stop! I dispelled all the rest of the clones I made. The first headache was a ton of my clones annihilating themselves trying one of my jutsu. The second one was me dispelling the rest of them, I can't do it in waves from this far away, it has to happen all at once."

Temari looked over at him clutching his head, "You make your clones train? Where?"

Naruto growled in annoyance at the pain on his skull, "I sent them into the desert two days ago and told them to get lost and work until they dispelled and nothing else. Well they worked alright."

Below on the chunin exam battlefield, Ino had forced her opponent to surrender after taking control of their body with Shinranshin no Jutsu (Mind Body Disturbance Jutsu) and forced them to hold themselves at knife point. It was evident that everyone was much better than previously indicated from their last encounter with him, something that actually brought a smile to his face. Chouji and Sakura were to fight next round after Chouji had almost crushed the Iwa genin representative, Kiba was to take on one of the Suna ninja that had survived his first round bout, and Ino was getting a bye straight to the finals after her victory.

As he watched with a semblance of pride at his classmates actions a piece of information he had previously overlooked passed through his head, forcing a scowl onto his face, "Oh stupid fucking clones." He whispered.

Shizune turned to him, "What's the matter Naruto-kun?"

Naruto kept his voice low, "While they were making their way out into the desert to train they saw something, but they didn't dispel because I had given them strict parameters on what they could and couldn't do, and they didn't engage for the same reason."

Tsunade narrowed her eyes at the word 'engage', "What did you see brat?"

Naruto looked at her seriously, "Black robes with red clouds." Tsunade returned her gaze down to the arena as Baki announced a short recess before the next round of fights, "Whatever you're willing to do about this you know I'm game."

Chatter from the entire arena went up, covering up their words even further from being heard by those surrounding them.

Tsunade took in her immediate options. She could let be known to the others that Akatsuki was en route for either Naruto or Gaara; probably the best option possible as that would let Gaara mobilize the village's forces in an effort to rebuke them. The downside to that was the fact that saying anything here would cause mass hysteria, which would make it easier for Akatsuki to manage a quiet capture and slip away if either Naruto or Gaara were caught off-guard. In addition to that, a group of S-rank missing ninja were heavy hitters and would take out a mass amount of Gaara's forces even if they were able to put them down in the end. With the two nations being in an alliance and the Tsuchikage sitting right there, having him witness the toll that would be taken on Suna might not be the best option in view of possible future events.

The second option would be to send Naruto and Shizune out to engage them head on before they made it to the village; a heavy gamble as chances are, Naruto was the one they were after. She might have been able to excuse herself so that she could head out with them, but that would raise far too much suspicion. The downside to this was that Naruto was the only one she was certain of that had the capabilities to go up against these people, she didn't want Shizune caught in the ruckus. She was good but was definitely not a combat type.