Fading Light

Chapter 10: Rescue

As the exam began Shikamaru, Choji and I jumped from tree to tree.

"What's the plan, Shikamaru?" Choji asked after a few minutes.

"We get an Earth scroll." I rolled my eyes.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious. How?" I stated and was about to get an answer when I heard someone nearby. I jumped away from my spot as a ninja star landed where I had been.

"Not bad for a runt!" I turned to see another squad from the Mist Village. They were all wearing gas masks. The one closest to me went to attack, but Choji immediately punched him away.

"Thanks Choji!" I landed next to him and Shikamaru.

"What a drag and here I was hoping we could avoid fighting." My Sharingan appeared as I took notice of their movements and water clones.

"The real ones are hiding, these are all clones." Shikamaru sighed.

"Any ideas?" He muttered to me.

"If they're close enough to use clones, then..." I made the hand signs for my Fireball Jutsu. "Fireball Jutsu!" The fire burned up all the bushes a few feet away. "Found you!" I smirked.

"Leave it to Amaya, she's a natural fighter." Choji smirked.

"Annoying Uchiha!" One of the other gas mask guys glared at me.

~

With their water clones reappearing I knew we had to wrap this up sooner rather than later.

"Shikamaru, Choji can I leave the clones to you?" I asked.

"Yeah, but don't do anything stupid." Shikamaru gave me a stern look.

"Yes Asuma." I joked and jumped past the clones, heading straight for the originals. The guys aimed some tar at me.

Can't get hit with that!

I moved past and put one of the other guys in front of me as the tar splattered all over him.

"What are you doing?!" He yelled at his teammate. The other guy started to make more hand signs. I copied the signs and countered his water jutsu with my own.

~

In a few minutes I had been able to render the three men unconscious having to use Genjutsu, which wasn't my specialty. It took a vast amount of chakra.

"Nice work! Now we have everything we need to finish the exam." Choji complimented.

"We can't relax yet, we have to get to the tower without getting into anymore fights." I panted.

"You alright?" Shikamaru asked.

"Just tired, you know Genjutsu isn't my strong suit." He nodded and we all agreed to find somewhere to rest for the night. Choji had fallen asleep not long after we had made the fire.

"Typical Choji..."Shikamaru muttered.

"Let him rest, he's not like you or I." I smiled.

"I guess...so how are you feeling?" He asked.

"Better, still a little tired. But, I'll be okay."

"That's not what I'm talking about, about Itachi? And you know..." He trailed off without mentioning the ruby.

"...I'll be okay with time. Even now I still have issues with everything that happened." I muttered.

"How close were you to him and Sasuke?" This made me frown. Thinking about those memories made me sad and confused.