My Darling Naruto, My Sweet Kyuubi

Naruto clutched at the cut on his shoulder and cursed under his breath, this fight had gone on a lot longer
than he wanted, and both sides had taken damage.
'This was only supposed to be a C-Rank mission!!'

Hinata stood to his right, the veins on the side of her head raised and her breathing heavy from use of
the byakugan. She had never been as good as Neji at the use or control of her bloodline inherited gift,
she required the use of hand seals to be able to gain enough focus over her chakra to be able to call
upon it's power, and even then she found herself drained and dizzy if she used it for too long. Hinata
glanced over to her left and saw Naruto clutching his wound, 'I will do my best for Naruto-Kun' she
thought to herself, and allowed her byakugan to see how everyone else was, and to keep an eye on the
three enemy ninja.

Naruto could see Sasuke to his left, unharmed with his sharringan staring straight at one of the
opponents, and just to the side of him was Sakura, with a throwing knife in her hand. To his right were
the members of team 5, Kiba with his dog Akamaru, and Shino. Naruto didn't know who had decided
that team 7 and 5 would join forces for this mission, but up until now there had been nothing but bickering
between them.

Naruto could also see Hinata looking at him through the corner of his eye, it gave him a warmth that he
didn't expect, and he could feel a little of his strength and usual carefree attitude returning.

The only people Naruto couldn't see were Kakashi and Kurenai, he had a nasty suspicion that they were
probably sitting up in the branches of one of the trees that surrounded the clearing, watching to see how
well the teams did on their own. Although they would be there if anything went seriously wrong that only
made Naruto want to prove himself more, the humiliation of having to be saved by the two Jounins would
be almost as bad as being helped by Sasuke.

A sudden movement by one of the enemy ninja brought Naruto's thoughts crashing back to the fight at
hand, ducking just in time for a throwing knife to fly over his head before charging at the group and
bringing his hands up to his chest to use 'kage bunshin'.

The three ninja were of a higher level than the Genins of team 5 and 7, and with three of them if the two
teams hadn't have been combined the fight would have been a lot harder for them, however, even with
Shino's bugs, Kiba's brute strength and Hinata's foresight to aid the battle no one could have foreseen the
final attack that had been planned for the teams.

As Naruto's 'kage no bunshin' made 2 copies of himself either side, the left and right most of which
launched at the 3 enemy ninjas while the other two started to mould and focus the chakra into Naruto's
hand in preparation for the Rasengan. The two clones that had attacked were quickly disposed of, but they
had caused enough of a distraction along with Kiba and Akamaru's charge that as the other two clones
vanished in the their usual manner Naruto was presented with an opening and lunged at the back of the
lead ninja.

Although Sasuke had already seen the hidden devastation that the rasengan could do after having seen
the destruction of the water barrel, he still found himself as shocked as the rest of the teams when the
rasengan connected with the ninja. There was no flash of light, no blast of power, but as the ninja was
sent flying face first into the trees everyone could see the cyclone of compressed chakra tear his clothes
along with skin off of the man's body. Hinata couldn't hide the look of pure wonder at what Naruto had
just used, or her disgust as her eye's allowed her to see the terrible damage that the cyclone of chakra
was doing to the man's internal organs and chakra circulatory system.

It was this lapse of concentration, not only by the genins but also by the two jounin instructors, as they
were just as shocked to see the damage done to the trees as the rasengan's spin forced the ninja
through the trees like a drill, that allowed the two remaining enemy ninjas to use the only trick
they had left. They had already finished the necessary hand seals by the time their former comrade
slammed into a rock and causing it to crack, or at least part of the cracking noise came from the rock.

The first warning cam from the rumbling noise that was slowly getting louder, along with the shaking
ground beneath their feet, the second was from the tower of water that suddenly appeared over the line
of trees and came crashing towards them. Hinata, weak and dizzy from the effects of using her byakugan
fell to her knees whilst the other members of the team ran towards the trees in order to hold onto
something that was grounded enough to survive the tidal wave.

Naruto was the closest to her and, other than the two instructors, was the only one of the team to see
her fall. She looked so helpless trying to get to her feet, and as Naruto reached out and grabbed her the
wave came crashing down over them, carrying them through the forest.
Naruto made desperate attempts to latch onto the trees as the wave carried him, but with Hinata held
against him by one of his arms he couldn't have done much to prevent the water from carrying them
both over the edge of a cliff and into the rapids below.