Ch 8-Yet more battles in the third Chunin exam and …

The medics took Katsume away, to either try to save her life or mercifully end it. Kitara retrieved the various weapons left on the field, leaving the sai's at the edge of the arena, and then left the arena herself. If Katsume died then her family might want the sai's to remember her by. The last part of the semi-finals would be the battle between Sasuke and Satoshi. After that the final round would come. Who would have thought that two Konohagakure rookies would make it to the finals in a Chunin exam held by Kirigakure? Certainly not Kitara, she had not even been sure their team would make it to the third exam. The proctor announced "Uchiha Sasuke of Konohagakure vs Hisoka Satoshi of Iwagakure. Do either of you wish to forfeit?" Reluctantly Sasuke forfeited, saying "it would be a waste of chakra to battle now when the two of us will be battling anyway in the final exam." The proctor nodded and announced a thirty minute break for the audience to refresh themselves and the chunin candidates to rest and plot strategy privately. Kitara caught Sasuke's eye and used the hand signal for 'combo move' with a questioning tilt to her head, the closest she could manage to ask if he was willing to work together to beat Satoshi before the two of them faced off. Sasuke nodded and then both left briefly to drink some water and a light snack before the final match. Kitara heard many grumbles and heavy betting going on about the outcome of the match.

After thirty minutes all three made it to the center of the arena. Kitara noticed the sai were still at the edge of the field and made a mental note of their location, just in case. "Uchiha Sasuke of Konohagakure vs Hisoka Satoshi of Iwagakure vs Uzumaki Kitara of Konohagakure. This will be a three-way match. Last person standing will be declared winner. All or none may be promoted to chunin. Does anyone wish to forfeit before the match starts?" the proctor proclaimed and asked ritualistically. "Not a chance," Satoshi said vehemently. "Hn, no," Sasuke grunted. "No way," Kitara said. "Very well, let the finals of the Chunin Exam begin, Hajime!" the proctor yelled as he jumped back. Immediately Kitara created six kage bushin and had three henge as Sasuke. Satoshi waddle-ran in his flippers to the puddle left behind by Katsume's final defense and then unsealed his own water. Not enough to cover him, but enough to completely surround him. Sasuke activated his sharringan and started the hand signs for the "Grand fireball jutsu!" as he followed Satoshi. The henged Sasuke clones follwed behind in a v-formation and used wind thrust to add speed and power to Sasuke's attack. Kitara and her clones spread out behind them in a large half circle with Kitara taking the mid-right. Ideally, once Kitara was sure Sasuke would not attack her, she would run to the opposite side of Sasuke, he would use another fire jutsu, with one henged Sasuke clone also using the smaller fireball jutsu. At the same time two of Kitara's clones would also send out small fireballs, with Kitara and the remaining clone sending out wind thrust from behind. This would create a much larger vortex of fire than what Kitara had used on Ichihiro, hopefully enough to evaporate most of Satoshi's water and perhaps give him burns from the superheated steam. It would have to be timed precisely though, so that the real Kitara and Sasuke could escape the fire vortex before it became to intense. Kitara might also create a few more clones and send them to keep the fire vortex burning. Satoshi might even lose consciousness from smoke or steam inhalation if the fire vortex went on long enough.

How to communicate such a complex plan to Sasuke though? Would Satoshi even remain on the defensive if it was clear what he would face? Kitara decided to wait, making it clear she intended to support Sasuke and using hand signals whenever she caught Sasuke's eyes. The private system they had created was crude and meant to focus only on warning of attacks, so there were signals for 'powerful fire attack', 'weapon-kunai attack', 'trap', 'danger', and so on, but little that could convey complexity or questioning. Even if it ruined the element of surprise, Sasuke tended to want to battle full-out, which could mean major burns and broken bones if some of those attacks hit. To prevent major injuries requiring the hospital at least, they had developed their private signals. Coming near to hitting the other in spite of the advance warning was a challenge as well. Given Sasuke's obsession with Itachi, who would have the advantage of a great deal of experience with his sharringan, that also helped Sasuke's training, since Itachi was likely to know how Sasuke was attacking by looking at body posture, hand-signs for jutsu, and so on. However, Sasuke and Kitara were used to sparring against each other, and had only relied on their knowledge of habits and in-depth knowledge of just what the other was capable of when working as a team with Kakashi. They had not bothered to update their signaling language. With this new situation and the three weeks of isolated training, they could not completely rely on that knowledge to guess at the other's motives anymore.

Still, Sasuke had seen how Kitara handled Ichiro so would probably be able to guess the basics, and Kitara could adapt her plan to Sasuke's actions. For that matter he might have a better idea of the way to handle Satoshi. Kitara had improved the skills she already had and started learning the chakra scalpel and senbon needles. Sasuke might have focused on learning much more than that, especially with his sharringan to help learn jutsu faster. Given that he had a jonin who knew his skills and was used to training him, those three weeks could have made a drastic change in Sasuke's skill level. So Kitara and her clones kept an eye on Sasuke, on the lookout for any communication. Sasuke now headed in close, with Kitara and her clones trailing behind. She decided he had no intention of communicating anytime soon, so would watch and proceed with her own plans. With that she made a circling gesture with her hands at her clones, who knew the plan since she had come up with it before creating them .Although Sasuke's fire power would help a great deal, if Kitara created four more clones, two for fire and two for wind, she could achieve nearly the same affect. She would not act until she had an idea of what Sasuke was planning though, since she did not want him caught in the fire tornado she planned on creating. Since Sasuke seemed intent on engaging Satoshi in tai-jutsu or a close range jutsu, Kitara could not act yet.

Kitara planned on peppering Satoshi with senbon in the meantime, to distract and perhaps unnerve him, since he would be wary of senbon due to how his former teammate had used them. With his sharringan activated Sasuke should be able to predict where the senbon would go and easily avoid them. Hopefully he would not think she was attacking him as well, since officially this was a three-way battle. Just because Kitara had no intention of trying to fight Satoshi and Sasuke at the same time, did not mean that Sasuke might not do so. He was usually very confident, and Kitara had noticed that Kakashi tended to stroke Sasuke's ego while training. In the past Kitara had been there to help bring Sasuke down to earth, but three weeks might have inflated Sasuke's ego enough for him to believe he could beat both. He had shown a bit of sense in forfeiting rather than facing Satoshi alone, but that might also have been because he had wanted a challenge, and facing two opponents at once would definitely be a challenge.

Sasuke continued to ignore Kitara and her clones and try to fight Satoshi.

Authors Note: It is clear I have no interest in truly continuing this story, even all the updates here were actually created last year when I had no reliable internet access so I'll just give a general outline of what I originally planned for this story. Kitara and Sasuke would have just barely won against Satoshi due to Sasuke not bothering to work with Kitara and Kitara being too passive, then when Sasuke turned to defeat Kitara she would have treated it as a no-holds barred spar but it would turn out to be a draw, with both of them collapsing from injury and exhaustion. Neither of them would be promoted. Although Kitara would develop feelings for Sasuke, she would hide them to avoid becoming a fangirl in his mind. She would ask and finally find out about her being the Jinchuki of the Kyuubi, and feel privately betrayed that it had been kept a secret from even her for so long, but would outwardly pretend that she accepted everything. She would still meet up with Kabuto irregularly for lessons and grow used to his odd nature, growing to respect him as one of the few people who actually taught her. Eventually events would catch up with cannon, albeit with many minor or not so minor changes. During the training with Jiraya Kitara would refuse the toad summoning contract, instead I would use the cliched fanfiction plot device of being summoned to the summon realm of those most suited to the potential summoner to give Kitara a contract with foxes to finally link to the name of this story. Sasuke would still be marked by Orochimaru, but with Kitara putting up a much better fight and catching Orishimaru's interest as well. After the Sound/Suna invasion when the Sound Four approach Sasuke to get him to defect, they also extend the offer to his two teammates, revealing that Tomohiro's family already had ties to Orchimaru. Tsuande would not be successfully retrieved but would stand by her vow of never returning to Konoha. Danzo would become a Hokage instead, albeit a very unpopular version. He would reveal the secret of Kitara's jinchuki status and start trying to rigorously train her to be a weapon. Due to her secret feelings for Sasuke, and her feelings of betrayal from Konoha, Kitara would defect with Sasuke to escape the harsh training and sudden antipathy of the village for her.

The whole team defects to Orochimaru with a much longer head start, so although a team is sent after them they get away cleanly at first, but with Kitara's status as a jinchucki many more resources are used to try to retrieve them, forcing Orichimaru to keep moving the team to bases further and further from the Land of Fire, until he settled on island near the ruins of Uzukisho. The team is trained to be powerhouses in their own way, though Tomohiro gradually falls behind and is sent away. Sasuke develops more respect and the beginnings of some feelings for Kitara, but hides them believing them to be a weakness, deciding that killing Itatchi is the priority, if he still lives after accomplishing that goal he might ask Kitara to help him 'rebuild' the Uchiha clan as his wife eventually. I would make use of some of the information from the manga/ anime after Shippuden, but since have that mostly from author rants and spoilers as well as other fanfiction I don't have any solid plans and clearly I have lost interest in this story. If someone wants to adopt it either with my general outline or even just using the initial idea/ chapters feel free, I just ask that you notify me and give me some of the credit in the 1st chapter of your story.