I stopped in my tracks and sighed.

"Who is it this time?" I asked Adrienne. I didn't need to wait for an answer though.

Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji jumped out of the trees and surrounded us.

"Why are there six of you?" Chouji asked.

"Clearly because they're too weak to travel alone." Ino smirked.

"I'll get you for that one." I growled at ino.

"I bet they don't even have any scrolls left." Shikamaru smirked.

I looked at shikamaru and smiled. "You'd be surprised. I bet you that Sam here could beat you in shoji."

"I highly doubt that. I'm the most intelligent person here." Shikamaru smirked.

"I beg to differ." Sam said as he walked up to Shikamaru. "I believe that I shall fight you. If I win, you go away. If I lose, you'll get one of our scrolls."

"How do I know that you actually have any scrolls?" Shikamaru asked.

"Because we have four. Two earth, two heaven."

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"Because I'm your brother."

"I don't have a brother."

"The name's Takeshi Nara." Sam said. "Surely you've heard of me."

"But that's just a myth." Shikamaru said while doubting himself. "It's not actually real."

"Now, you look like a smart guy." Sam said to Shikamaru. "Now tell me. Looking at me, do you still think it's a myth?"

"No." Shikamaru said.

"Well then, let's fight."

With that, Shikamaru and Sam began their fight. Shikamaru was the first to act. He caught Sam in his shadow possession jutsu and held him there. I knew that Sam could easily escape, but he didn't. He only faked attempting to get out.

Shikamaru smirked and began to walk over to Sam.

"What a drag." He said. "I had to waste so much time talking to you and your claims of awesomeness, only to defeat you so early on."

Shikamaru took a Kunai out of his pocket and began to point it towards Sam. He ran at Sam and then moved to stab him until his kunai was a inch away from Sam's heart.

"I believe I have won." Shikamaru said. "Hand over the scroll."

"Not quite." Sam smirked. He broke out of Shikamaru's shadow possession jutsu and used his own jutsu to capture shikamaru. He then took the pleasure of making Sam dance around in circles like a monkey. We all laughed, including Ino and Chouji.

"Shut up guys!" Shikamaru yelled while blushing. "You're supposed to help me get out of here."

"But it's funny." Chouji complained.

We were having a right old time laughing together when the aura went from happy to scary.

"Run." I said to Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji.

"Why?" Ino asked. She didn't have to wait for a response though. Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro jumped out of the tree and landed in front of us.

"Go. Now." I said to them.

"But-" I cut Chouji off.

"RUN." I screamed. "Save yourselves."

They ran. Gaara tried to chase them, but I stopped him.

"What do you want?" I asked him in an aggravated tone.

"Oh, it's you." Gaara groaned.

"Who did you think it was?"

"Some useless Leaf genin."

"Oh, no, they just left."

"Ah."

"Do me a favor and don't go after them though."

"Alright." He moaned. "So...

"OH MY GODS!!!!!!" Emily screamed. "IT'S GAARA!!!!!" She ran over and tried to hug him, but his sand was too fast for her.

"Awwww." she said with a pouty face. "Pwease can I hug you?"

Gaara groaned again. "Fine." He commanded his sand to stop blocking him.

"Well then..." temari said.

"OH!" I screamed. "SHIKATEMA!!!"

"What?" She asked, confused.

"SHIKAMARU!!!!" I screamed into the woods.

"WHAT?!?!?" He screamed back.

"COME OVER HERE!!!!"

"YOU'RE SUCH A DRAG!!!!"

I sighed and ran to where Shikamaru was. I picked him up and then carried him over Temari.

"OHMIGOD!!!!!" I screamed. "I CAN'T!!!!!! SHIKATEMA!!!!!"

"What the-?" Temari asked. "What's that mean?"

"Nothing..." I mumbled. "You can go now, Shikamaru."

Shikamaru left, leaving us with Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari.

"Ummm..." I said. "Gaara?"

"Yes?" He asked in his monotone voice.

"Can I try out your sand?"

"Sure. It's not like it's going to work any way."

I smiled. I didn't really know how Gaara used the sand, but I figured I would try. I connected my chakra to it and raised the chakra above our heads. The sand went with it.

"That's awesome." I said as I held it up there. Then I got tired of using chakra. So I just used the force to build a snowman out of the sand. Or is it a sandman?

"How did you do that?" Gaara asked in awe.

"Use the force Luke!" I replied in an Obiwan voice.

"CHEATER!" Maria yelled. "My turn."

I released the sand from my force hold and gave Maria a chance. Maria caught on to the sand with her chakra, and since she had so much of it, she was able to form the sand into a snowman.

"That's how it's done!" She yelled excitedly.

"I'm gonna try!" Adrienne said.

Maria released her chakra. Adrienne used a rock style jutsu to condense the sand and form it into a snowman.

"I'm gonna try this the original way." Emily said. She used a water style jutsu to get the sand wet. Then she built a sand castle snowman. It's different, but still good.

"I guess I have to go now." Kara sighed. She used a wood style jutsu to create a mold around the sand and then had the wood squeeze it so that it would stay in shape.

Next up was Sam.

"This is such a drag." He moaned. He used a shadow jutsu to control the sand into the shape of a snowman.

"Woah." Gaara said. "How'd you do that?"

"It would take too long to explain." Emily said.

"So do we get their scrolls now?" Kankuro asked, slightly agitated. Probably because we'd been ignoring him.

"You can try." I shrugged.

Kankuro got out crow.

"Awww!" I squealed.

"What?" Kankuro asked, confused.

"There's only one of them!" I squealed. It seems so weird that it's just crow instead of all three puppets.

Kankuro shrugged it off and went after Kara. She dodged out of the way. He tried to attack her again, this time faster. She flipped over crow. A needle came out of Crow's back. Kara didn't have space to move away.

We all watched as crow nearly killed her, but, at the last second, something saved her.

I looked around to see what had done it. It turned out to be Emily. She had managed to catch Crow with chakra strings.

"Woah." She said. "I didn't actually expect that to work."

She forced Crow back into his position on Kankuro's back, despite Kankuro's struggle against her.

"You people are insane." Kankuro said. "I'm out of here."

"Me too." Temari got out her fan. I could tell that she was going to attempt to hit us with a wind strike. I was going to counter act it with my own wind, but I didn't have to in the end. Kara had used her own wind jutsu against Temari.

"Cool, huh?" She smiled at me.

"Yeah." I smiled back. And then we continued on our journey to the center.