Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender or Naruto. Wish I did though.

There was somebody out there.

Toph could feel it. And yet, their footsteps were light, they hardly struck the ground as they walked.

And they were at the edge of her range.

Toph growled under her breath and waited, for them to come to her, for her friends to find her, for anything-

Just not being alone.

She felt him -yes, it was a he, she could tell- draw closer, until he was at the edge of the clearing she was in, then he paused.

"The Nara forest is not a playground, kid," he said in an almost scolding tone.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Tophs' tone all but dripped with sarcasm. "I'll try to control where I land, next time."

"Who are you, anyway?" He asked. "You don't look like a village kid, and no shinobi-in-training would be stupid enough to come in here alone, with no Nara guide."

Toph felt him step forward, so she moved slightly back. Though it galled her to use Twinkle Toes tactics, there was something so off about that man that she didn't even want to get near him.

"Hey," he called. "You're going to need to leave. Either you scram on your own, or I take you, and that's not going to be a very nice conversation with your parents."

"Um, yeah. Thanks, but no. My parents taught me never to go anywhere with strangers, and you're by far the most suspicious thing I've seen all day." Toph turned to face him.

She felt him stiffen from five yards away. "You're blind."

No snap, Sherlock.

Toph pushed the sarcastic voice inside of her down. "Could you point me the direction of the Avatar, please? We got separated and I'm not even sure where here is."

He came much closer, and suddenly his hand was on her head before she could back away.

Toph batted him off. "I'm not some helpless little kid. I just want to know the direction of the-"

He was trying to pick her up.

Nope.

Toph pulled back, forcing the rock out of its place in the ground and between them, like a shield.

She felt him move back, startled, and sink into a fighting position. Good. It seemed he was starting to take her seriously.

Toph turned and left, leaving him behind. Yes, it was fun and all, but she really had to be finding Aang. Those idiots needed her, especially if they were facing a spirit that zapped people weird places.

The faint signal behind her vanished.

Toph spun back around, hands up as she moved into a form. "Where'd you go?"

"I'm right here," his voice breathed from behind her, and then something hit her in the back of the neck and Toph knew no more.

▪▪▪

Shikaku opened the door to his home and sighed. This was such a pain.

He set the small girl down on the couch and sighed.

What was that?

She had pulled the earth up with no handsigns or even using chakra! In fact, her chakra coil was as underdeveloped as any normal civilian. He was no expert, but even he could see it in all of its non-ninja glory. What was Shikaku supposed to do in this situation?

"Oh, you're back." The drawling voice of his son sounded from the doorway behind him. "Kaa-san's out shopping."

There was a pause, then he looked over the back of the couch. "Who's that?"

Ah! The best course of action finally came to him. "Shikamaru, you watch her. I'm going to tell the Hokage."

"What, that you have a passed-out chick on your couch? What am I supposed to do, just sit there?" Shikamaru didn't sound all too happy with the situation.

"Until Yoshino is back, yes." Shikaku was up and out the door before his son had time to protest.

The younger Nara looked at the small girl on the sofa, her green clothes and black hair, and sighed.

"What am I supposed to do with her?" He wondered aloud.

▪▪▪

Tophs eyes snapped open. Not that it really actually did ....anything for her, but it was a habit. When humans woke up, they opened their eyes.

There were quiet voices in the room.

She quietly moved her arm from the soft thing she was laying on and touched the floor, feeling the vibrations of five different people in a room that was connected to the one she was in, but out of sight.

She sensed the couch she was on, a chair and vase and bookshelf, and over there was the door.

With the practiced ease of someone who has had to slip past guards to go out, Toph made her way to the door, slid it open, and left. She stepped out onto grass and earth and couldn't hide her grin.

She couldn't sense anyone around her- no one but the people in the house, so she took off, moving and feeling for any sign of Team Avatar.

There was none.

After a few minutes of walking, Toph came to a dirt road. There were people on it, but she ignored them and followed the direction most of them were going.

She could feel the odd looks, but it didn't matter.

What did was the sudden lightfooted tramping of people coming, the sudden vanishing of where they had been, and the sense that she was being pursued.

Toph turned in the direction she'd come and waited.

It didn't matter that they were following her after only a minute or two of freedom; that they had somehow managed to track her very path in seconds.

Nothing mattered but finding her friends.

Time to face this problem like an Earthbender: head on.

▪▪▪

Shikamaru didn't know why he was doing this. Why was he following a civilian girl who obviously didn't want to be followed? His dad hadn't even noticed she'd been gone until he couldn't sense her faint chakra anywhere.

And he said he thought she was blind!

Flanking Shikaku were Inoichi and Choza, the first two that Shikaku would turn to advise for on anything. He trusted them.

That was more then Shikamaru could say for his team.

"Oh, look. There she is," Shikamaru pointed at the small figure in green. She was walking along just fine, until she must have caught sight of them or something, because she stopped.

Turned.

Came forwards.

The people walking the street seemed to know something was up. They hustled along faster, leaving the clan heads and Shikamaru alone with the girl.

He came forwards and stopped.

Her eyes were a pale, cloudy grey that kinda just screamed 'I can't see!' but her whole attitude and posture said something else.

"Why'd you follow me?" Her question was directed at Shikaku, but her voice was confident.

He didn't expect someone with such a disability to be so... Not disabled.

"Look, we just have some questions for you," Shikaku tried. "We don't want to hurt you."

Hey, how had she known they were there? And she had spoken first, proving that it wasn't their voices that gave them away.

So how?

"You already 'hurt me'" she hissed. "I'm. Not. Interested. Now get lost before I hurt you."

Hurt them? Clan heads?

Shikamaru stepped forwards and was about to speak when she lashed out.

Not with Ninjutsu, or kunai or handsigns. She simply performed a few katas that would never reach-

The ground split open and echoed the movements she had made, in a way that Shikamaru had never seen before.

He leaped clear as the earth rumbled, and her face lit up with an evil smirk.

"Don't mess with me!" She yelled and swung at the other three, huge circular pillars springing up out of the ground.

Shikamaru could not sense any chakra being used at all. It was as if the earth simply wanted to obey her commands- and did.

A few stragglers fled in wild abandon, clearing the stage for the rather one-sided battle that was going on. The strange girl fought with the earth, and the Ino-Shika-Cho formation...

Dodged. They dodged and didn't even try battling. They probably didn't want to hurt her.

She seemed to sense it and her attacks redoubled as she pulled off ridiculously huge feats that would leave any other normal ninja sprawled on the ground from chakra exhaustion.

There was a slight lull, and his dad took advantage of the momentary stillness to launch a single shadow at her.

She didn't even seem to notice, even though it was coming directly at her.

And then she was caught.

Shikamaru stepped closer. She was neutralized, held by his father's jutsu, and though she snarled and spat threats, she couldn't attack anymore.

"Okay," Inoichi breathed, thumping down besides his teammate. "This is a little...."

"Let me go before I come over there and smack those smug expressions off your face!" She hissed.

"How did you do that?" Choza asked. "You didn't even use any handsigns."

She was fighting, Shikamaru could tell by the way her limbs shook. She was red in the face before his dad took pity on her and told her she wouldn't be able to get free.

"How old are you?" Inoichi asked suddenly.

She had stopped, giving into the jutsu. "Why does that matter?"

"Humor him," Shikaku sat, pulling her with him.

Now on the ground, the girl was still twitching. "Fourteen."

Huh. Shikamaru had looked at her small frame and wildly underestimated her age.

"What's your name?" Inoichi asked another question. From the frown on her face, it was apparent that she did not approve of this impromptu interrogation.

"...Toph. Toph Bei Fong. Know me yet?"

.....what??

"Why should we know you?" Shikaku asked.

"I'm the Avatar's Earthbending teacher." You could hear the 'duh' dripping from her tone. "Greatest Earthbender of all time? Yada yada?"

A couple of ANBU had arrived. Took them long enough. Shikamaru moved over to send them off. The threat was contained.

Though when he looked around at the extreme destruction, he could admit that he didn't feel all that reassured as well.

"Bei Fong, miss, we've never heard of this avatar before. Or Earthbending." Inoichi paused. "Is that what all this was?"

He waved around at the extreme destruction.

"I'm blind, you Dinglebat," she couldn't move, but it was obvious she was about to wave her hand in front of her face when the jutsu stopped her.

Shikaku let her, waving his own in front of his eyes. Her grey eyes did not track the movement.

"Huh. Miss Bei Fong, if my friend releases you, will you go back to attacking us? Or will you come and have a talk with us somewhere less.... destroyed?" Inoichi gave her a patient look she couldn't see.

"Oma and Shu," it sounded like she was cursing, but Shikamaru had never heard that before. "Fine."

"Wonderful."

Shikaku released the Shadow Posession jutsu and the girl clambered to her feet, flicking aside Inoichis' offered hand.

Wait.

She was blind, right?

So how did she know that his hand was there?

Come to think of it, she had known they were coming without even looking at them, and identified them without hearing their voices.

Each and every one of her attacks had been straight on target.

Something wasn't adding up.

But what?

▪▪▪

This was originally posted in Breccia, but it's come to my attention that that's a little late. Please read. ^-^

Hey guys! This is a kinda important issue to me, so please don't skip.

To all of you who've read this, thanks! I have a lot planned. (Insert evil laugh).

There is one thing, though. You may have noticed that I'm endeavoring to keep this fanfic pretty family friendly, i.e, lack of vulgar language, mature content, etc, etc. Thus is because 1), I dislike it and 2), if my parents see stuff like that from me/my phone, they'll make me quit Wattpad in general.

That means that I won't be able to update anymore.

I cannot stress how badly I want to finish this fan fiction, and being curtailed by someone else's words would be really sad.

So, in short, please don't cuss in the comments.

If you find you just can't help yourself, please copy paste something else into your comment, such as:

Oh, cabbages.

Oma and Shu.

Agni.

Oh my pippinpaddleopsicopolis!

That's rough, buddy.

Can I get an Avatar in the chat room?

Space sword that cabbage crusher!

And so forth.

If you won't, then please simply refrain from commenting at all.

Thank you for your consideration.

Please enjoy!