"So, Naruto is training with one of the Sanin, and Sauske is hogging Kakashi-sensei, and I really need to train too if I want to beat the pants off of my opponent!"

"Is this your way of telling me to beat you up like never before?" Toph asked, biting the top piece of meat off a skewer.

The two girls were walking through the marketplace. Toph was reveling in the fact that she had the apartment all to herself, and Sakura was trying to get Toph to teach her more.

Well. Kakashi had said something about leaving her with Hayate, but she'd neither heard nor felt a single cough from him.

"Well, yeah." Sakura slipped around a bystander as she tried to keep up. "You're the only person who can teach me Earthbending."

"How far are you with sensing the vibrations?" Toph took another bite.

"I actually was able to do it!" Sakura chirped. "In the forest, when we were getting attacked by Orochimaru, I was able to see in the dark, only with Earthbending, not a jutsu!"

"Hmm," Toph considered. "That does sound like what I'm doing."

Sakura nodded, swinging up on the balls of her feet. "I can sense vibrations now!"

She finished off her food. "Do it."

Sakura froze. "Um. Right. Well, you see..."

Toph tossed the stick into a bin and stretched. "Well, then. Let's get started."

▪▪▪

This was a bad idea.

Sakura was breathing hard as she lay on the floor. Toph-sensei had a very sadistic sense of teaching. Her lessons often included huge amounts of Earthbending speckled with precision practice. All of which was brutal.

Toph-sensei squatted down by her and rapped on her forehead with her knuckles. "How're you holding up?"

Sakura gave her the flattest look she could manage while lying on her back, sweating into the dirt.

Of course, Toph-sensei didn't see it.

"It seems like your limit is about three and a half hours of full on Earthbending, and the smallest thing you can move is anything the size of my head." Toph-sensei sat crosslegged. "How you managed with that mirror is beyond me."

Ugh. Why had she told Toph-sensei about the Chuunin Exams? Sakura clawed up to a sitting position besides her. "Is that bad?"

"Well, you're already trained in martial arts, and you can use your chakra to make up for deficits like experience and technique. You are able to almost match me in the amount you can lift by using chakra to enhance your strength. However, that doesn't help with the delicate stuff."

"Delicate stuff like what?" Sakura whined.

Toph-sensei reached up her billowing green sleeve and withdrew a small black bracelet Sakura had never seen before. She held it up, then began to morph its shape. "This looks like a harmless little trinket, right?"

Sakura couldn't help but nod. Even flowing from one shape to another, it only looked vaguely magical, not dangerous-

The floating black mass suddenly hardened into a scary looking knife.

Okay. That was cool. Sakura watched as it morphed into a kunai, then a dozen tiny senbon.

"This isn't ninja made. Anyone not you who checks it will see only the shape it's left in. There are no seals or hidden weapons, but it can kill easily."

She took a deep breath, then passed the black mass over to Sakura. "A dear friend gave me this, so I won't part with it. You can hold it, though. Try to make a kunai with it."

Sakura took it, felt its sinuous movement slow to a stop in her hands, then tried to shape it into the knife she knew better than the shape of her mother's eyes. She held one every day. This shouldn't be too hard-

The rock stabbed outward at her, resisting her control and warping the shape of the weapon she was trying to make. Sakura dropped it in a fright.

Toph pulled it back to her, easily shaped it back into an armband, then slid it back up until it was hidden by her sleeve.

Even if cornered and without earth, Toph-sensei could still go down fighting. She didn't carry any weapons, but if she could make one at the blink of an eye...

That wasn't all. Sakura remembered the way it had moved and winced. If Toph-sensei could control it from a distance, like she did Gaara's sand, she could kill anyone very easily, without using any flashy Earthbending.

Precision.

Sakura gritted her teeth.

"Bending my meteorite bracelet will be your final test." Toph-sensei remarked, idly.

Sakura froze.

"You have a rock from outer space?!"

▪▪▪

"If she can stop your sand..."

Temari trailed off. There really was no way to break the fact that you had to cancel your invasion plans to your homicidal little brother gently.

He would break her.

And not gently at all.

His dark ringed eyes narrowed. "Are you saying I'm not strong enough to kill her?"

Sand started to swirl around his feet.

Kankuro stepped in. "Nobody is saying anything like that. It's just that we may need to rethink things a little."

The three were in one of the buildings provided by Konoha for their guests. They would be leaving for home the next day to work and train, but for tonight they were supposed to rest.

Key word: supposed to.

Gaara sat up against a wooden chair with vibrant red upholstery. Kankuro stood by the wall, keeping an eye on the window. Temari perched on the edge of a couch that matched the chair, trying to not provoke Gaara into killing her.

"After all, she was at the exams. That means she was there as a guard or a teacher. And with the lack of any headband..." Kankuro trailed off. At first he had just been thinking aloud, but now...

"I think the most likely explanation would be she had a student." Temari cocked her head. "But no one did anything close to what she did."

"Well. There was that one girl," Kankuro cocked his head. "The one with the hideous pink hair. She did a bunch of earth jutsus."

"But that was Ninjutsu. The other girl didn't use any handsigns at all."

"Yeah, that's true." The puppet master nodded his head. "If she really is like the first girl, then your fight in a month should force her to reveal her hand."

Gaara narrowed his eyes even more, until they were just green slits. "Yes."

The other two both shivered as bloodlust leaked from him.

"Just don't go all out. Her victory against the Yamanaka was pretty much luck." Temari managed.

Kankuro straightened and moved from the window to stand behind his older sister. "Mmh, I'm not so sure about that. The way she was so calm and collected during the whole thing."

She shrugged. "Well, it won't really matter after the invasion. Don't get attached. She'll probably be dead at the end of all this."

Something outside shifted, making a clinking noise as two roof shingles tapped together.

All three of the sand siblings froze as one.

And then Gaara climbed to his feet, his impassive face never moving as he strode off to go and kill the eavesdropper.

▪▪▪

Toph was awakened the next morning by someone rapping on her door at an annoyingly early hour in the morning.

She stumbled off the couch, almost tripped over Pakkun (who Kakashi had left with her for some inexplicable reason) and fumbled her way to the kitchen.

From there, she was able to see the two super ninjas standing outside.

What in the name of the immovable city are they doing here?

She slammed open the door, still in her oversized shirt and ninja shorts. "And you couldn't come at a more reasonable time because?"

Toph felt their heart rates spike for a minute, even though they stood completely still. The larger one spoke first. "Miss Bei Fong, we have orders to escort you to the Hokage's office imediantly."

She leaned against the doorway, crossing her arms. "What's all this crap about? I've been good. I've been behaving."

"This has nothing to do with you, lady," the other hurriedly chimed in. His voice sounded a lot younger than his grizzled partner. "Well, I suppose it does, but this isn't your fault-"

His partner cut him off again. "Gekkou Hayate was found murdered this morning."

Toph felt her eyes widen. "What?"

Hayate.

Her less-than-healthy babysitter was gone?

Dead?

"Wait here," Toph slammed the door and bolted for her clothing.

Less than five minutes later, she was tightening the belt across her waist and pushing the door back open, her hair sill a tangled mess. "Let's go."

She bended her hair into place as she stalked down the hall, leaving the ninjas behind for a split second. She tucked her headband behind her ears and pulled her bangs out. "Let's go."

The ninja followed after her a heartbeat later.

▪▪▪

She could smell the old man before they came around the corner.

His room was full of people; ninjas mostly, a few elders, and hidden guards. She did not falter in her step, her stride leading her up to the old man's desk, where she took a respectful stance a few paces away. A fresh wave of coppery tang assaulted her as he moved.

Her nose wrinkled but she kept the rest of her face as unreadable as stone.

"Miss Bei Fong."

"Lord Hokage." Toph replied as cooly as she could manage. "I hope you are well?"

She could almost see the creepy, fatherly smile on his face. "As well as one who carries the weight of the safety of his people such as I do can be."

Liar.

She felt as though someone was whispering in her ear, old and wise and full of hatred.

Toph kept her face neutral. "Your agents have informed me of the death of one I knew."

Heavy silence from all in the room.

"Sadly, they are not misinformed. Hayate Gekkou was discovered murdered on a rooftop at 7:42 this morning by ANBU Captain Yuugato." He folded his fingers together, a fresher trail of smoke drifting up.

Toph felt her fingers tightening into fists and forced them flat. "I see. I had hoped otherwise."

"All due respect, Lord Hokage, but why is she here?" It was one of the other men in the room. Toph felt her head turning towards him.

T

he same scent of blood and feeling of wrongness came from him as from the old man right in front of her.

Liars. Betrayers!

They killed us.

Toph took a deep breath through her mouth and hissed her best guess at him.

"Because I was his current mission. Because I was the one who sensed his most likely killer." She cocked her head. "Because this has something to do with Orochimaru, right?"

Stunned shock rippled through all those present. Toph felt their pulses jump with a hint of grim pleasure. "Yes, I know he's somewhere around here. I felt him when he engaged my student in the forest, and I talked to Sakura afterwards. She told me that he attempted to kill the Uchiha."

Silence ended as a few of the elders seated around the Hokage began to mutter.

"Well," Toph reconsidered. "Not kill. Bite."

Quite creepy of him, really.

Someone on her left was having a hard time controlling their emotions. Their (She was pretty sure they were female, but it was impolite to assume) heart rate was all over the place.

"Lord Hokage!"

Oh, it was Lady Dango! Toph recognized her voice even though it was loud and angry and scared.

"I know, Mitarashi. If that is so, then Orochimaru is not just here to cause mayhem. He's here to give the cursed seal to the last living Uchiha." His voice became musing. "Why would he try to take a genin who wouldn't be loyal to him?"

To do the same you let happen all those years ago.

Okay. She was going to ignore that. She didn't need to add creepy voices to her list of problems.

Toph folded her arms. "I take it you know him personally?"

Lady Dango snorted. "Unfortunately. I was his pupil for a number of years." Her hand crept up to the back of her neck. "I was the first to be cursed with the seal."

This seal sounded like bad news. "Sakura said he got a boulder in the face for his troubles."

"Then I must thank you for the wellbeing of our last living Uchiha." The Hokage bowed his head to her. "Without your teachings, Sauske would have been..."

He trailed off, and the silence spoke for itself. Toph cracked her neck but kept her posture square. Feet a shoulders width apart, hands clasped in front of her.

To think those etiquette lessons would be useful.

Not that she'd been taught to stand like this. She'd learned it by watching her guards during those stupid lessons. They were taught respectful intimidation, not how to stand all demure and proper.

"Your thanks are well received," Toph half bowed to him, then straightened quickly. "About this Orochimaru-"

The Hokage waved his hand to silence her. "We have thanked you for your assistance, but that information is classified. I'm assigning your security to-"

This time she cut him off. "I don't need someone watching over me. I am Toph Bei Fong! I am the one who taught Sakura everything she knows. She is even but a student, and I? I am a master. I am the greatest Earthbender in the world. I need no minder."

She could feel the tiles under her toes cracking, but she didn't care. "If my student of two weeks fended off this man, then I would call myself capable."

She turned her back on him and his smell of blood. "And if this is because you don't trust me, you don't have to. I don't trust you. And I'm not in the mood to make the people pay.

"I'll see myself out."

It was rude, it was disrespectful, but Toph didn't care. It was still early enough that if she hurried, she could probably get to the training grounds before Sakura.

And for the rest of that day, and the next, and the one after that, no one followed her with silent footsteps.