He pauses, then, firmly: "Yes. Carefully, but yes."

Chihiro nods.

And they can start to work their way back to the mainland.

They're met on the beach by two figures in black cloaks with red clouds. One looks like some kind of shark-man and has what's presumably a sword wrapped in bandages slung over his back. The other looks very much like an older, wearier Sugira.

"Hey Itachi," the fishman says to his companion. "You didn't say they'd have Kubikiribocho. What happened to Zabuza, huh?"

"Dead," Sugira says before he can really stop himself. His brain is possibly not firing on all cylinders right now. Or maybe quite a few of those cylinders are just engaged with screaming.

"Unfortunately, I get the sense you're not here for story time."

"Dead!?" he says. "You little punks killed Momochi Zabuza? Itachi- Hey, Itachi."

Itachi is staring at Sugira. He seems... faintly confused.

Sugira is very not looking at Itachi. He knows about the Uchiha and eye contact, and is only willing to gamble that Inanna will keep the whole 'adult form and powers in mental landscape' if absolutely necessary.

"There was a jounin involved on our side, to be fair."

Spells spells spells, delaying is good because it lets him mentally prepare spells -

"Bah," the sharkman says. "You, girl. Hand that sword over."

"I will not," Chihiro says. "You are a missing-nin and have no more right to it."

"Then I guess we'll have to fight for it," he says, reaching back to pull his own sword out. Itachi places a hand on his arm, halting his motion.

     "The jinchuuriki," Itachi says softly. The other man groans.

"That's who you're after?"

"Yes, -Sasuke," there's a barely detectable hitch in Itachi's voice before he says the name. "I told you to run once before. You would be wise to do so again."

"Team. Run," he commands - though he makes no motion to do so himself.

Actually, he casts Glitterdust at Itachi.

He figures this has a decent chance at blinding him, and is going to make him easier to keep track of, at least.

Naruto is at the back of the group, which hopefully means the motion as he summons as close to his maximum number of his clones as he can while moderately freaked out is a bit hidden.

Unfortunately, back of the group is closest to the ocean, which is not a good place to be when fighting someone with as strong an affinity for water as Hoshigaki Kisame. A massive wave rears up to drown the horde of clones.

It doesn't land. A giant turtle head pokes out to regard the impending fight.

"Hello a little help here please - " Naruto says at the turtle, who he's assuming is a tailed beast because that's apparently his luck.

"Kurama doesn't like you very much," the turtle informs him, in a surprisingly small voice. "But Saiken does, and he asked nicely, so."

The wave drops down, and the Konoha team is dragged away in a rushing current.

They're spat up on a rocky shore they don't recognize.

He climbs to his feet.

"Thank you!" he calls, coughing.

The turtle waves a flipper as it swims away.

"So. Uh. That was exciting... Where are we?"

"I believe this is the coastline of the Land of Water."

"Which means we shouldn't stick around. Though we're going to want to figure out - how far is this from the mainland, how can we best avoid getting into that mess again, what's our best path home..."

"We will need a boat."

He consults his mental map. "Yeah, island hopping is unlikely to work here. I don't know a lot about sea-craft, though."

"Nor I."

Neji also shakes his head in a negative.