I don't own Avatar the Last Airbender or Naruto. I wish, though.

Sasuke snorted at her proposal.

Toph felt a budding dislike. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't think you could keep up with me."

His voice was full of scorn. "You, a blind civilian, thinks she can keep up with me?"

"Well," Toph cracked her knuckles. "I may not be a ninja, but that doesn't mean that I'm a civilian. Care to try and land a hit?"

"Why not, Sasuke?" Kakashi had been listening in. "Toph is not as helpless as you would think."

Toph felt slightly annoyed at that, despite the fact that he was coming to her aid.

Sighing, Sasuke moved into a defensive position.

She slid her foot across the ground as she moved into her own stance.

"Start!" Kakashi called.

Sasuke charged her, his feet light across the ground. His arms were swinging to his front as he prepared to attack her.

Toph felt a smile creep across her face.

Then she pounced.

▪▪▪

Kakashi watched as his student moved towards the older girl, preparing to finish their fight with one quick move-

Toph swung one of her feet back and slammed it into the ground.

As if made to by magic, the ground broke apart as it shot forwards. It arrowed toward where Sasukes' foot was coming down. The second his foot touched it, it changed direction and swung him to the left, pulling him down into a split.

Eyes wide, Sasuke slammed his hands onto the ground and propelled himself up and back to his feet.

He circled her more warily, now. Kakashi felt a thrill of excitement as Toph turned towards her opponent and sprang.

▪previously▪

Kakashi flipped through the thin file again, a slight perplexed feeling growing as he read further.

It had her name and guessed age, along with other basic facts like that.

Down the hall, he could hear Toph muttering in her sleep, nothing comprehensive, but words, nonetheless.

There were a few other things listed in the notes. Handsign-less jutsus, being able to tell when people were lying, seeing without sight. It just didn't seem possible.

And yet...

In the living room, she called for a sock. Socker? Why?

Kakashi looked at the back of the paper. Shikaku had been writing a few things on the back, his handwriting scrawled and messy.

Distrustful. Bei Fong is insecure and nervous about something. Earthbending requires further study.

Is Inoichi right???

Inoichi right? Right about what? Why was this so confusing?

Toph whimpered.

Kakashi was about to go and wake her, but something stopped him.

Who was she?

▪present time▪

Toph moved, and the earth moved with her, a huge disk of rock rising into the air. She almost pushed it forwards, sending a huge projectile straight at Sasuke.

Sasuke, though rattled by her first attack, smoothly dodged it.

"WHOAH!!" Naruto cheered. "Destroy Sasuke-teme!! Get 'im, Toph!"

"How is she doing that?" Sakura called. "No handsigns or anything!"

Sasuke withdrew a kunai and charged her, leaping from where he stood to land less than a foot away from her, stabbing at her with the tiny knife!

It was only because of Kakashis' combat experienced eye that he was able to spot the slight hesitation as Sasuke was hurtling through the air. He had been left wide open, but Toph hadn't taken any sort of action. She reacted the second he touched the ground-

Her hand wrapped around the blade and she swiftly bent it into an L! Sasuke pulled back, staring incredulously at the useless kunai before tossing it away.

But, before he could charge again, Toph raised two huge, thick walls on either side of them, blocking him in a channel too high for him to exit easily. Another kata, and he was boxed in.

Kakashi hurried to the top of the wall so that he could watch what was going on inside.

Sasuke did the handsigns and summoned up his fireball jutsu, launching a huge orb of molten death at her! Toph was ahead of him, though. She raised two more slabs of rock in front of her, pointed to sleekly weather any attack.

The second the fireball burst and dissipated against her defense, she launched one of the slabs at him. Sasuke was forced to dodge, landing on the side of the wall as he ran towards Toph.

She turned, then flung both of her hands behind her towards him! Huge rocks erupted from the ground as Sasuke got an advanced dodging workout.

He came for her again, launching kunai at her, but she pulled a rectangular sheet of stone from the ground and neatly blocked all of his attacks.

Both fighters were now red in the face as they tried to get the better of each other.

"Ready to throw in the towel, yet?" Toph catcalled.

Sasuke didn't answer, trying to engage her in close quarter combat, but she kept meeting his attacks with rocks and more attacks.

Kakashi watched as took a wide stance, suddenly, then felt the wall he was standing on start shaking.

That was the only warning he got before the whole thing lifted into the air.

Kakashi leaped back and off of it, landing on the ground next to his other two students. Naruto was standing there slack-jawed, and Sakura had her hands over her mouth.

"How is she doing that, Sensei?" Sakura asked. "Who is she?"

"To that, Sakura," Kakashi said quietly, watching the wall self-destruct into a few dozen huge boulders. "I have no answer."

▪▪▪

Sasuke dodged the huge rocks falling from the sky and cursed.

Although they were large enough to easily avoid, it was a pretty daunting sight. On top of that, their weight as they slammed into the ground shook the earth underneath him, making him rather unsteady on his feet.

Something in his gut screamed for him to move, and he threw himself out of the way as the other half of the triangular shelter came hurtling right towards him.

He just barely managed to throw himself out of the way, the sharp tip of the stone cutting a slice into his cheek.

He hit the ground again, rolling, then throwing a spray of senbon her direction.

Toph pulled her hand up, suddenly, and the throwing needles hung in midair, still, almost frozen!

Sasuke was going to lose, unless he resorted to lethal force, and that wasn't going to go well because she wasn't using lethal force either.

He didn't want to think about what would happen if she did try to kill him.

With a palm thrust, the senbon flew right back at him, and he was the one avoiding the needles.

He leaped back, weaving back and forth until there was a slight lull in the projectile attacks, then sprang at her!

His foot came down in an almost puddle of sand- and it kept going.

Quicksand.

He couldn't move. She was coming, spinning as she pulled up the momentum for another thrown rock and he wouldn't be able to dodge it.

Kakashi called it. "Winner, Toph!"

He had lost.

He had lost to a blind civilian girl.

▪▪▪

"That was AWESOME, dattebayo!" Naruto bounced around her, singing her praises. "How did you do that? You were so cool!"

Toph extended her two fingers towards Sasuke. "Good fight."

There was a long, terse silence, then the dusty, sweaty boy took her hand.

"How did you do that?" Kakashi asked.

"With no handsigns!" Sakura took her hands. "And you're almost our age, too!"

"It's called Earthbending," Toph repeated. "I don't know how to describe it, exactly, but-"

"Can you teach me?" Sasuke interrupted. "Can you show me how to be strong like that?"

Toph tilted her head. "I don't know. Are you an Earthbender?"

"What?" Kakashi asked.

She tried to explain it in further detail. "Are you able to innately feel the earth in your being? Move it, bend it to your will? I mean, I can teach and refine, but only if you have the gift."

"So, an element affinity?" Kakashi asked.

"Um, sure," Toph pushed her hands outwards, and the dust and tiny bits of rubble flew off her, leaving her slightly sweaty, but as clean as if she'd never entered the battlefield.

"All right then," the Jonin set his hand on her head. "I was going to wait for this until you were older, but seeing as we have such a wonderful opportunity, we might as well do it now."

"Do what, Sensei?" Sakura asked. Toph felt the faint vibrations in the earth as she jumped up and down excitedly.

"Identify your elemental natures," Kakashi replied, almost grimly.

▪▪▪

Sakura clutched the square of paper close to her chest. Sasuke and Naruto each held one too, and she felt a glow of happiness at being included with them.

They stood in one of the streets of Konoha, facing the copy nin as people passed them, looking in, then keeping their noses out of it.

Toph had vanished somewhere, but she was probably close because Kakashi-sensei didn't look all too worried.

"Just channel a little chakra into it, okay?" Kakashi-sensei instructed. "Not too much, we don't want to-"

It was too late. Naruto had sent a surge of chakra into the piece of paper and it practically exploded into hundreds of fragments in his hands.

"Well," their sensei looked at his brash student with a dead eye. "It's a good thing you're not a fire natured, or we'd have to put out whatever you would've set alight."

There was a cry of dispair from an alleyway nearby, but Kakashi ignored it in favor of handing Naruto another paper. "Gently, Naruto."

Sasuke was the second to make the attempt, if you counted Narutos' disaster. His wrinkled almost instantly.

"It would seem you have a lightning affinity, same as mine." Kakashi gave him an eyesmile before continuing, ignoring Sasukes' look of shock. "But not what we're looking for. Naruto, you next?"

Sakura crossed her fingers and hoped that her own nature was lightning, too. Then she and Sasuke would be able to train together and learn new jutsus- the same jutsus! Together!

She was so enveloped in this sudden train of thought that she missed it when Naruto redid his, and his paper split in half. She only caught a glimpse as the one side he wasn't holding went drifting down to the floor, split in two.

"And that's wind for you, Naruto," Kakashi sighed slightly. "Neither of you have-"

Sakura heard another shout and jumped, unintentionally channeling a tiny bit of chakra into the paper.

Hers crumbled into a bunch of tiny shreds, like confetti, slipping through her fingers.

Kakashi-sensei suddently brightened. "Well, then, Sakura! It looks like you have Earth natured chakra! Maybe Toph can teach you!"

"Did someone say my name?" The blind girl appeared out of a nearby alley, flipping through a huge stack of bills. A few men with stunned expressions, one outright crying, stood behind her.

Kakashi gestured towards Sakura with a pleased expression on what was visible of his face. "It appears that Sakura here has an earth natured chakra. Perhaps you could teach her?"

If he was at all startled by the sudden appearance of the stack of bills, he didn't show it.

Tophs whole face lit up with an unholy glee. Her vacant grey eyes locked with Sakuras', and the genin found herself unable to look away.

"Well, well, well," she drawled. "Is that so?"

Sakura felt a sudden sinking in her gut, not just from the look of incredulous disbelief from Sasuke, and the phony eyesmile from Kakashi-sensei, but from the realisation that she had just gotten far, far more then she had bargained for.

▪▪▪

Aang locked eyes with the elderly man, his hair gathered back into an elegant topknot.

"Please tell me where Toph is," Aang tried. "Or even just her general location."

The past avatar frowned, the wrinkles in his brow deepened. "She is shielded from my view."

"Oh," Aang felt his face fall.

"The only way you could possibly reach her is to go deeper into the spirit world than you ever have before. Right to where this realm and the next touch." Roku paused, giving Aang a look. "However, this is not advisable. Going that far...."

Aang took a deep breath. "I survived Koh the face stealer the first time I ever entered the spirit realm. I can handle this."

"You may never be able to come back," the older man warned again. "You might go in one end and out the other."

"What does that mean?" Aang asked.

"This realm and where your friend is touch the only way they can; through the dead. If you go that far, not only will you have next to no chance of ever coming back, but the Avatar spirit will be lost.

"One Earthbender is not worth the peace of an entire world. Leave her where she is, Aang. Do not go after her."

His glowing figure folded back into the Airbender. Aang sat alone in the small clearing.

"Well," he said to no one in particular. "That's going to be a problem."

▪▪▪

If anyone knows the real earth chakra paper resulty thingie, please tell me! I couldn't find it anywhere, and so substituted....

Thanks!